rbsupadminnextjssite, Author at Redbytes Software

Posted on December 15, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile app development has become a blazing reality in recent times especially for companies that dream about achieving greater goals. Due to its burgeoning demand in modern times, having a mobile app means a solid boost to business growth. However, not every user will download and use your app. With mobile app development touching the saturation point, app stores are now cramped with plethora of apps, creating a tough competition.

It is a valid argument that marketing your mobile app impacts its success, but does your mobile have ability to attract instant attention? Your app must stand out and look attractive to users. If the app has aesthetic appeal, users will come swarming in to try your app. The following discussion uncovers the secrets of making your app more attractive.

To start with, every UI/UX designer must ask these crucial questions to ensure their app design reflects creativity and beauty.

Does the app design appear aesthetically pleasing?
Is it created with user-friendly colours?
Does UI feel intuitive when tried?
Does it offer fluid navigation to users?
What about the consistency of design elements?
Does it load and open fast?
Does it provide smooth transition?
What makes it different from rival apps in the app store?
How impressive was the user experience?
Does it function properly across all the devices?
Is your app highly recommendable for wider group of users?

To address all these questions confidently and make the app design look really good, here is what you can do:

1. Titillate Your Users:

Users are in your app to have an extraordinary experience, a kind of journey no other app can offer. You must, as a mobile app developer, understand what users prefer, where exactly the design trends are going and what would trigger their interest. Scour the app market and study some of the best successful apps and learn what you can do to emulate them.

Try to make a list of everything that you find amazing in their apps, including images, typography, colours, icons and navigation techniques, etc. Then make your own strategy as to how you can come up with a brilliant design that has it all. If you have spent good years in mobile app design job, you should have pretty-faced ideas to titillate users with great features and finest functionality. Understand the nerve of today’s rapidly evolving users and what could motivate them to consider your app. The best of designs are prepared mostly in the initial state of conceptual creative planning. Once you finalize your design, don’t attempt to change it now and then.

2. Easy-To-Use Design Model:

Despite the fact that more than half the world is down to using smartphones and various apps, you can still not think that everyone of them is savvy. There are still good amount of people who find using certain features of mobile and apps considerably tedious to use. This is why having a design that provides the ease of use is essential.

Things about mobile app development and its design are changing every day, and so are its features and facilities. Every app differs from another app in terms of gaining access to data or navigation. So there will always be certain people who are not as deft as others might be. Hence, it is a good approach to keep app design model easy-to-use and simple.

3. Offline Functioning Of App Design:

Many informative apps work offline with a strategy of providing more exclusive data when users come online. Nowadays, users tend to choose those apps that allow them to explore it even when their device is not connected to internet. Such apps whose usability remains intact during offline mode are best loved by users.

Offering the consistent users experience online and offline also makes your app emerge attractive among users. Evernote, Google docs, Onenote and many other apps allow users to work on their information even when they are not connected to any nearby Wi-Fi. If you are an entrepreneur or a part of an app design team, you should consider integrating this practice in your next development strategy.

4. Let Users Connect With Its Simplicity:

After you are ready with the UI of the app design, share the rough draft of it with some of your friends or families who are not technically skilled. They are, in this case, more like end users. Give them complete freedom to explore and judge various elements of your app design and see how it goes. If they call it intuitive experience, you can say you have placed your efforts in the right direction.

In order for users to connect with your app, you need to practice keeping things simple. From buttons to menu tabs and call-to-actions, every part of it matters and requires your sober attention.

5. The Grid Logic:

Grids in app works like an organizer and delivers consistent user experience at the moment of exploring different pages of the app. When you switch from one page to another, grids make sure users never lose consistency and visual connection while they engage and shuffle through its pages.

It is advisable for mobile app designers and developers to prepare the sketches of grids for graphic design. This way the user experience will be more organized, visually proper and unified across the entire all the app pages.

6. Magical Effects of Colour

Mobile app design process is incomplete without a thought of colours and their perfect suitable combination for the app. Your choice of colours is vital as it can decide the fate of your app and add magical effects to it. The choice of colours, however, depends on the genre of your app and user base. For productivity apps, light colours make it easy to read long texts. Bright contrast colours appeal most to gaming apps and entertainment whereas darker shades work best for media.

Colours can also be used for highlighting the different parts of the app. For instance, if users hover over an item in a main menu bar at the top, they can see its colour change and glow darker – which indicates they have selected the option.

Colours not only make the app attractive, but it also helps create seamless experience for users.

7. High Resolution from Points and Pixels

While designing, one point one should shift their focus on is space division of display. Points and pixels are the deciders of how the final image of an app is going to appear to users as they play with its interiors on their screen. Points and pixels together determine the overall resolution.

A designer should think of pixels which are the smallest dots on space on the screen, hardly visible yet important. The good density of these pixels creates a finest image. To achieve high resolution and clarity, more number of pixels should be placed in a display. Points are units of space that contain certain amount of pixels, making up a display.

Thus, a mobile app designer should control points throughout the entire design process to deliver high-resolution viewing experience for users. Higher the resolution, more attractive will be your app interiors.

8. Give a Shape to a Beautiful Icon

The app icon is something that creates the first impression on users’ mind. The icon is the first aspect of your app that viewers will realize. Apple uses golden ration grid system in the app store to accommodate the unique elements of the icon’s design in a way that looks gorgeous and fascinating. The main purpose behind creating an attractive app icon is to draw maximum attention from the viewers and inspire them to download the app.

Mobile app designer has ample control over how they would like their app icon to look. There is a technical system that helps them create icons that catch myriad eyes.

9. Champion Responsiveness

People have all different kinds of devices where they expect your app to function consistently. This means that your app must offer proper responsiveness and optimal viewing experience on various screen resolutions of mobiles, tablets, etc. Responsive design of an app ensures the users will have equally delightful experience irrespective of the device they choose. A mobile app development company who has years of experience in building excellent mobile apps would know the importance of making their apps responsive and perfectly optimized to all sizes of screens.

10. Get Just One Thing Right

In an effort to make the app famous and attractive, certain mobile app developers often fall for the wrong design approach. They tend to cram many options and features into one single app which may result into good amount of confusion and complications when used on a small touch screen.

While designing any app, one must remember to focus on the core purpose of the app. They should bear the idea of touching primary requirements of users and integrating features that users will definitely connect well with. Many options can divert users from the desirable user experience. Hence, to make the app attractive, serve them what they would indulge in.

Conclusion:

A great app idea will not do much good until it turns into a great app design, and a great design is every mobile app company’s dream. For cross platform mobile app developers, app design is a primary challenge as it has to be accepted by Google Playstore as well as Apple store. As for Apple, it never approves of a design that looks mediocre through their review process.

If your app development plan also involves generating revenue, the design becomes amply important. Apple is quite punctilious and rigorous about the design standards of every app that gets published in iOS store. Their reviewers insist on having a high-quality design interface that helps users interact with its content.

However, whether it is for Android or iOS, mobile app designer should focus on above guideline to make the best out of their work.

Posted on December 13, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

In the mobile-dominated world, it is hard to survive without an app. This is the reason app development companies and businesses shake their hands to develop mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms. They build apps in order to engage, retain and attract customers, ultimately creating monetization opportunities.

Developers can boost engagement with:

Providing feature-rich content
Social media integration
Gamification
Incentivized giveaways
Mobile advertising

Among all other means, the one that retains majority of traffic is incentivized temptations and mobile ads.

Though many top grossing apps in app stores are free to download, certain in-app monetization models turn apps into revenue-generating machine. So how can you do well in mobile app monetization space? Here are all the tools and guidance you need to be successful:

Mobile Monetization Models:

Many companies strive hard to overcome app monetization challenges. They dream about making money from the day their app is published in Android, iOS or Windows market. Only a countable number of them succeed in persuading the visitors.

Hence, in order to hit the mobile app market with confidence, you must first strategize impeccable in-app monetization model. Depending on the profit goals, preferences and type of business, you can choose one or the combination of:

In-app s
Advertising
Affiliate marketing
Display banners
Freemium structure
Subscriptions
Incentivized model

Dropbox is a good example of successful freemium model while Angry Birds significantly monetize on display banner ads.

It is important to know that no matter what model you choose, your sole motto should be to make it work for you.

The idea of integrating powerful in-app monetization tools can not only automate your revenue generation but also help improve user experience and acquisition.

Here is the list of a few popular benchmark tools in mobile monetization space for you:

1) Google’s AdMob:

Google’s AdMob offers its in-app advertising services to nearly 50,000 businesses that have their own mobile presence.

Specials:

Provides wide variety with thousands of app advertisers
Developers can pick the ads and formats closely relevant to their product
App owners can earn each time the ad banner gets clicked
Allows publishers to advertise their products in other apps

In addition to these, AdMob comes with a mediation feature that lets you handle multiple ad networks, allowing you to manage the in-app advertisement on the basis of location, traffic density and ad revenue.

2) InMobi:

InMobi is an easy-to-integrate ad network that uses both SDK and server side API to help developers and publishers to monetize mobile apps.

InMobi’s performance-based ads can maximize app revenue as well as help engage and acquire new customers.

Pros:

Increased engagement and connections with target audience
Great flexibility of the platform
Chance to tap into global market
Freedom to choose where to show ads based on categories
Supports assorted ad formats
Offers conversion tracking system

With InMobi’s ad platform, you can implement the competitive CPM model to engage more traffic. You will be able to enter the market of millions consumers in more than 150 countries.

It supports ad formats such as HD banners, rich media, video content, interstitial ads, etc.

InMobi also leverages its conversion tracking system to ensure users get right ads displayed on their screen.

3) Millennial Media:

Millennial media is believed to be the second largest mobile ad networks platform in the world after perhaps Google’s AdMob. This is a widespread company with offices and staff that extends from Los Angeles to Singapore. Highly popular in US markets,

Founded in 2006, Millennial media offers reliable mobile advertising solutions to publishers and developers. Highly popular in US markets, it provides the following benefits:

Easy management of ads for developers inside their apps
Use of different formats of ads (videos, banners, rich media)
Full range of ad solutions across all OS platforms and devices
Self-service solutions for small enterprises
Facility of running house ads, third-party and premium ads
Used by more than 30,000 apps globally

Developers can choose multiple formats of ads such as video, display banners, rich media, and can run their own house ads as well as Millennial ads, premium ads, third-party ads and client ads.

Millennial media, which is heavily popular in US market, offers mature range of advertising solutions across various devices running on different OS systems.

It is the frequent winner of Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year awards, and the platform is chosen by more than 30,000 apps worldwide.

4) StartApp:

StartApp offers developers an SDK that allows integration of mobile search engine add-on into their apps. Developers can integrate search engine in merely 3 to 5 minutes and start making revenues using StartApp’s unique monetization model.

Benefits:

Developers can earn revenue from user searches.
It keeps the users’ app experience intact
Doesn’t bother users with annoying ads
Users get paid for each download with the add-on

StartApp is quite popular worldwide among Android developers as it has been downloaded 250 million times for the purpose of Android apps monetization.

Its search engine is commonly found on Android devices and is widely used mobile search engine in West.

5) Linkury:

This unique monetization tool offers developers and publishers good number of choices for selecting channels for monetization. Linkury is widely known for its powerful set of monetization tools that enhance engagement and users management.

Linkury offers:

Variety of user engagement tools
Better ad management approach
High level of monetization
Better exposure of ads to users’ screens
Personalized interactions and enhanced connections

A unique advantage offered by Linkury is that it makes apps reach a user’s home or lock screen for increased exposure.

It allows you to strengthen your monetization strategy with contextual advertising in which interactions are personalized based on user interests and their search behaviour.

6) Chartboost

This mobile only ad platform targets gamers and helps game app publisher monetize their apps. Since it is dedicated to game-loving audience, Chartboost is an attention-worthy in-app monetization tool for game developers.

Chartboost can perform the following jobs:

It is good at cross promotion of apps
Prompts users to install new game apps
Increases user retention and acquires new user base
Supports promotion of new apps in existing game apps
Provides analytics to gain user data and improve campaigns success
Gives excellent control on in-app ads and their performance

With Chartboost, everybody involved wins: Publishers retain their users, can promote their newly developed games to increase downloads while maintaining interest for their existing ones, and attain user engagement.

On the other hand, users gain unusual experience and novel alternatives. Chartboost simultaneously gets small revenue out of these activities.

What is more:

Tool’s analytics help developers get insight into users’ behaviour to improve campaign’s performance.

Chartboost offers a window into on who advertises in your app and where, so that you can control the ads users view inside your app.

7) AdColony:

AdColony is a video advertising platform that helps you generate revenue and increase user engagement with the help of video ads.

The app monetization tool is illustrious worldwide because:

AdColony collaborates with brands that appear in Fortune 500 list.
It is associated with more than 85% of the world’s topmost app publishers.
It is considered to be the most suitable tool for in-app video ads.
It serves HD mobile videos run by Instant-Play HD technology.
It works across all device types on varied internet speed.
It drives appreciable engagement with quality ad content.
Offers buffer-free video playback for engaging advertising.
It can be neatly managed, slotted and targeted for the right audience

Because of its clean ad management and ability to touch audience across various geographies and demographics, AdColony has earned global reputation and reach in mobile advertising arena.

Conclusive note:

These are a few remarkable in-app monetization tools among the pool of many used by developers and publishers worldwide. The key to success is discovering the one that incorporates all your requirements and business expectations. You can pick the one that you are confident will work for you. If you are struggling to choose the right one, you can do your research and dig deeper into market trends.

Posted on December 12, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Though mobile apps are often accused of being an addictive distraction, there is no denial that mobile apps are immensely popular, useful and interesting. With cutting edge technology making apps even better, mobile has grown to become healthcare assistant. Earlier, apps were confined to lifestyle habits and fitness tracking (diet, calories management and general health). But over the last few years, new possibilities have entered the healthcare service domain.

In this blog you will learn how healthcare service-based mobile apps are getting prevalent and transforming the way you manage your personal health. Let’s dig deep:

Healthcare Scenario

Healthcare has grown into a big pool with many segments that revolutionary mobile apps are trying to touch.From diagnosis to medication and even after discharge, mobile apps accompany both patients and doctors alike.

Patients can interact with healthcare service-based apps for numerous purposes such as:

Tracking prescribed drug refills
Drug dosage reminders
Symptoms checking
Virtual consultations
Self- education patient care
Live chat with Doctors
Recovery monitoring
Professional Medical advice
Post-discharge care
Insurance claims management

Not just for patients, there are great medical apps that are also targeted at physicians and doctors to empower their practices.

Healthcare app development companies continue to develop user-friendly hospitals-oriented medical apps that are focused on:

Patient on-boarding process
Staff and supply management
Surgery planner
Appointment scheduler
Reports management
Live conversations
AR-enabled diagnosis
Media sharing
Insurance claims management
Post-discharge formalities

Digital Healthcare: Facts & Figures

With rise and rise of mobile app technology, the pace at which healthcare industry is adapting digital advancements is becoming more rapid.

Pulse of Online Health 2015 report discovers that as much as 66% of Americans leverage mobile apps to manage their health issue.

The same revelation also says that 79% of them would prefer a wearable device to monitor their health and fitness.

According to Research2Guidance Annual mHealth Report 2016, nearly 100K healthcare apps have been published since 2015 to the leading app stores that were already brimming with 259,000 medical apps.

Resurgent surge of mHealth apps:

Like mCommerce apps, digital healthcare choices have also taken the shape of mHealth apps. The growing prevalence of healthcare service based apps aim at introducing human touch through the means of innovative technology.

Today’s mHealth apps are focused on:

Enabling interaction between doctors and patients
Maintaining a smooth flow of medical practices
Providing hassle-free virtual healthcare solution
Bridging the gap between users and service providers

As the market grows thick with technology sound users, mHealth apps allow patients to engage with healthcare providers, building a bridge in the system.

Using the AR (Augmented Reality) in mobile apps, doctors can easily examine and explain complicated surgical processes to their patients and fellow practitioners.

Advantages of healthcare service-based apps

1. Well-Managed Historical Records

Computers might have made the job easier for hospitals/doctors. Still, to keep the records of patient in nice order is a challenging and demanding task. It consumes a lot of time.

Moreover, fetching the record file in a short notice involves speed and efficiency. This is where a dedicated medical record management app helps.

Such special healthcare service-based mobile app accelerates the job of tracking and extracting the patients’ records for reputed hospitals.

2. Cost & Time Saving

Direct interactions between doctors and patients mean the tedious process that contains:

Heavy formalities
Appointment booking
Database management
Consultation and associated charges
Frequent Personal visits and transportation
Patient on-boarding
Expensive diagnosis &
Post-diagnosis instructions.

Such situations increase expenses and waste time for both hospitals and patients.

mHealth apps help streamline the process and save both time and money.

3. Seamless Communication

We are by now completely used to communication apps like Facetime, Viber, Skype and Snapchat to connect with people across the world.

We can arguably say that we are not too far from using futuristic healthcare service-based apps that would enable patients to talk to doctors practically from anywhere in the world.

Patients could share the screenshots or video of lesions or cuts or other physical symptoms of their body to diagnose the ailments. This can eliminate the need to wait for appointments and consultations.

In future, there will be apps for Android and iOS with paid mechanism that would allow patients to get their health-related queries resolved by a network of licensed doctors.

4. Safe Medical Treatments & Recommendations

Smartphones will have apps that would help capture metrics related to patient’s health. This numbers will show the progress patient has made after starting the recommended treatment.

However, such apps require precise quality of diagnosis and unerring medications. Information passed on to the patient via these apps must deliver the results expected by them at comfortable charges.

5. Improved Emergency Management

In this contemporary time, healthcare app development companies have much more potential than can be conceived. They continue to surprise patients with apps that enable them to track their health, fitness, sugar and cholesterol levels, remind them of pills and water, and even control your sleep.

Some of these are quite essential in avoiding situations of sudden massive risk since users constantly keep themselves updated on their health status. For instance, it is easy for a heart patient to educate himself about his medical situation and avoid life-threatening emergencies.

Examples of Real-time healthcare mobile apps

Some of the apps that are transforming healthcare service industry are:

For health monitoring: Eve, AsthmaMD, SugarSense
For pharmaceutical aid: Digital Pharmacist
For body examination: Insight Optics
For interactions with Doctors/Therapists: Talkspace, Medici
Drug advice/insight: WebMD, Medscape, Epocrates

Endless Possibilities

What these apps can do seems like the inception of something bigger and better. Healthcare service-based mobile apps are going to surpass present standard and bring more innovations to make doctor-patient engagement more viable.

Looking at how healthcare mobile apps help doctors perform their operations well and enable patients to get exact medical information, we can say mobile healthcare domain is set for tremendous transformation.

Conclusion:

Presumably, the healthcare sector is poised for innovative mobile apps for medical treatments and communications. With these apps, patients would limit their medical visits to hospitals and gain preventive care from the comfort of their home on their own devices. Thus, present scenario of growing prevalence of healthcare service-based mobile apps promises an interesting future.

Posted on December 7, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

As the world changes, consumers are getting smarter and more selective. The psychology of first impressions still prevails especially in the landscape of mobile apps. More influential than marketing stunts, app store ratings and reviews given by fellow users are something that drives discovery and conversion for an app.

Reviews are trusted more and ratings help evaluate the app quality and performance. Since users rely on app reviews heavily before downloading, ratings and reviews make your app more discoverable, successful and profitable. This is why it is important to learn how to get five star ratings for you mobile app.

Here are 8 great tips to secure five star ratings for your new or existing mobile app:

1. Integrate an automatic rating prompts

The idea of integrating rating prompts in your mobile app can make or break the customer retention. It has ability to either enhance customer experience or disturb users to the extent of quitting the app.

The right use of prompts can, however, keep the users alive and encourage them to boost your apps ratings.

Make sure:

Your prompts do not interrupt users’ ongoing in-app interactions
You incorporate their sentiments before soliciting reviews/ratings
You segment the customers and ask only those who love your app for reviews
Set proper intervals for rating prompt frequency
Run a survey to learn the points of improvement
Resolve the queries of unsatisfied customers
Use third party prompts if you don’t have your own

2. Analyse the pattern of customer behaviour

Using analytics helps you learn more about customers:

Behavioural pattern
Choices and tastes
Motives and intents
Age group and demographics
Expectations from your app
Areas of interest
Selling points

You can use the data gathered through analytics to make your in-app communications more personalized and efficacious.

You can use third party analytics or your own. Choose the platform based on the type of data you want to pull from customers.

Based on the data, you can build a strategy to trigger rating prompts for target audience.

3. Choose Proper Time to Deliver Rating Prompts

The key to your app’s five star ratings is also delivering rating prompts at the right moment. If you have mobile experience, you must know how right place, time and person make a huge difference.

Do’s:

Think of the precise moment to strike with a prompt
Wait until the customer is accustomed to your in-app environment
Prompt the request when he/she completes the task
Use pre-built standard dialogue for prompt messages OR
Use your own creativity to form a unique dialogue

Don’ts:

Ask to rate the app immediately after the user opens up the app
Prompt the customer while he is playing with your app features
Deliver the rating prompt before an action is completed
Not waiting for the right mobile moment to send the message

Always remember:

The most suitable time to prompt is after your customer has accomplished their task. They are ready to open up and share their experience in app store.
Create a unique prompt message to go with the app’s flow to offer intuitive experience.
Prefer to wait at least 5 days after your app is installed before sending a prompt to increase your chance of getting high rating and reduce app abandonment.

4. Make a Gentle and Creative Approach

Innovate your style in which you approach and ask your customers to rate your app. You can get a little personal and creative while asking a question. For example, “Do you love the experience in our app?” or, “Do you love what you see in this app?”

In case you want to draw feedback from them, you may try, “how do you find this app?” followed by answer choices such as “Good”, “Excellent”, “Average”, or “Could have been better.”

Such questions:

Drive segmentation of your customers
Determine who is likely to be your ‘fans’ and who will play ‘critic’
Encourage users to take action and respond
Trigger interactive conversation

Your app will have both:

Fans: People who love it and are likely to rate you high

Critics: People who are not happy and may seek an opportunity to leave negative feedback.

Always offer ‘thanks’ to customers for answering your question and their time. This gesture shows that your brand appreciates both positive and negative comments.

5. Follow the First Question with Careful Prompts

Now at this stage, you know the personal sentiment of your customers. Now you can guide certain segment of them to an app store for real reviews.

To go closer to 5-star ratings, do these:

You can expect customers who responded positively to your first question to leave a positive review. You can prompt them doubtlessly
Handle the customers with negative feedback carefully. Those who have responded negatively are prepared to rate you low. Direct them somewhere other than an app store for sharing their harsh feedback
To retain the high ratings, use rating prompt to lead unsatisfied customers to less harmful communication channel like the one you might have inside the app
Start working on their valuable feedback to improve weak points of your app they have experienced
Finally, after they have shared ratings, quickly take them back to where they paused in your app so that they can continue to explore more.

6. Your Communication Matters

Your customers can’t hear your tone as you deliver in-app messages. But they can surely judge the language you use especially while asking for ratings.

Make sure:

You are gentle, respectful and friendly
Your words are not demanding or intrusive
You are not much direct and abrupt
To keep it short, readable and sweet
You never forget your brand voice in all user engagements

Your communicational ability can influence your app store ratings. This is why it is pivotal to sophisticate your language when you reach out to them.

7. Be Patient and Understand User Psychology

In history, no empire is built overnight. Getting 5-star ratings requires some amount of patience after you start working on your strategy. Ratings build up gradually.

In mobile app store reviews, even a fraction of star counts. In a blog post by Mobincube, they have explained how an increase of just 0.1 (i.e. from 3.9 to 4.0) can make a huge impact on your app reputation and its earning.

This is the psychology of app users in modern times. Apps rated 4.1 are more downloaded than apps with 4.0 ratings. Hence, even a slight difference of score can increase or decrease the number of your app’s fans.

8. Manage a private channel for negative reviews

One clever way to keep your rating up is to, gather negative feedback and manage them privately. You will not get happy users all the time. But critical reviews can also help improve your app and offer you new ideas.

It is a good practice to have a separate in-app support channel for having private communication with users who have unpleasant complaints about your app.

This solution keeps their frustration away from the app store, leaving good reviews unaffected. You can think of Uservoice. If customers are happy with their support experience, they can bestow on you bright ratings.

Final note:

Ratings and reviews are the key to increase app visibility and for acquiring new customers. To many users, they are the best way to evaluate the quality of the app and some find it more credible than word of mouth recommendations. To draw more stars for your app, always practice offering pleasant user experience. Hopefully these tips will help bring you five stars and put you on top of the charts.

Posted on December 6, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

The operating system of iOS is one of the major milestones for Apple devices and its known to be one of the most used software in the world. Along with iOS 11, Apple also welcomes its 3 major editions- iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus & iPhone X.

With the upgraded software version, main changes are seen in Apple’s voice assistant Siri, control panels, App store, camera, keyboard, AR kit etc. The new system comes in with support for all 32-bit apps and devices. Recently, Apple has also pushed into iOS 11.2 with add-on features like Apple Pay cash, faster battery charging, better stability and much more. On the whole, iOS 11 and further updates are a sum-up for all the features and versions that have come before.

There are a lot more new cool features to explore with the new update and here are the 15 exciting features that you may have missed out after the latest software update:

Posted on November 30, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Do you feel that every business should have an app? Certainly not necessary. But if you already have an app, do you need to bring it in front of your potential customers? Certainly a YES. With millions of apps launching and competing every day in the market, a good app strategy will help you get to your destination.

Since a good app strategy is a topic that someone can write a book on, we are here to describe some interesting tips and tricks for launching your next app. This blog is drawn from the best practices seen in the development and launch of apps in the real world and gathered from the web.

We will divide the blog into 2 sections for launching of an app:

Tech/Developer Preparations
Marketing Preparations

Let us see them in details:-

Tech/Developer Preparations

A successful strategy of launching your app starts even before you actually launch it. Your developing team should keep in mind the following points just before they submit their app for launch.

a) Controlling Source/Version code:

If you aren’t using the source control of your app, start using it right away. This allows the developers to control and manage any future versions and changes made to the app so you need not build a new app every time your business expands.

b) Using the Latest Technologies:

iOS and Google are busy researching and bringing out new and latest features every another day. Make sure your app is built on the latest features offered by these operating systems to avoid getting outdated.

c) SEO/Link building for Different Users:

Every user has a peculiar preference for searching his app on the app/play store. Make a thorough keyword research and customize your app according to various user requirements. Also, linking the app creates a great user experience.

d) Push Notifications:

Incorporate push notifications for your app. They are one of the most effective and loved tool for your customers. This can prove a good strategy for re-engagement of your audience. But make sure you do not use this plan to annoy ad irritate your user.

Marketing Plan

There are 5 simple steps you need to follow for achieving your marketing target. Before you go through the points, it’s important you study the basics of about marketing techniques.

a) Researching Competitors:

A recent study shows that almost 50,000 apps are launched every month. Before you launch you app, ask yourself, “Are you offering something unique and new to your customers?” Research and document all the things your competitors offer and what makes them stand out to the audience.

b) App Marketing And Discovery Platform:

Platforms like ‘Preapps’ and ‘appnext’ offers sharing of your app ideas and experience to a community of similar interest before your app hits the market. This helps you to make creative and strategic enhancement to your ideas and leverage your network.

c) Optimizing app store listing:

Similar to optimizing your website through SEO/SEM activities, a mobile app also needs optimization on play/app store. There are many tools like Sensor tower and Mobile action that can help you optimize your listing. You can also google other tips for app store listing tips.

d) Setup social platform accounts:

An optimized mobile app is incomplete without its presence on social media. When a user searches for your service, it’s important they recognise your brand and connect with you instantly. Make sure you have an active social presence to connect with your audience in no time.

e) Beta test:

Are you sure your application is free of bugs and serves it purpose? Before you release it to your actual users, release a beta test of the app for a selected group of people so that you know your app behaves the right way it should. Ask them to review your app while using it so that you are able to make any necessary changes and bug fixes.

Conclusion:

The above tips are just a few ways you can make your app stand out of the rest. There are numerous other things you can do, but without these key steps those aren’t fruitful. Since now your strategy is upgraded, you are ready to rock!

Keep in mind that every business is different, each has its own culture, brand and approach. Customize your brand strategy in such a way that your users feel the need to be connected with you whenever they need. Make sure you get back to us.

Posted on November 29, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

As more and more apps are finding their way in app stores, getting your mobile app design loved by users is most crucial. Users want to see brilliant design elements in your app. However, no mobile app design is complete without consideration of best user experience.

While designing mobile app architecture, you are also at times designing the future user experience.

This clearly indicates that an app must deliver user-friendly experience in the first place. Poor user experience means a lot of disappointment and frustration coming your way. Designing an app for better UX is a key to getting competitive, noticed and viable in the crowded app market.

So here are 10 great tips to design an app for delightful user experience:

1. Simplicity and Minimalism

A UX design that offers simplicity and minimal steps for users to fulfil their purpose is an ideal structure of a successful mobile app. Simple content with clear graphic explanation is what users want especially when the app is focused on multiple tasks.

Too much flash and glamour can distract users and send them away. Extra colour and glitters can even discourage app users to take desirable actions. Apart from that, unnecessary images and shine can even affect the speed at which app loads.

Minimal design approach and its simple presentation can keep users’ focus in the right place and lead them to the final action in fewer steps. It also helps your app load faster so that users won’t think of switching to other rival apps.

2. Preferential UX design

Recently, the new trend has picked the nerve of mobile app design. Unlike conventional interface, many apps have designs that are tailored to appear according to users’ personal taste, likes and tendencies. With such extraordinary design shift, the old approach of one-size-fits-all is getting older now.

This kind of intelligent app design may be termed as adaptive UX design or preferential UI. It takes advantage of users’ personal information to deliver customized experience.

This unusual UX design is commonly found in Travel apps or Real Estate search apps. The design of such mobile apps accommodates all the correct information before users even demand. This is possible because of app’s ability to learn users’ preferences and interests based on previous search history and location settings.

3. Silent Magic of White Space

The empty space found between in-app elements of a page layout is ignored and seen as being negative. Many of us like to believe that whit space through the app content is useless and pointless, and that it needs to be eliminated.

This is a serious practical mistake a designer would ever do. On the contrary, white space (infamously known as negative space in the world of mobile app design) helps bring positive results.

We often underestimate the magical power of negative white space. However, you can use negative space to create more interest and draw more attention.

Seemingly considered as a passive element, this white space is actually an active hero that silently enhances the ease of reading, priority of interesting content and betters and visuals of the layout. It even makes it possible to notice the highlights of the content, resulting in the simplicity of viewing.

4. Great Visuals, Better Influence

Human eyes are the first place where images are primarily processed and briefly approved. In fact, we have a common proclivity to choose something that has ample aesthetic value. Mobile apps are one of such things as mobile app designers will highly concede.

Despite being virtual, mobile app design intrigues users as if it is tangible goods. Users download an app because of its usability and design splendour. Text-centric apps are not welcome, but apps with remarkable visual elements are.

Having an appealing mobile app often results into higher user engagement, better influence and pleasant user experience.

5. Keep a Sharp Eye on Market

Before you design or redesign your mobile app, make sure you dedicate an eye to the relevant market. Find out what is brewing in the market and what trends people tend to embrace most. This will set you on the heavy quest for scooping up the hot trends making signatures on the face of mobile app design.

The foremost thing to bear in mind before you think of user experience is the understanding of your own prime audience. The trends you learn from the app market are representative of customer’s behaviour, tastes and preferences.

Develop use cases that help you go still closer to your audience and help you design a user-focused interface for your app. The more interactive the interface is, the better will be the user experience.

6. Minimize the Burden for Users

Any veteran mobile app designer could not deny the importance of having a clean, clutter-free user interface. Every page you design for the mobile app must contain straight-to-the-point content and single call-to-action option. Users believe in limited attention span wanting their options quickly.

While designing an app, the best approach is to get users what they really want with minimal efforts.

This principle is highly appreciated for purpose-oriented apps. For instance, if it is a hair salon appointment app, it should process users’ preferable timings, style preferences and match it with availability of services to suggest the best solution.

In some cases, the app also detects the user’s location through GPS to tell the distance between their home and salon. The whole process should be kept simple and light, with minimum time-consuming content.

7. Effortless Navigation

Navigation holds immense importance especially if the app is aimed for ecommerce, social media or finance industry. Since much of user experience depends on the navigational ease, your app must comfort users while they flow or switch from one page to another.

If you are a Mobile app designer, you must know that users want the navigation to be simple, accessible and self-evident. Ideal navigation system of an app is the one that liberates them from using great efforts to understand it. So make it easy to discover despite the fact that mobile screen offers small screen.

Tab bars designed with suitable names of for each page can be a best solution to effortless navigation. It offers one tab selection to navigate across different pages.

8. Clever Push Notifications

In 21^st century, due to pushy marketers, people tend to avoid countless messages coming from every corner of the consumer market. Mobile users avoid getting distracted by bombardment of push notifications on their digital devices.

Nobody is interested in your other products, discounts or information of your partner companies when all they want is to get straight down to the action.

In most cases, such exasperating push notifications can encourage users to quit your app forever.

So make a practice of sending only selected custom messages to users. Don’t ruin their busy hours by sending irrelevant messages. Instead, send messages of value on a certain intervals that won’t plague them.

Instead of giving them a rush in a short while, try to channel your messages in multiple slots like email, push notifications, in-app messages, etc. This will save both your reputation and brand.

Conclusion

While designing a mobile app, designers must remember the purpose of the app and how users are going to interact with its various elements and features. You can include these tips in your next mobile app design strategy to build a compelling mobile app. You must ensure that your app has the reason for users to use it and requires minimal time and effort to understand it. Whatever you do with your design, make sure your app retains its usability and has potential to deliver intuitive user experience.

Posted on November 28, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

You might consider user acquisition as the most integral part of mobile app success. But, how can your app thrive without users actively engaging with your app? High number of downloads is not a perfect measure of your app being all the rage in the market. User Engagement and retention are key drivers of a successful mobile app.

While app user engagement mainly reflects user interactions with a mobile app, app retention fairly means a number of customers who return to your app after abandonment.

Poor app engagement and user experience can lead to high user abandonment rate. Hence, you must increase engagement and retention to get more loyal users.

Here are the best practices for improving engagement for your app users:

1. User On-boarding Made Fast & Simple

User onboarding experience is perhaps the first conversation you will spark off with your app users. The main purpose of user onboarding is to get users to take a walk into your app and prepare them for more interesting elements within your app.

Don’t:

Make on-boarding experience a tutorial or serious app education
Make it look like an attempt to increase users’ familiarity with the app
Bore users by introducing fancy screen shots of interface and features
Overwhelm users with too many information fields
Prolong their sign up steps

Do’s:

Educate users about main app benefits
Present them the unique value your app brings
Minimize the number of steps for sign up process
Eliminate confusing factors that result in app abandonment
Offer flexible registration options

User on-boarding is all about making the first impression last. Seamless, intuitive on-boarding experience means letting your users settle in your app comfortably. Avoid as many troubles as you can for them especially when they sign up.

Let them learn more about your app features when they actually begin to explore more in detail. This will help reduce abandonment rate.

2. Push Notifications

Push notification is often seen as a fair practice for increasing user retention rate. Statistics confirm that users that choose to receive push notifications tend to engage with 88% higher than those who haven’t.

The concept of sending push notifications to users has evolved a lot. These messages are much more tailored, meaningful and quite customizable, and appear relevant.

Push notifications are crucial in fulfilling several purposes for your app. It acts as a reminder to users that they have downloaded and are using your app, which in turn helps beat the competition through psychological effect.

Push messaging, if done consciously and based on users’ preferences, can capture massive attention of the app audience. Such messages can convince users of reasons to continue to use app that has very specific functions.

This is the idea championed by Single Grain’s Guide to Mobile App Advertising that suggests how push messages can persuade users to run straight to your app for specific actions.

3. Personalization of App Interactions

Mobile personalization has a lot to do with improved user experience and user engagement. Mobile app users seek the kind of experience that incorporates their personal needs, likes and preferences.

This is why mobile app developers are compelled to build apps that use user’s data to display relevant, customized content in the app. Customized content means personalization of app interactions that delivers additional value to app users.

Localytics suggests that push messages that are tailored to user interests have a 54% conversion rate. However, send personalized messages carefully as any irrelevant messages may make users abandon your app.

Useful Tip: If you have known user behaviour, use it to segment your app audience. Divide users into multiple segments and align their preferences with customized user experience. Send each of them relevant messages through different channels of communication like social network, in-app messaging, push notifications and measure its effect.

4. Incentivized User Engagement

Everybody loves rewards and your mobile app users are no exception. Giving users certain incentives to encourage them to use your app can help drive user engagement and retention for your app.

Create special content that users would like to access. Or treat them with reward points, coupons, promotions, freebies or other thinkable gimmicks that will increase their interaction with your app.

Tip: While implementing incentives, try to make it look natural and interesting. In-app s with special discounts work well for some apps while others can opt for usage-based encouragement. Suitability of incentivized engagement ultimately depends on the nature of your app.

5. Speed Up Your App Performance

Now that our world is processing data at fastest speed to save time and efforts, people are growing more demanding than before. E-commerce retailers make the same-day delivery while international travels are booked in a matter of a few seconds.

Why not apps fulfil the same requirement? App users want to experience significant speed as they jump from one page to another or open a feature or app itself. App lovers want their app to run, load and process information in countable seconds. This is only possible if the back-end of the app is working efficiently.

If your app has core features that deliver fast performance, you are most likely to observe more users depending on and interacting with your app.

6. Mistake Correction & Feedback Management

It is quite understandable that your app might not come out perfect in the first shot. There will always be certain a scope for betterment and improvement, which is clear when you receive honest feedback from app users.

It is important to listen to what your customers are saying about all the wrongs with your app. However, most unhappy app users refuse to show their dissatisfaction and leave. Hence, it is important to pro-actively ask them about their experience and anticipate their exact needs.

Tips:

You must learn, adapt and implement. Apple, for instance, is a proactive player known for making innovative products long before consumers voice their needs. You can also solicit feedback from your app users and incorporate their requirements in your next update.
You can integrate SaaS CRM in your customer relation management system to monitor individual customer choices and behavioural pattern. Now that such CRMs are evolved, even SMBs can afford using it.

7. Deep Linking works for app engagement

We already saw how precise, relevant and customized push messages can increase user engagement for any mobile app. Deep linking goes one step ahead and helps strengthen the power of push notifications or SMS.

Deep linking can be effectively implemented with the idea of inviting new users to your app. In mobile app terms, it is a URL for a mobile app that sends users directly to a specific page inside an app when opened for the first time.

Big names like Google and Apple are also the believers of deep linking power and encourage the adaptation of this practice for enhanced user engagement and retention.

The practice enhances user experience, saves time spent on navigation and engages users.

8. Update the Product to Attract and Retain Users

After a certain period of using the same app with old features and content, users tend to get slightly indifferent with your app and want to experience different material. This is why one needs to regularly update their apps and enter new exciting features and contents to keep surprising users.

Even if your app is quite polished, functional and trendier than competitors, you will have to realize the potential of delighting users with more personalized contents. This is also an effective way to capture users’ interest and retain them for longer period.

Take for example how Facebook reads their users’ taste and preferences and continues to introduce fascinating updates to their app to keep users delighted and stuck to their mobile app.

Core benefits of regular app iterations:

Refined user experience and in-app journey
Satisfied and excited customers
Significant improvement in user engagement
Better customer retention
Increase in customer LTV (lifetime value)
Minimal chance of app abandonment

Tip: Make use of app analytics to monitor users’ behaviour so that you can process the statistics to update their experience inside the app with valuable iterations.

Conclusion:

These are just a few of greatly impactful user engagement and retention tactics you can consider for your app to gain loyal, delighted brand app users. However, there is no magic formula for making your app rise in the market. You may try adopting one or two of these methods at times along with the recommended tips to see how it works with your app. It will take some time before you find out which ones have better impact on your business. You can then optimize your strategy accordingly.

Posted on November 24, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

2017 is finally a mobile year with 4.77 billion users worldwide. In a recent study, 2 out of 5 visitors to your website are mobile users. As a business baron, it is surely a challenge to promote your app to the right audience, at the right place and at the right time. This predicts that you certainly keep in mind your mobile application for 2/5^th of the population that look for the businesses like you.

This blog will take you on a journey which will teach you everything you need to do to promote your app to ensure that you are easily accessible through the app/play stores.

1.App Store Optimization (ASO)

Just as in website optimization and SEO, app store optimization includes activities to optimize you app store listing deciding your apps’ rank on the stores. This is considered as an important aspect of pre-launch strategy. Not following these steps can do no good to your business.

App store optimization includes the following basic tasks:

Understanding your competitors : Research and analyse what your competitors describe their app, what keywords are they using, who are they targeting etc.

Choose the perfect name for your app by researching on relevant keywords

Create a grappling description which will serve as a call to customers

Design a unique and captivating icon following proper guidelines and details

Release a beta-test app to know your customers preference and likes.

2.Promote app on Social Media

Not promoting your app will tend to lose your potential customers. Nobody will visit unless you follow a proper promotional strategy of your business app. Writing engaging reviews and attractive content to draw the attention of user that are looking out for services like yours is more important than any other tasks.

Other ways include creation of campaigns with discounts and cashback making them getting connected with you without a second thought. The whole idea is to get customers know you and build their trust with the valuable content. App developers and marketers can make of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

3.Reaching out to Publications and Influencers

There are many publications and influencers related to your niche who has a huge fan following. Ask them to publish your blogs and share your ideas through their platform. Make sure you target the right audience that are engaging.

Many influencers ask for monetary needs to share your materials. If you have sufficient budget, it would simply be a clever idea.

4.Local Ads

Connect with your local customers by listing your business on the radio/newspaper channels. This has proven beneficial where your customers will learn a lot more before stepping up on your app.

Run an ad campaign with your local radio station, tv channel. Give away promotions like 10% off on your first order through the radio/newspaper channel.

5.Mailing Lists

Still ranking high, email marketing has a great potential in reaching and converting your audience to buy your services. Follow a few steps to create an email campaign at least once in a month and convince your buyers that you are always set to serve them high.

Tools like mail chimp can help you get started with your first mail campaign and encourage people to visit and signup for your services.

6.Affiliated Marketing

Affiliated marketing has been an age old tradition of promoting your brand and this hold true even today in the online world. It’s a process where a person/medium sells your product and they receive a commission for it.

You can simply sign-up for a marketplace and get your products tracked whenever someone advertises it. If anyone buys your services, they earn a part of your earnings.

7.Reviews and Rating

Allow testimonial to be displayed on your website and market it as much as possible. People tend to believe others who have already used your service and are satisfied with it.

It also allows you to know what your goodwill is among your customer base. Knowing your client is satisfied and is reacting well is all you need for staying motivated.

Conclusion

Each website you browse to know the various ways to market your app will have different ways to explain. It depends on every business vertical and what they are looking for. Following the above steps will certainly help you take the first step into the marketing world. You can also opt for working with an agency that will do these things on your part.

Posted on November 23, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

https://www.redbytes.in/contactus/?utm_source=Header&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ContactusRecently, app monetization is the hottest topic in the world of mobile app development. If you are looking to build a mobile app, you would not want to make it just for fun. Of course, you should have a proper app monetization model and thoughtful strategy to increase ROI. There are many app monetization options available in the market. Choosing a few viable monetization plans can increase your chance of making more revenue in the app market.

You may start with a free application that has certain premium features, in-app s and clever advertisements. Free apps are also more preferable than paid ones nowadays. But how exactly would you approach the idea of making money from your mobile apps?

Let’s explore how you can make it happen:

Your main app monetization strategy must include:

Advertising
Subscriptions
In-app s
Freemium plans
Affiliate marketing and referral scheme

App monetization revenue model:

Here is the most viable app monetization revenue model that will help you generate unstoppable income from your mobile app:

1.Advertising

Since almost 70% of app owners use it, Mobile advertising proves to be the most functional and profitable app revenue generation model in 2017. Just display a commercial in your app and start getting paid. There are top 3 methods of in-app advertising as used by developers:

Interstitial ads:

This format contains full screen pop-ups that occur at specific time intervals. Users can close the ad either by selecting the displayed page or by choosing a close button in the top ad corner. Interstitial ads are organic revenue boosters for app developers.

Banners ads:

It appears at the top or bottom of the screen in varied sizes. They are small and do not cover the whole mobile screen, thereby being less intrusive to users’ interaction with the app. App owners can tailor ad banners for specific target demographic of users considering their past behavior. The lower half of the app screen has highest effects on users.

Native ads:

This type of ad can perfectly fit into the original app design and flow, acting as a sponsored material for product promotion. Native ads work like a natural app element, so users do not feel irritated. Eventually, developers get nice revenue stream and engagement through native advertising.

Incentivized ads:

Users usually like reward apps more than apps that just contain ads. These types of ads are driven by tools that make it possible to reward consumers as they complete certain in-app actions or survey steps. This tactic results in better user engagement, customer loyalty and brand image.

According to statistics disclose the Nearby Live on Android, a social network app, makes around$4,000-$5,000 per month using Facebook native ads.

Researchers say that by 2020, mobile apps would generate 188.9 billion U.S. dollars in revenues via app stores and in-app ads.

2.Subscriptions

Subscription is another monetization models for free apps with restricted content and features. After the free trial period, users can pay fixed charges to get full access to all premium app features and contents. The revenue model is commonly found in apps with exclusive news material, special reports, streaming (audio/video) privileges, ebooks, blogs and magazines, etc.

Apple and Google enable subscription transactions. Apple takes 30% of subscription revenue for first year and then 15% for the following years. On the other hand, Google takes 15% of the app revenue each year.

Despite being a little less famous in the app development market, subscriptions are still a vital monetization model for many leading premium-service apps.

New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Spotify are all big names using subscription based revenue stream model, offering various subscription tiers to their users.

3.In-app s

More popular in mobile gaming apps, -in-app s is one of the most successful app monetization models that enable users to sell assorted virtual items. With in-app s, users can win:

Exchangeable game currency
Buy extra bonus points
Access premium content inside the app
Unlock new features or higher game levels.

According to current app market scene, more than 50% of top apps capitalize on in-app s to generate a dependable stream of revenue. This model is found quite successful and is likely to dominate in future, especially for game developers.

The concept of virtual currency as a part of in-app s creates exciting user experience, which is more suitable for gaming apps. The world’s leading Supercell earned $1 million a day from in-app s in their Clash of Clans game. Pokemon Go users spend about $1.5 million on in-app s on daily basis.

4.Freemium Model

According to Gartner Research group, customers are likely to spend 24% more on in-app s than on paid-for apps. This suggests that people will tend to generate transactions within the app and pay for in-app features, once they are confident that the app can bring real value.

This principle is highly applicable for freemium app models. Unlike paid apps, freemium apps can be used with no charge. However, it contains paid or premium features that are in-app s.

Users have a benefit of downloading the free version to assess the worth and value of the app. If they are satisfied, they will commit to pay for its exclusive sister version with high-grade features. Developers see this as the easiest monetization model where apps have both light and full versions.

15% of apps are focused on this popular mobile app revenue strategy.

AppsFlyer states that the average iOS freemium app generates $1.08 per month per user, and the average Android freemium app generates $0.43 per month per user.

Spotify is one great freemium app that allows users to create personalized play-lists on their mobile device with its premium version unlocking more exclusive features for users.

5.Affiliate Marketing and Referral Scheme

You can be a part of affiliate marketing to promote someone’s products and services for split revenue. Money comes from a number of clicks or installs received from pop-ups and banners used to promote their apps.

Amazon store offers tremendous space for affiliate marketing. You can choose any product and advertise it through your apps. You get revenue from qualifying s and clicks on advertisements done by users.

In this model, you can promote other apps or advertise products through pop-ups and banners. Rovio, the leader in mobile gaming, used Google AdMob network to boost their Angry Birds downloads among Android users.

Final words:

Apart from the above illustrated app monetization tools and tactics, there are still more effective ways to monetize your mobile app. However, among all other app revenue models, according to sweet pricing, in-app advertising covers 65% of all major apps in the market. In-app s is also another success bringer. Some developers blend several methods to experience faster, better results. All it takes is careful planning and competitive marketing strategy to reap massive profits and app-engaged customers.