rbsupadminnextjssite, Author at Redbytes Software

Posted on November 2, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile apps are dominating app store Optimization with the volume of as much as over 4M apps. With these many number of apps ruling the app stores, one must think how fierce the competition must be. This scenario suggests that there is a huge challenge for both developers and marketers to survive the crowd and enhance their apps’ overall visibility. To overcome the challenges, it is therefore important to optimize your app to rank top in any app store.

Believing that the mobile app development itself means your app will be downloaded rapidly by millions of interested users is a mistake. After developing the app, another journey of making your app quite visible begins. There are certain steps and benchmarks in the area of app store optimization (aka ASO) that ensure it performs exceedingly best in the saturated app market. Here are 10 important Do’s and Don’ts for effective ASO:

10 Important Do’s

1.Title:

Title is the first priority in app store optimization strategy. Make your approach creative while you decide to keep a unique app title. You have built a brilliant app and you don’t want to ruin your hard work just by being shallow about the title.
Usually, the app should be named in such a way that it represents both the content of the app and its purpose. Make it look uncommon, specific and appealing. Emphasize on the relevance of the name or it may confuse app store algorithm and users.
Try to limit the title to as long as 25 characters for Google play store and 40 for iOS as it works optimally. You can include keywords in the title to help its ranking, but only if suits and looks organic.
Some unprecedented titles like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Temple Run, Landlord, Candy Crush are eminent examples of the most successful mobile apps.

2.Keywords :

Mobile app development specialists cannot alone shoulder the success of your app. Keywords are also the decider of how your app ranks and what position it will end up with. Just like SEO, mobile app requires keywords that are highly researched and preferred by app users. Therefore, it necessary to conduct a thorough research to identify the list of most preferred keywords for your app context.

3.App Description:

Be careful as you utter or think anything about describing your mobile app. People are not naturally fond of reading app description, so you may not grab much attention through it. But still, it is a vital post mobile app development step. Here is what you need to consider:

App store ranking algorithms process and churn all the keywords used in app description, which means including primary keywords will help achieve the target. With that being said, you must not overstuff the description with too many of them.
Make the first lines of the description attractive, catchy and rich since app store visitors are going to determine the quality of your apps just from those few words. Compose the most compelling description that defines your app most and interests many users.
Explain in brief all the functionality and purpose of the app and how it will add value to users’ life. Make it persuasive and convincing enough through the details of its benefits and features.
You can also increase the credibility of your app by writing about the recognition of your app or previous app success. A little bit of bragging can be done in this description with sensible freedom. It will boost the download numbers in a way.

4.App Icon:

Well-designed, bold and unique app icon does the job of a vibrant painting and impels viewers to take more interest. Make it original, simple yet eye-catching while avoiding the scope of unwanted clutter. By inserting the purpose of the app in its icon, you can make it speak for itself. The popularity of any app icon can be measured through A/B testing. Experiment with a few of them and see which one goes well.

5.Screenshots magic :

Screenshot can work miracle for your app and it serves as a visual guide to its essential internal features that you think will make difference to its users. Introduce the audience to its inner architecture and tease them with its unique traits.

Screenshots have magical qualities and are as important as mobile app development strategy. It is especially for those who are not much of a reader and like to judge mobile apps through app store screenshots. Make sure you integrate the following points in your screenshots:

The screenshots that people can view on their screen in first shot without swiping are the ones that have power to grab most of their attention. So make sure they look impressive, expressive and influential. It must be good enough to supply the users a great hint of what your app actually is all about
Your app screen shots should be optimized to tablet viewing if your app also targets tablet users.
Publish as many shots as the store allows, and try to emphasize on using default orientation for the screen shot – which is Portrait
If possible, have an approach of showing at least one feature with each screen shot.

6.Video :

Like screenshots, make a video that gives a vivid illustration of what your mobile app can do. Make a preview video highlighting all the remarkable hallmarks of your app, its amazing key features and its ultimate benefits. Add video somewhere near app description and screenshots. The video is more effective than words. It will help to a great extent in case the app your have published contains several complicated features. Make is as long as maximum 90 seconds which appears optimal.

7.Reviews and Rating :

And how about gaining more leverage from Reviews and ratings? Even A/B testing practiced during mobile app development is a part of review system where certain feedbacks are implemented to make the app still better.

Reviews and ratings are a part of social activities which drive app store ranking algorithm. This means reviews play no less than a hero for app store optimization. It also suggests that your app is alive and seen by users and is not latent.

8.Recognize your Target audience and Competitors :

There could be almost no mobile app development strategy without a well-meditated ASO strategy, and there is no app optimization if you fail to incorporate your target audience and competitors in your strategy.

You can start by asking a few important questions like:

What does your app do for its users? What goal you want to touch with the mobile app?
How does it drive your next mobile app marketing plan?
How will the audience understand and perceive the app?
Can language be the barrier/saviour for the target audience?
Why should they download and fall for only your app among many?
How are your competitors doing in the similar market?
Does your app offer a fruitful competitive advantage?

Before you start on your ASO strategy, you must take a walk in users’ shoes and think from their perspective. Make your deep research to find out the facts about consumers and know about their trendy approach for mobile apps. Sneak in the land of your competitors and scoop up something viable. Discover those precious keywords that can pull in plethora of traffic. Study some of the effective moves of your competitors and how their reviews, social media exposure and other vitals work for them.

9.Localize Your App :

Localization is important for mobile app development and marketing plan. While developing an app, developers and strategist think of mobile apps in global perspective. However, when you look around you will realize the world is not populated with English speakers. You will have a great chance of increasing downloads by considerable extent by localizing your mobile app.

When you analyze your target audience, you will have a brighter picture of their language, cultures and general interests. You can focus your ASO on each discovery about your target audience – especially their language.

Perceive localizing the app as a tool to gain more responses and downloads. Communicate all features and your brand in the language they love.

10.Frequent Updates :

The mindsets of mobile users tend to evolve rapidly, which requires your mobile app to present them with charming updates added frequently. Constant improvements made considering customer feedback in the app are highly embraced by customers.

Not only that, but apps that are regularly updated by mobile app development veterans are given more preference and value by app store and users, resulting in better reviews and much positive response as each version is launched. Remember the following strategic points:

Lure your customers towards a note or an update link at login area with a prominent message urging them to download new updates. Push notification also works intrusively within an app telling them about fresh, exciting improvements
Try to preserve all the positive reviews and ratings of the latest version, especially those highlighted as five stars. Customers often select the app with good ratings.
Alternatively, you can also update the description field in app store and outline new bits with a noticeable call-to-action.
Make sure the normal average app update frequency is 30-50 days which is a general preference of top highly popular mobile apps.

10 important Don’ts

1.Doing mistakes in visual elements

Thousands of apps are released and published every year, but not every app ends up in users’ screen or stays there for a long while. Even the exemplary mobile app development methods can’t save the app that is built from shallow angles. This is why certain mistakes should be completely avoided or they will eventually drown your app in the app store. Some of them are:

Name:

Using clichéd, overused app words will not make your app much visible to searchers. Hence, avoid keeping frequently used names/words for your app.

Description:

Don’t make it overwhelming to read the app description. Nor make it too long, tedious and unnecessarily florid. Instead, stick to the main points: purpose, interesting elements, core features, unique approach and its benefits.

Icon design:

Icon can either make or break the app game. So don’t overdo it or make it complex. Users do not appreciate the idea of downloading apps with obscure or illegible icon designs. Even too much of bright, distasteful colours or ridiculous shapes can spoil the hard work done by mobile app development gems.

2.Imitating your Competitors blindly

You can’t really turn the blind eye to the fact that more original your app looks, greater the chance you have of making it to top ranked position. So don’t just blindly follow all the tricks and implementations done by your competitors. In order to stand out and get good reviews from customers, it is important to be different. Choose slightly differing keywords compared to what others have tried.

3.Believing that localization means language translation

A big no to this thinking, because localizing your app does not clearly mean merely translating your app content into local language. It is deeper than that, and more thoughtful. When you localize your app, you convert all the assets and architecture of your app into the form that is most acceptable in specific locality. By localization, you adapt all the app essentials – date formats, time zone, currency, calendar, and other systems – to match the specific country code. This implies that language translation is just a small part of mobile app localization process.

4.Fostering Misconception that: ASP = SEO

Over years, due to similar looking common word (Optimization) present in both practices, people who are not much familiar with App Store Optimization often confuse it with SEO. Despite having slight similarity, ASO is still not SEO. Even many mobile app development companies cannot tell it apart if asked.

SEO strategy helps improve visibility of websites in Google search results by optimizing content. ASO, on the other hand, is actually the process of optimize a mobile app for store-listing to increase its inside-the-app store discoverability. ASO is done also to enhance the conversion rate of an app and boosts the number of downloads.

Some parts of SEO can be used for listing the apps and optimizing its supporting content. But still ASO does not mean SEO. Paid campaigns often work in ASO unlike what is experienced in SEO.

5.Ignoring the frequent changes in app store algorithm

This mistake is as common as confusion between ASO and SEO. Both Google Playstore and Apple App Store are updated time to time and adopt new functioning standards of app store algorithm.

One way to stay informed of these changes is to keep in touch with the community of professionals who have expert knowledge of ASO and app store algorithm changes.

When Apple altered its algorithm last year and reduced the app name characters to 50, the rankings of many apps got affected.

Being unaware of app store algorithm changes means you won’t be able to refresh your own ASO strategy to meet the fresh requirements of updated algorithm. This will not help you while beating the competitors in the market.

6.Incomplete knowledge of effective ASO tools

Without tracking the performance and the effect of your strategic actions, how can you measure the success? That is why you need right ASO tools for thorough measurement of ASO effect.

It is been a while since there are several ASO tools that can help track and monitor several aspects of your mobile app’s performance such as its visibility, keywords ranking, top charts, reviews, competition, etc. Many mobile app development start-ups and brands fail to consider this vital analytical aid.

With ASO tools, it becomes easy to measure ASO KPI score – which gives you the detailed picture of how well your app performs in the app store and whether or not you need to improve your current ASO strategy.

Some of the helpful ASO tools you can consider are: Mobile Action, Searchman, ASOdesk, Apptentive, AppFollow, Applyzer, App Annie, Apptopia, Splitmetrics.

7.Black Hat SEO short-cuts

Some mobile app developers and firms believe that black hat SEO – which is cleverly controlled by Google’s SEO algorithm – can be a great shortcut to achieve the purpose of ASO. Clearly, it is not. However, in Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App store this tragedy is still there.

People encourage fake installations of apps, spurious reviews, robotic installs and several other sleazy tricks. These shortcuts may work for now, but it will stop once next app store optimization algorithm is introduced just like Google did for its search engine refinement.

It is advisable to stay away from such unscrupulous optimization practices to achieve organic, long-lasting results.

8.Misunderstanding: ASO is a one-time investment

To the glorious mobile app development industry that is still not properly receptive about optimization approach, we can say that ASO is more like digital marketing endeavours. This means that it is a collective effort rather than just a one-time investment. ASO is a long-term continuous process that involves constant updates and regular changes in trends.

ASO contains all fancy, technical terms such as keywords rankings, Top charts rankings, user reviews, A/B testing, progress tracking, conversion rates, algorithm rules innovations and competitive advantage. All these factors are time-dependent and demands much observation and cognitive insight.

As keywords change over time, your app store listing turns accordingly. All you need is a permanent wisdom and open eye towards recurrent updates that redefine app store algorithm. Competitors along with their new techniques to get to the top for the same keywords also inspires the fact that ASO is definitely not just a one big shot but a series of long-term sensible implementations.

9.Belief that Visual Graphics don’t help with conversion

There prevails a great misconception among developers and marketers that ASO is all about pulling in scores of people. Getting traffic to your app store listing helps, but in the end it will be valued only when you get more installations and users.

This is where the first impression comes in handy. The whole set of visual assets (Name, Icon, screenshots, feature videos) in app store helps explain visitors that your app is truly amazing and downloadable. So work on the design aspects of the app and not just be satisfied with what mobile app development experts have done.

Your app is most likely to leave big impact on users if its design is marvellous. If people who browse through the app store falls for its graphics, its conversion rate and Top chart rankings will go up. It must be remembered that human brain captures Visual effects more than anything and is influenced by its attractiveness.

10.Neglecting the presence of competitors

Tracking only your app’s doings will swoop as a curse to your ASO dream. In the era of internet, everything has become open and visible, and you can make the most of it if you want to.

You must check how your competitors are doing well in the app store: how they catapult to top spot in the app store, how they maintain their app listing in the store with the keywords you are most interested in, and why they reap the best of genuine responses from users.

The magic of profound mobile app development can only be seen by including your close competitors in your ASO strategy. If you neglect their presence in the app store, it will be an enormous mistake.

Posted on October 25, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Due to fanatical use of mobiles among city dwellers, mobile has become a powerful instrument for customer engagement, sales and business growth. In the era where every smallest need is satisfied online, businesses (start-ups or established) must understand that the best way to reach out to customers and push brand recognition is to go mobile.

Although mobile app development is a Midas-touch strategy, a good number of enterprises hesitate to give it a go. Hence, they must understand the process of mobile app development and all the cost-effective ways to keep the cost to optimal level. To start with the facts pertaining to app development cost.

Here are the most comprehensive list of effective tips to help you reduce app development cost:

1. DevOps

Speed of the process ultimately has a lot to do with the overall cost of mobile app development. More efficient mobile app development services helps a company to economize their resources. With the new approach called DevOps, a good number of IT companies have joined the revolution to synchronize and juxtapose together, its different departments: application development, system programmers, network and operation specialists.

When you break the walls and come united, the dream of achieving better and more through combined efforts come true. As diversity of IT disciplines group together to form one prolific project team of brilliant professionals, applications are rapidly deployed and resources are put to highest results. One can resort to RMAD (rapid mobile app development tool) which surprisingly supports drag-and-drop efforts to construct variety of high-scale functionalities without wasting time of writing code. The benefit you gain is abundant savings on development process in the long run.

2. Pre-Built Readymade Solutions

These solutions can practically add a significant value to mobile app development cost reduction as it helps avoid the need to create template from scratch. Pre-built templates provide ready structure where a few good modifications and changes can lead you to development of required functionality. For this mobile app developers turn to project-related third-party softwares that are readily available at affordable cost.

Today, through the dedicated efforts of global community of mobile app developers, many plug-ins are published online that address common business requirements. For instance, you can look for third party plug-in for push notification on Android or iOS. Google in this area assists developers with cloud services allowing them to ease their burden and utilize certain open-source frameworks to rapid-build mobile apps.

3. Avoiding Outsourcing mistakes

The word ‘Outsourcing’ has become more than familiar now in 21st century. In IT markets where cross-border collaborations are heavily practised and produce countless profit, outsourcing the development job to an IT hub could be a promising choice.

Some of the development companies offer hourly rate while the rest continue with fixed price model. What would work best for your depends on the type of business idea, volume of scope involved, product vision and resourcefulness of associated work flow.

In any case, the company you hire must be capable, certified and qualified enough to fulfil all the milestones and final goal of successful deployment. If it is hourly rate you choose, make sure they are bound to a stringent schedule and make no compromise on their deadlines, responsibilities, compliance standards, technical experience.

4. Agile Process of Iterations

Whatever fragment of developmental piece you make, make sure it is perfect, flawless and fulfils all the conditions. This is called the iterative approach for mobile app development, aka Agile methodology. In conventional development, each feature once made is tested before release, which might get tedious, exhausting and impractical. Instead, break it into well-planned strategic iterations. When you develop it in stages, you have a better chance to make necessary changes on time, saving resources and unexpected consequences.

This shapes up a stage-wise process where gradually achieved short segments of work achieves end goals by implementing possible fixes with assurance of test. Hence, opt for a split-project method and divide the entire job into easily manageable iterative cycles. The best part is that the development team can respond and adapt swiftly to the changing needs during the project without reconstituting it, which saves substantial time and money.

5. Custom add-ons for consumer apps

If it is customer-centric apps where cost is a concern, the solution is to incorporate handy add-ons that target both traffic and revenue. These tools significantly boost your app’s ROI and the weight of traffic to your mobile app.

One of the best options to acquire more number of users is to encourage them to share your content on social media. Social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and online blogging tools create a massive platform for you to foster considerable mass of users.

As for ROI, you can capitalize on this terrific rush of regular app users and develop amazing in-app purchasing strategy.

These add-ons are preferable ways to compensate for the overall cost invested in development process thereby whittling it down to a fair extent.

6. MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

This is a repeated solution recommended by highly experienced mobile app development experts and service providers. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a prototype of your application in progress that contains its major attractions: functionality, design architecture and features. This is the extract of the entire product that helps you test your app’s future health, its impression on users and whether or not it looks viable in long term. One can develop it at a small cost to check if it has good traction and resilience, and it is a best (perhaps the only) way to liberate you from rebuilding the entire app in case it needs improvements.

MVP tells you whether or not your app idea will cause thrill among customers and make them pay for it. Upon seeing demand for your product, you can think of going ahead and developing secondary set of detailed features. This strategy not only controls development cost but also safeguards your future investment.

7. After-Deployment Support, Fixes and Enhancements

One of the simplistic myths about mobile app development is that it is often thought to be just one-time go. The cost and the journey of app development do not come to an end at the point of deployment. The real challenges often begin after that stage as users share their feedback and disapprove some unacceptable attributes of your mobile app.

To avoid the struggle and unnecessary involvement of further cost, it is a good approach to retain the development team who could respond quickly to feedbacks and implement immediately. This helps maintain the users’ loyalty and your business reputation as users are assured of constant updates and fresh enhancements in the app.

Final remarks:

If in a course of a few good years, mobile development has advanced in our life to this degree, you can imagine what more mobile apps will surprisingly transform.

If mobile affords a sumptuous opportunity to shape and retain your brand image, you can, without a hesitation think of going mobile. For this, there are certain cost effective solutions and engagement models where your business priorities perfectly fit into and the tips above can assist you when it comes to opting for budget-friendly mobile app development strategies.

Posted on October 24, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Working with Xamarin and client target platform evokes mixed reactions. Both of them have their own pros and cons. The former is compiled into the native code and uses the common interface. Mobile App Development Company uses either of them; however, as mentioned above, there are some trade-offs that we’ll analyze here in detail.

Advantages over the native platform:

Sharing of code:

Using Xamarin, you can share the code between the iOS and Android platforms. Various attributes such as networking logic, parsing and navigation logic can be easily reused across the different apps on the platform. They help the developers to streamline the coding process and to identify the bugs easily. In fact, the consistency of the code makes the platform more efficient for the developers. All they have to do is to make corrections at a single place and to let the changes propagate through the app.

Usage of C#:

One of the most important advantages of the Xamarin platform is that it allows coding in C# language in all the applications. It is quite capable when compared to objective-C because of the type safety attribute. Some other capabilities include implicit typing, extension methods and other closure that make C# an amazing tool for development. Due to inbuilt error handling mechanism, the codes are clean clear and reliable. They are scalable as well as fully capable of handling large amount of data.

Net and C# libraries:

Using C# language provides complete freedom to the developers as they can use window libraries right from the old ones to relicensed versions. Xamarin Cross-Platform Development plays an important role in enhancing the capabilities of the applications. In fact, PCLS support is also available in C# language.

Disadvantages of Xamarin:

Compatibility issues:

Xamarin supports new APIs; however, in recent versions, it is incompatible with TV OS2 and “watch OS” in stable channels and cannot bind to Swift only libraries. In short, it is not possible to use the advanced features using the Xamarin platform.

Third party support:

iOS and Android provide third party applications that can be seamlessly used; however, they are not able to work with Xamarin interface. The workaround is way too complex as developers have to write the binding code from the scratch.

Platform specific .net libraries:

If you are using Xamarin, it is not possible to utilize PCL core library. In addition, the .NET library doesn’t offer a required interface to the developers. As a result, the capabilities of the applications on the platform get hampered. Even highly popular Google APIs face lots of issues when used with Xamarin; therefore, it is better to use the native platform in such cases.

Conclusion:

You should use Xamarin only when the app is equipped with lots of complex front end logic. Since coding is minimal, you do not have to spend a huge amount of money to create the application. If your team is highly experienced in C#, usage of latest offerings of Xamarin Development Company would go a long way in making the app efficient and robust. Even it can be used to support multiple windows devices without any technical glitches.

Posted on October 23, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

There are more than a million apps in the Android community and there is a virtual Android app development community that is earning through downloads and also helping users with a variety of tasks. Nevertheless, Android app development is not something that everybody can do. It requires good knowledge of Java, installation of some Android specific software, software development kit, an integrated development environment such as Android Studio, and a virtual device to test your app on. You also need an ample time and perseverance. And these are just prerequisites. After installation of all these software you need API levels, screen size etc. It is a long way process to go from conception to delivery of your app.

Android apps are changing our lifestyles

We are using Android apps in nearly all activities that we engage in our day to day life. Learning, reading, shopping, commuting, playing, recollecting things, collecting information, writing and the list goes on. In fact, there are very few facets of life that are not facilitated by apps in some way or the other. The community of Android app developers is changing the way we live. You name a field and there are a number of apps involved in it, be it health, education, services, sports or anything else.

Myths about Android App Development

1) A great app does not need selling:

Every newbie developer thinks that if he or she can come up with a great app it will sell by itself; it does not need marketing. However, this is far from the truth. If the app is for a targeted segment or community there is a chance that it will get downloads organically, i.e. without putting up ads, once you put it up in app store, share it in social media and some professional or other niche platforms. However, if the targeted audience is fairly large then you need ads to promote the app.

2) Download starts and money starts to flow:

If you are under the impression that your product is initially going to make you a millionaire just with downloads, then think again. It is not that simple. Thousands of people may download an app, but it starts paying the developer only when the user starts paying money for using the app. It is any body’s guess that the road from development to customers paying to use an app is long.

3) B2C market has a better yield for Android apps compared to B2B:

B2B market is nothing but a strategy that targets other businesses with an advantage of being scalable and structured. It is a common perception driven by the idea that B2C is a vast market. However, it is because of this vast market that the competition is also extreme. B2C apps are comparatively less expensive compared to B2B apps, but the ROI of B2B apps is much higher in comparison to B2C apps.

It is also seen that B2B apps have a large loyal customer retention compared to the B2C market. So if you are already on your way to develop a B2C app, the chances are it’s already on the play store.

4) App development is expensive:

Yes, its true, but only when you are employing a developer or outsourcing the job to an app development company. This is because the major expenditure is in paying the developer for his expertise and knowledge. So if you do it yourself it is not at all expensive.

Secondly, unless the project is complex and involves complex requirements, the project can expect you to spend a little extra due to several developers asking for a partial payments per month until the development completes. Therefore, major of the cost is expedited towards employing the expertise of an agency

5) Android apps don’t help developers earn money:

This myth has come about mainly because of the maze of apps in the android community. Sometimes there are four or five or more apps for the same job. In fact android is better suited for developers for earning money compared to other mobile OS. This is because of the sheer number of android users worldwide. In fact, more than 50% of smart phones throughout the world are android phones. However, this is also true that it is the android users who have the most reservations about paying for an app. In that perspective the developers are right. However, it is also true that a virtual community is sustained by this mobile operating system.

6) Google is all that we need:

Neither Google nor any social media can get you app at top for no reason. There’s always a competition between the Android app developers to personalize the app experience to the users and the app development approaches. People considering Google as their medium to the competition should stop their expectations right now. But that doesn’t mean you cannot get your app to the top. It’s never a big deal to achieve your desired ROI.

7) Native is the need of the hour:

Every app on the Play Store list, be it hybrid, native or web, possess their own pros and cons. Though native apps are known for giving us the best UI experience, it doesn’t always. It’s all about the user’s requirements. Nowadays, many cross-platform tools like Sencha and Codename give the same experience as a native app would.

Final thoughts

Android app development has revolutionized the way technology developers create an application. There might be many more Android app development myths that have crossed the app development industry, but it is recommended to research well to know behind-the-scenes story and plan accordingly. For any industry built on technology and science, myths do prevail making its way to new ideas.

Posted on October 20, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Smartphones and tablets are used by us as normally as the habit of drinking water. Arguably, people don’t just use these smart devices just to perform intelligent actions and satisfy personal needs, but also to get entertained. One of the pleasant distractions for them is to play mobile games. Because of incessant interest in games, the process of mobile game development has become an industry niche in the digital market.

Unlike PC games and console games, mobile games do not take years before it is finally launched. Mobile game industry has evolved rapidly because of many sophisticated mobile game development tools. Any concept of game comes to life on the screen of mobile users because of these intelligent game creation tools.

To fulfil your dreams of developing spectacular mobile games, here is the list of gaming tools usually preferred by mobile game developers:

1. Corona SDK

Corona SDK is a software development kit that is available on Windows and OS X and uses Lua as a scripting language. Using Corona, one can develop mobile games for free. However, to create a game or app with more elaborate features, you need to opt for enterprise model that offers native libraries and APIs.

Corona SDK uses its rendering engine called OpenGL. Its built-in scene management and transition library helps adjust and modify your game’s graphical qualities. To make the game development easier, Corona Labs offers a Corona Editor and Text plugin. You can create a graphical environment to design different levels and understand the interaction between the objects.

The tool is the best mobile game development solution if you want to develop a cross-platform game.

2. SpriteKit

Available on iOS and OS X, SpriteKit is Apple’s proprietary 2D game development framework that supports both Swift and Objective-C languages.

SpriteKIt offers great convenience to developers. With SKView, scene management is made easy. SKAction class can be leveraged to move, scale or rotate various game objects. It also supports sound and developing custom codes. SpriteKit offers scene editor that enables designing of levels. Particle editor helps with developing different particle systems.

SpriteKit has Box2D for its physics engine, and a built-in camera through SkCameraNode class which makes navigation easy. SpriteKit is an excellent mobile game development choice for developers who are familiar with Apple ecosystem.

3. Unity

Unity is a mobile game development engine that supports C# and UnityScript which is Unity’s own language like JavaScript. It comes with free as well as professional editions. It is a cross-platform tool and is deployable to many platforms. Like other tools, its built-in editor allows you to edit images and organize animations from animator window. You can also design particle system in Unity editor.

It uses its own physics engine and has built in camera to simplify navigation in the game world. Unity’s user interface system has different components for easy viewing of its features. Unity is a reliable choice if you want to design a game for wide range of devices. The Unity also offers the asset store where you can various assets for the game.

4. Cocos2D

Cocos2D is an open-source framework that game developers can use for free. It works with both Swift and Objective-C and supports iOS and OS X. If coding is done in Objective-C, it supports Android through Spritebuilder Android plug-in. SpriteBuilder is used for creating projects and provides a graphical design environment where you can prototype and build games

With the help of CCDirector class and CCTransition class, you can perform scene management. To find animations, CCAnimation class comes handy. For actions like move, rotate and scale, CCAction class can be used. Cocos2D also offers CCParticleSystem to support particle systems, and CCTiledMap class for tile maps.
Like many mobile game development tools, Cocos2D also has OpenGL as rendering engine. So if you want to develop for multiple platforms and like working on Objective-C and Swift, Cocos2D is the ultimate framework.

5. Marmalade

Marmalade offers free suite of tools that enable easy game development and porting processes. It is a fast, high-performance cross-platform engine for creation of 2D and 3D games. The SDK can be used to code in C++. Marmalade Quick version supports app development using Lua scripting language whereas Marmalade Web facilitates creating hybrid apps using HTML5, CSS and JavaScript.

Marmalade is an award winning platform that is popular among top game developers for its ability to build native games for both mobile and desktop. Marmalade Juice is another mobile game development tool that supports easy porting of iOS games to Android ecosystem.

Some of the remarkable games developed using Marmalade engine are Doddle Jump, Metal Gear Solid Mobile, Worms, Cut the Rope, Need for Speed: Shift, Lara Croft, Bejeweled Blitz and Guardina of Light.

6. Amazon Lumberyard

Based on the CryEngine architecture, Lumberyard is a free AAA game development engine by Amazon. It provides a lot of free tools and cross-platform functionality to develop high-quality games. The amazing benefit of using Lumberyard is that you don’t have to share revenues with Amazon. You can even host your multiplayer games on AWS cloud infrastructure as it is integrated with Amazon web services.

Lumberyard integrated with Twitch offers live video game streaming capabilities with wide user base every month. Because of this, it is a crucial tool for marketing mobile and video games. Developers can even engage with gaming community using Twitch. For developing social gaming features, Twitch provides Twitch ChatPlay, Twitch Metastream, TwitchJoinIn.

Amazon Lumberyard engine has helped create games like Crucible, New World, Breakaway, Star Citizen, etc.

7. CryEngine

Developed by German based company Crytek, CryEngine is a mobile game development engine used to create 3D games for Console and Window PC. You can create first person shooter games with CryEngine, and other advanced games using C++, ActionScript, Lua script and Visual Studio.

CryEngine offers some of the incredible features like: Voxel-Based Global Illumination, Per-Object Shadow Maps, Motion Blur and Depth of Field, Volumetric Fog Shadows, Level Design, Flowgraph, Real-Time Dynamic Water Caustics, Multi-Layer Navigation Mesh, Parametric Skeletal Animation, Advanced AI System, and many more.

It has both paid and free model to develop different game assets and it covers large gaming market. Games like Cry Series, Enemy Front, Crysis, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 are developed using CryEngine.

8. NextPeer

NextPeer is a Multiplayer social SDK that addresses the issue of multiplayer gaming on mobile. It supports both types of gameplay: synchronous and asynchronous.

NextPeer enhances the quality of gaming experience and player engagement, and helps developers achieve maximum user retention. It facilitates real-time interactions and live rankings in order to make it more interesting and real. It has a delayed synchronous technology which enables users to play the past sessions of other players. This feature makes NextPeer a competitive mobile game development tool in the market.

It helps design games on native iOS and Android, and supports Unity and Cocos2D-X.

9. Haxe

Haxe is an open source, multi-platform programming language that equally supports iOS and Android. The programming language of this toolset is easy to learn especially for those developers who are quite familiar or has experience with Java, C++, PHP or AS3 languages. Haxe is a dependable tool when it comes to designing cross-platform games with smooth development process.

Haxe compiler produces cross-platform native code and swiftly compiles thousands of classes to enable speedy game development. Its toolkit also includes Haxe standard library that provides a good set of APIs and more raw frameworks from which further additional tools can be developed when needed.

10. Gideros

Gideros is another free, open-source game developer that uses Lua as a scripting language just like Corona. It supports and can import to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, OS X, Windows, and Windows RT. The great quality of Gideros is that, unlike Lua – which is not a class-based system – it provides a class-based API so that developers can functions with ease and can write clean and reusable code.

It has a whole set of features required for mobile game development including, scene manager, MovieClip class and GTween library that helps move, scale and rotate objects inside the game. It also uses Box2D for physics and contains other important tools like texture packer and a font creator. It enables instant testing of game projects through Wi-Fi connection on mobile device.

If you are good with Lua script, Gideros is worth consideration for cross-platform development.

11. Titanium

Titanium is a free framework for developers to build applications using JavaScript as programming language. It can also be effectively used as a strong game development platform. Developers can use it free while developing the game. However, if you wish to publish it, you need a paid license.

With Titanium, you can easily change and animate views and images using native controls from iOS and Android. Games can be treated with outstanding effects using the framework. One can download custom modules from its marketplace, for example Box2D plugin.

Titanium may not be an ideal mobile game development tool. But if you are to build a game with simple features and less fancy objects in motion, Titanium is a viable choice.

12. PowerVR Graphics SDK

PowerVR Graphics SDK is a framework for developing cross-platform graphics applications. It is a complete set of SDK made up of PVRShell. It helps streamline the whole process of writing the applications and also offers PVRTools – which is a library of most commonly used 3D graphics application functionality. Its free SDK supports iOS and Android.

The tool is preferred most when it comes to simplifying the large number of objects in complex game scenes. It renders simple, functional shapes to intricacy of animations, shader effects and dynamic objects. To prime and train developers for using the tool, the SDK comes with various manuals, handy whitepapers and materials for training.

13. Project Anarchy

Created by Havok, Project Anarchy is an end-to-end mobile game engine using which developers can build fully fledged games for mobile devices. Developers don’t have to pay as it offers free license for importing games on iOS, Android and Tizen.

Its suite of tools is complete with Havok Vision Engine, and other essential development tools like Physics, Animation Studio and AI. You can add FBX files to asset manager in its new updated version. It supports Automatic script validation, particle lighting and integration for Scaleform and FMOD.

Conclusion

In this article, we explored and learned some of the popular mobile game development tools, engines and framework as preferred by today’s developers. You can now compare and have better insight about which gaming solution suits best your development requirements. Hope this guidance will be useful for your next game development plan.

Posted on October 13, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Let’s begin with an important question. Do you still wait to reach home and turn on TV to catch-up the latest scores, updates, news, TV shows? Or do you still rush to stores to do shopping, go to the bank to make transactions? Perhaps, we all hardly perform any of these actions and that’s because mobile apps can deliver all that you want on the go.

In this era of competitive business, all industries need to include latest technologies. As technology plays a vital role in promoting businesses, no matter whether you are associated with a start-up, medium/big sized enterprise, its important to promote business in a better way to get more reach. Therefore companies are looking to lift up their brand name and revenue graph by using mobile apps.

If you don’t advertise your business properly, then it would be difficult to survive in the market with tough competitors. With a highly-interactive mobile apps, you can always stay connected with clients and provide users, complete information about your services.

Posted on October 11, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

A well-developed mobile app contributes to the revenue of a business by increasing customer engagement. However, multiple operation systems, development platforms and devices in the market make mobile app development company a confusing task. Therefore, mobile app development companies look forward to develop apps that work across different operation systems and devices uniformly, with the help of cross-platform app development platforms like Xamarin App Development.

Launched in 2011, Xamarin helps to build a robust mobile app that works across different platforms. However, using Xamarin to develop cross-platform apps has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s have a look:

Pros

Development cycle speed-up

According to Xamarin cross-platform development experts, 90% of the Xamarin code can be recycled or reused in the development of other applications for different platforms. Xamarin mobile app development coding is based on C# and native .Net libraries. Maximum part of the code can be reused, which saves developers of their time and efforts and helps to speed-up the development cycle while developing applications for various platforms.

Near to Native App performance

Applications created on Xamarin platform can be considered very close to native application. Xamarin is consistently evolving to reach the level of native app creating technologies. The performance metrics which developers derive from the codes of Objective-C, Java, Swift etc. can be expected from Xamarin platform coding. This platform also offers tracking and testing of the performance of the app. Before publishing an app, developers can run automated UI tests through the Test Cloud paired with Test Recorder tool.

Client’s Native App experience

User experience reviews reveal that the applications created using Xamarin platform remain impeccable and absolutely flawless. For platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows, simple applications can be developed using Xamarin platform. At application run-time, Xamarin. Form tool converts the components of UI into the platform-specific user-interface elements. This is especially beneficial for business-oriented projects.

Hardware Compatibility

Applications can be created using Xamarin through many plug-ins and APIs which provide native-level support of device hardware and therefore, all hardware compatibility issues get eliminated. The developers can develop applications with common device functionalities which can run smoothly on various platforms. They can also do better app customization by linking with native libraries.

Cons

Large Operational Software overheads

Developing mobile applications using Xamarin involves linking of codes and referencing between target operating systems of various devices and .Net frameworks. In simple words, this linking and referencing increases startup and download timings of the application.

UI or User-Interface Development is time-consuming

Even though a major portion of Xamarin coding can be reused cross various platforms, the core user-interface creation is not portable. Therefore, developers are required to do some part of the coding for each platform which is very time-consuming.

Limited outside coding support

The code developed in Xamarin App Development cannot be reused or transferred for HTML5 or native applications for iOS or Android. The availability of Xamarin professionals is also quite limited. Those who develop the app for you using Xamarin should have knowledge of .NET along with mobile development, and platform-specific frameworks and, architecture that makes use of Objective-C and Java languages.

Unanticipated risk of cross- platforms

Many cross-platforms carry an unanticipated risk or a possibility of extra work. Xamarin’s framework libraries cause unreasonable app file size to be downloaded from Google Play or iOS App Store may be because of high usage of Xamarin App Development core library functionality in the app. The app size difference can range between 3MB to 15MB.

With Redbytes, you’ll find it easy to explore the potential of latest technology and have a well-developed mobile app of your own. We are one of the leading Xamarin Cross-Platform Development Companies. Feel free to call us or request a quote and learn how our services can prove beneficial for your business.

Posted on October 10, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

An educational app is a powerful learning tool. But, it is very unfortunate that most educational app development companies don’t consider the importance of participating those people who understand students and the ways they learn better – Teachers. Good graphics, programming and design are not enough to satisfy the purposes behind educational app development. Taking expert guidance from educators during app development would be very beneficial in meeting the goals set.

Teachers are educational psychologists in themselves. They are in a direct position to evaluate and influence students.Utilizing the experience and knowledge of the teachers are very vital in planning, designing, and creating educational materials appropriate for the student’s ability at a definite age.

Here are 12 major areas where engaging educators can help to re-create the conditions favourable for learning.

1. Ensuring the app is Curriculum Based

The instructional design should follow all the particulars specified under the state’s school curriculum standards. Teachers know best about what the curriculum looks like.

So development companies should work side by side with school faculties in an attempt to apply the various curriculum specifications into educational apps.

2. Deciding Objectives

Teachers should be the ones who decide what skill sets need to be developed through the learning app.

They can set goals for developing and honing skills including cognitive, verbal, motor etc.

3. Deciding the Quantity, Modes, and Methods of Providing information

Teachers can help to obtain suitable contents for the app. They will give you a fine idea about what was learned before and what continues from the previous years that has to be recalled since acquiring new skill sets will be based on previously acquired skills.

They can suggest the right mix of illustrations, examples, audios, videos and other forms of supplements and reinforcements. They can propose what needs a repetition and what needs to be just mentioned.

4. Ensuring the Content is apt For the user’s Cognitive Ability

Cognitive development is progressive with age and occurs in four different stages. It is very important to pick the right educational activities that facilitate learning processes appropriate to the age.

There might be also special education requirements. Teachers can regulate the degree of complexity adequately and simplify concepts for better understanding.

5. Deciding the Time Allocation and Importance given to Each Concept

The time allotted for mastery of each individual concept should be analogous to the priority given to the specific subject matter. There should be the right mix of learning and entertainment in educational apps.

6. Selecting Appropriate Content that Respects the Individuality and Beliefs of the User

The app’s content should not hurt the beliefs and values of the user. It is a very difficult job, since these features vary by locality, religion, social class and even between individuals.

Teachers can have a better insight about the various customs and beliefs of their pupil. So they are in a better place to decide the content of the app.

7. Ensuring Adherence to School and Classroom Rules

The rules and regulations in each school are different. The educational settings, faculties, tools, and facilities available varies a great deal.

Proper communication with the school departments and staffs is inevitable to tune the app to abide by the particular directives of a school.

8. Deciding the Pace at Which Instructions are Given

Students will be familiar with particular teaching strategies, learning styles and instructional pace that depends on various factors such as the curriculum, schools attended, country of schooling etc.

All these factors should be accommodated into the designing criteria of the app by discussing with the concerned staff members of each subject.

9. Ensuring Social Skills and Life Skills are also Developed

Education should involve enabling students to acquire the social and life skills that are valuable in life. Co-operation, socializing, manners, participation, involvement etc. are some key skills that need to be focused.

Must read: How much does it Cost to Build an Educational App for Kids?

10. Cultivating Moral Values and Ensuring Character Development

Emotional and behavioral development are also fields, posing a challenge to educational app development where a teacher’s direction can be of great help.

The characters, themes, music and every other element that goes into the app should not be disturbing or unethical in nature. It shouldn’t hurt the moral values and induce deviant behaviour in children.

11. Deciding Testing and Evaluation Methods

In the educational process, apart from the instructional theories, and teaching strategies there is also something else that is of core importance- the right assessment method. The learning outcomes should be properly tested and evaluated for meeting its objectives.

Since teachers are experienced hands in assessing hundreds of students with individual differences in intelligence, they can guide towards implementing a proper assessment method for applications too.

12. Deciding the Feedback Method

Teachers can advise how to give effective feedback to students. They can figure out what types of feedback and rewards will motivate students and will keep them interested in the app.

Also Check: Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on October 9, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Whether its enterprises or mobile app fanatics, they all wish to have unique mobile apps that are innovative and built with superior technology. They would like to tap into the apps that have impeccable user interface, rich features and exceptional user experience. Apps that support intelligent features like geo-location sensing, real-time notification, video, data synchronization are more and more in demand.

However, businesses today find it challenging to discover the right mobile app development company who comprehend their requirements perfectly. India is thought to be a largest hub for mobile app developers all over the globe in 2017, which means it is tough to select a single best company with proven experience, market reputation and impressive ratings.

Hence, to help you further, here is the shortlist of top mobile app development companies in India 2017:

1. Redbytes

With proven technical approach and industry-grade expertise, RedBytes is entrenched asv an innovative mobile app development company that can be put in positive light. Their ability to think creatively about each project and discover tailored solutions is the outstanding hallmark of this mobile app development company. The most commendable part about Redbytes as a mobile app development leader is their bright portfolio that reflects the success of delivering numerous highly usable mobile apps. Apart from their research and viable efforts products, Redbytes is also a wise choice for clients who seek seamless development process and a responsive team.

2. Openxcell Technolabs

Openxcell has gained reputation of catering to most respectable clients around the globe. It is an ISO 9001:2009 certified mobile app development company dedicated to building excellent software products. Located in India and US, Openxcell is proud of having the best team of design artists, software development specialists, and technically sound experts who have satisfied requirements of many clients by making brilliant apps for iPhones, iPads, Blackberry, Android and web domain. They are always determined to serve the best quality and deliver the world-class products under any circumstances.

3. Konstant Infosolutions

Konstant Infosolutions is a well-known name in the domain of web and mobile solutions. Innovative and successful, Konstant has stretched its services to 40+ countries with offices in various worldwide locations. With strong and impressive client base, it has achieved global footprints when it comes to manipulating the power of advanced technology to develop lean, fit and smart solutions. They believe in client-oriented attitude and efficiently attend special requirements of business customers. Some of their specialities include Enterprise mobility solutions, Wearable technology, iPhone/iPad apps, Custom web apps and Android apps development.

4. Appster

With active services in US and Australia, Appster is another consideration for finding the exemplary mobile app developers India. They possess a skilled team with professional mastery in developing for iOS and Android platforms. Their approach of work is open and unique and has served successful start-ups as a reliable technology performance partner. They are on a constant rise, and opening new offices all over the world. They have plans to expand exponentially and join designers, creative visionaries, and business bodies. Their belief in their technical team and experience has boosted their reputation as a talented mobile app development company.

5. Affle AppStudioz

Affle AppStudioz is an expert mobile app development and engineering company headquartered in Singapore. They have specialized in UX, design and mobility solutions and have investing partners like Microsoft, D2C, Itochu, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. (BCCL), Centurion Private Equity, etc. Driven by research, it has a strength of 300+ professionals who efficiently use Agile Scrum methodology for mobile app development. Their domain of expertise includes Entertainment, Healthcare, Augmented Reality, Retail, Enterprise mobility, Media and Finance. They have developed their own unique library of features that help increase efficiency, speed and productivity across various facets of development process. This Mobile App Developers India is capable of developing apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Windows.

6. QBurst

QBurst is another leader in mobile app development and has great belief in the power of new generation technology platforms. With ability to serve global customers, QBurst is proud to have staggering 1200+ professionals who are skilled in various domains including UX, app designing, analytics, Quality support and project management. Their portfolio speaks of their wide service capabilities such as Mobile and web app development, CRM, UX design, Quality & testing, Big data & analytics and modern cloud based solutions. The mobile app development company has its offices in USA, UK and India and is known for delivering cost-effective, high-quality, enterprise-grade solutions over a decade.

7. Hyperlink Infosystems

Headquartered in India, Hyperlink Infosystems is one of the sterling mobile app development companies with an impressive track history of successfully serving many countries across the globe. The company has versatile experience in crafting comprehensive solutions and different types of apps. Hyperlink Infosystems has mastered building apps across almost available platforms including iOS, Android and Windows. The company pride itself on having a pool of talented designers, program developers, testers and team leaders and project managers. They all work in great synchronicity to ensure their business clients enjoy the exceptional product in the end. The mobile app development company has delivered 2000+ successful applications and has 800+ satisfied clients, which speaks volume of their success story.

Final Words:

As the internet power has transcended the expectations of human mind, businesses must consider the idea of making apps to engage their target audience and retain maximum customers. Whether you are into eCommerce or need apps for your office productivity, India has got the widest community of world class developers at your disposal. The list above is meditated carefully based on modern mobile app development market trends. Hopefully, this list of top 7 Mobile App Developers India will broaden your insight into hiring the most suitable development partner from the entire Indian IT market. Make sure you choose the one that perfectly understands your business requirements and deliver the most competitive result.

Posted on October 5, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Building a hybrid mobile application to serve the cross-platform needs is the main focus on which many companies are diverting their time and money. Most of the professional mobile app development companies are making use of Xamarin, the perfect cross-platform to develop, test, and finally, deploy an application across Android and iOS devices. These companies amalgamate their coding experience on various platforms with Xamarin’s Native API Access to explore the software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) offered by Apple and Google.

There are a few important reasons why you should consider hiring a Xamarin App Development Company –

1) Cover huge client base – The Portable Class Libraries (PCL) in Xamarin allows software engineers to develop and share code on cross-platforms like Windows Phone, Xamarin Android, and Xamarin iOS. The applications developed using Xamarin platform can target huge client base who are working with Android, Windows, and iOS frameworks.

2) Gizmos and gadgets compatibility – Most of the people prefer to hire Xamarin App Development Company to develop applications using Xamarin cross-platform for its versatility and to use on multiple gadgets like cell phones, tablets, and wearable technologies. In addition to running on and supporting various platforms, Xamarin applications are popular for supporting different gizmos and gadgets.

3) Security of the Information – Xamarin applications collaborate with outside applications like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Azure etc., to offer high levels of information security. The access to the procedures and venture information will be secured over all platforms through Xamarin cross-platform development applications.

4) Native User -Interface UI across Android, Windows and iOS platforms –The Xamarin app development firm holds the in-depth expertise to design and develop the best mobile applications for multiple platforms while retaining the native traits of different platforms. With Xamarin’s Native UI, the company tries to offer performance and unaltered UX to their large user base.

5) Evolving with time and updates – In order to provide the best native experience, Xamarin keeps on evolving with time and so does the professional apps development companies by adopting the trending native API’s as soon they are released.

6) Testing before deploying – To provide an impeccable native application to the clients, Xamarin’s Test Cloud offers an extra layer of testing. Automatic Testing Assist allows developers to test the application from all angles through gestures like pinches, swipes etc.

7) Various operating system SDK integrations– Mobile App Development Companies, through Xamarin, offer the services of creating and developing applications for multiple platforms and devices under the roof of a single platform. Applications convey local like execution on various platforms. Developing multiple applications on different platforms through Xamarin utilities is one of technical function which demands the knowledge and team of an expert development company.

8) Component store– Xamarin Component Store consists of a huge group of paid and free segments like cross-platform libraries, UI or User-Interface controls, and third-party web administrations which are used by the developers as part of their coding. This sharing development environment of Xamarin is infused with Xamarin’s Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio.

As world is fast switching to technologically innovative and advanced means of digital marketing and this is why more than 70% of mobile app development companies in the world has started to seek out services of efficient and reliable Xamarin Development.