Android Archives - Redbytes Software

Posted on April 24, 2018 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Hey, your so well performing Android phone is now obsolete. Because Google has just released its recent version of the mobile operating system and it’s called Android 9 Pie. Yep, you read that right. With super cool new features and functionalities, this new mobile operating system is already increasing the users’ excitement levels.

Of course, this is just a sort of preview of the new mobile operating system and we will definitely see more exciting features added to it in the future.

The new version the Android 9 Pie, or just Android 9 is now available in giant Pixel’s smartphone the Pixel and Pixel 2 devices which includes: Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

Also the fact that the number of Android users are more, Android app development has always been in the trending list for companies across the globe.

And here is everything that you should know about Android Pie:

1. Enhanced Notifications:

Notifications are highly important to every smartphone user. Specifically, Google wants to improve the user experience at this point. This means that users will be able to perform more without even opening the full application.

Now for notifications, Android Pie will suggest smart replies, lets you attach images and stickers, and type your own replies. This is all possible because of the Google’s new “Messaging style” notification.

2. Navigation is Now Stepping into the Indoors:

No matter what city or country we live in, Google Maps is one of the most loved and used navigation applications so far and now in Android Pie, it is even far better. Wondering how? Well, so far this navigation map has been working only outside the doors such as route to restaurants, malls, etc.

But now it is about to change. This new feature in Android Pie includes additional support for “Wi-Fi round trip time” that leads to more particular positioning via Wi-Fi. In fact, this indoor positioning in public places like shopping malls is about to get more detail.

3. Powered by AI for Smarter and Adaptive Use:

So far, Google Assistant has been one of the essential parts of Android operating system. With the launch of Android Pie, AI is baked into your Android smartphone in a much better way to make it smarter, simpler, adaptive, approachable and it also has features to learn from users and totally adapts to you life to perform tasks.

4. Battery life:

Just like we anticipated, Google has been working to make the new version, Android Pie, a little more power efficient. It has rolled out with a new feature- ‘Adaptive Battery’ that tends to make Android phones more smarter and efficient. The main advantage of this feature is that it prioritizes the app that you use the most and uses less battery power for app you use less

5. Adaptive Brightness:

According to Google, current auto-brightness feature isn’t that good and so in the new version they have rolled out a more powerful way to calibrate the phone brightness based on learned behavior and environment.

6. App Actions:

With Android Pie, Google makes use of more prediction tools which thinks a step further to predict what you’ll do next. Its like Pie starts to read up your mind.

7. Improved security:

Android Pie brings several changes to normal security features. It consists of new privacy protection features like:

Google requests developers to use HTTPS connections in apps instead of HTTP
Back-up feature in Android Pie is now encrypted, so users must enter password, pattern, pin for restoring the device
Support standardized look, feel and placement of fingerprint authentication dialog
It has introduced a new option for power menu- Lockdown Mode
It also has new privacy settings to protect users from malicious activities from other sensors

8. Better Privacy:

Now Android Pie will limit the access to the user’s phone’s camera, microphone, and the other sensors. Whenever the application itself is idle then it won’t be able to access those features, making sure they cannot just creep on users without their permission.

9. Gesture Navigation:

With the introduction of Android Pie, now you have the option to ditch the old 3 button navigation of Android to the latest feature of gesture navigation. This feature isn’t turned on by default , once its turned on, the navigation change to a pill-shaped icon. And whenever required you can turn off the feature to the old mode.

10. Taking a Screenshot is now Simple:

Easier screenshots are now easy with Android Pie. You can still use the old version of the power + volume down button but now in the new version you just need to open the power window and tap on the screen shot icon. Yes, you head it right its that simple.

This also has an additional feature where you get a notification of the screenshot taken which has the option to ‘edit’ the screenshot.

11. Warning Sound for your Call:

This is another effective privacy addition that gives a warning sound whenever the user’s phone call is being recorded. The new operating system’s improvement is there for carriers to activate and a short music will be played every 15 seconds via a call that is being recorded.

However, this amazing feature has to be supported by the network and the point that is not still clear so far is that whether it will apply to the customer service calls which will be recorded for training reasons or the third party recording apps alone.

Other changes:

Other than the above-mentioned, there are other important changes that we will see in Android P such as HDR VP9 video, enhanced JobScheduler, etc. that must help all applications in general work in a little more effective way.

Lately, Google is also going to launch another feature called ‘App Slices’ which will display relevant information from your favorite apps when you need them. For example. if you type Uber in Google search, you’ll see a slice of the Uber app with prices for your ride so that the action becomes more quick and easy.

Users will get to experience some more new features in camera, audio and also graphics.

And its there in devices near you:

From now, Android Pie is live on Pixel phones and with plenty of new features, the latest flavor from Google looks so appealing.

Are you excited about to finally have the feature on your Android smartphone? It won’t take much time because soon it will roll out to other devices as well.

Posted on March 28, 2018 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Currently, every company/business is creating its own mobile-friendly websites and applications via efficient mobile app development companies to provide better customer experience and similar functionalities to a traditional desktop website. However, if your smartphone experiences are restricted to features available on your conventional desktop website then you are certainly missing out a lot of opportunities to deliver great content in context.

Understanding Geolocation Marketing:

Geolocation marketing completely focuses on customers’ needs and requirements via their mobile devices. Learning your customers’ location will help you in serving them relevant offers, deals, and discounts, and promotions and let them take a specific action. Not just one or two, geolocation marketing industry is likely to grow to $32 billion by 2021.

A greater part of world’s population consider their smart phones as an essential tool and as a result, this sort of marketing has indeed proven to be so effective and efficient. A company’s goal is to target potential customers and influence their buying behavior depending on where their mobile phone tells where they are.

Why is Geolocation Marketing so special?

1) It’s completely cost-effective:

Every single time a company completes a page for their business on a geolocation service, they are getting free advertising. Not just that, even next level forms of these marketing such as offers are extremely cost-effective when compared to various conventional strategies.

2) KYC (Know Your Customers) better:

While most of the geolocation marketing offers are made to attract new customers, these services are also an excellent strategy to identify and learn more about your current customers.

3) Reward your loyal customers:

It’s an old marketing saying “It’s better to keep the current customer than trying to attract a new customer.” Identify who your loyal customers are and reward them with special discounts and offers.

4)Attract new potential customers:

Geolocation marketing services are one of the best and effective ways to turn online prospects into new customers. Customers who never before heard or knew about you will have better chances to try your products and services for the first time.

There are some businesses who offer attractive offers to their first-time customers. Once you get to try them then it is in your hands how you retain them by providing the best solutions to their problems.

Well, the capability for smart phones to track and identify a customer’s location in real-time with a scalable level of accuracy is increasingly continuing to grow as cutting-edge technologies continue to transform the smart phone landscape.

Now, let’s take a look at how Geo-location matters in your marketing strategy:

1. As a forecast of characteristics:

From the past couple of decades, the location of a customer or even a business plays a vital part in the forecast/prediction of the characteristics of that specific person. Right from analyzing basic information from a collected household data or from anywhere else in the world, an in-depth landscape of the person or family of the demographic characteristics can be seamlessly built.

Now, this sort of family profile has proven to be very precise and correct in forecasting the characteristics of the make-up of those domains. The important element to keep in mind is that such demographic profiles are developed on the foundation of where they are based in (City or country). So once you figure where they are then you will be able to find out who they are.

In the whole process of this analysis and understanding of consumer behavior, finding out the geographic area can be extremely helpful in simply learning more about the customer than you did earlier. Such kind of information can be used to enhance the vendor/consumer touch point and improve the performance of the business for a mutual advantage.

2. Forecasting past, present, and future behavior

As an advancement from the forecast of other characteristics, analytics can also be utilized to forecast the future behavior of that particular geolocation family. Utilizing the methodologies or strategies created to forecast the character of an area, the behavioral prognosis can be developed to have an idea about the future likelihood of a domain to behave in a particular manner. Understanding the behavioral characteristics and predictions have been extremely used by location experts for better customer experiences.

3. Timing and mechanics of the buyer decision

Geolocation plays an essential part in the timing and mechanics of the buyers’ decision. For instance, environment patterns determine at what level buying becomes possible. Apart from this, there are mechanics of the buying decision that can be affected by location; extremely urbanized locations witness great levels of delivery services utilized.

In today’s modernized era, understanding a customer’s needs and preferences to respond to a particular channel such as email is vital. geolocation plays an essential part in not only forecasting the consumer behavior but also in finding out the most practical means of using sources to fit a customer’s needs depending on where they reside.

Now that we have understood the importance of the geolocation in planning a marketing strategy, let’s know the various ways how businesses can use geolocation data to plan the perfect marketing strategy.

Geolocation Marketing

Lately, beacon technology has been letting businesses exactly locate where their potential customer is at any given time, and then send them appropriate notifications regarding their latest discounts, offers, and other promotional stuff. The utility of beacon technology is one more step ahead in transforming the shift to m-commerce (Mobile commerce) by offering instant relevancy and value to consumers.

For instance, an apparel retailer might send promotional offers to a customer who is near their store or even when that person is visiting their rival’s store. According to a study by beacon platform swirl, more than 60 percent of customers tend to do more shopping at stores that have beacon marketing programs.

Micro-moment Marketing

Of course, you already might have heard the term “Micro-moments.” As Google rightly said, smartphones have forever transformed the way we live, and it also has changed the expectations of customers from the brands. It made the way to the consumers’ journey into the hundreds of real-time, intent-oriented micro-moments. Every attribute is a golden chance for businesses to shape their decisions and preferences.

Google’s research says:

— More than 80 percent of mobile phone users prefer their smartphones to influence a buying decision while in a shop.

— 60 percent of mobile phone users are more likely to take an immediate step towards resolving a problem as they have a mobile phone.

— Almost 50 percent of customers who do a local search on their mobile phones go personally and visit a store the same day, and almost 18 percent of those local searches end in purchasing within a day.

Geo-targeted mobile ads

Geo-targeted ad services from Google and MSN let brand advertisers assign search campaign holdings at a local stage. With geo-targeting choices that are available currently, customers can be targeted at area level (Country, city, state, etc.) to find out the best potential ad placements. In addition to that, Google AdWords innovated a geo-targeting attribute: Revenue location targeting. This will allow advertisers to target customers depending on their revenue level zip code.

A better technology that determines true customers and not just their devices

Increasing the effectiveness and influence of mobile marketing practices by using geo-location data to develop more customized marketing for customers. As the usage of the smartphone is greatly increasing than ever before, now is the right time for retailers to find out true customers by their smartphone. Currently, retailers have so much access to various cutting-edge tools and technologies to target right audience by market segments and devices.

Posted on March 28, 2017 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile applications that are generally used in business to solve any kind of enterprise issues is known as an enterprise mobile application. It is important for enterprises to follow the trend of using apps for internal and external services if they wish to succeed in the current app dominated world.

Different types of Enterprise mobile applications include

• Content management
• Customer support
• Payment processing
• Email marketing systems
• Automated billing system
• Collaboration, messaging and business intelligence
• Customer relationship management(CRM)
• Enterprise application integration (EAI)

Factors that make an Enterprise App Successful

For any Enterprise to develop, the first step to take forward is to have a well-planned strategy. After you have the perfect strategy, you can plan the business and go for a suitable enterprise mobile application. Following are some key factors that an enterprise should consider to build a highly buoyant mobile enterprise application to ensure their enterprise-wide acceptance:

• Clarity of business goals and objectives

Having a clear vision about the goal you need to achieve is very important. Once you have a strong objective, start thinking about the platform on which you want your app to be done. Keep your idea concrete to justify your investment in the mobile app development. The goals you need to consider are to:

1) Increase the customer’s perception of brand experience
2) Project the growth of your organisation
3) Increase the business force of your partners and employees
4) Attract new customers
5) Enhance the revenue opportunities

• Build apps keeping the target audience in mind

Another factor to consider before you develop an enterprise mobile app is to understand the behaviour of the mobile users and the way they use the device. How to optimise the user experience?
This might be the main question in your mind and if you have the answer to this question, you have solutions for rest all. This can help enterprises steer the app development efforts to fulfil user expectations, and result in an enchanting user experience for the app users.

• Selecting the apt platform for your Enterprise mobile application

The process of creating a mobile enterprise app is challenging as well as rewarding at the same time. Whether it’s iOS, Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone, no platform has a clear dominance over the other. So, it’s unavoidable to develop apps for all these platforms on both tablets and smart phones. But. It’s highly critical to choose a development methodology that meets all your cross-platform goals for the enterprise.

1) Native apps: These are built for a specific platform using the SDK platform, tools, languages and operating system (iOS, Android) that are typically provided by the platform vendor. Features of native apps:

• Most reliable and fastest, conventional
• Can get into the wider functionality of the device like: microphone, camera, accelerometer, compass, swipe gestures etc.
• Make use of push-notifications
• Provide access to important device attributes such as geo-location API etc.

2) HTML5-based apps: This is the latest approach used by most of the organizations with HTML5-based development. This helps them to reduce custom development costs for all the platforms. Even though HTML-5 based apps are a cost-saver, it does not provide the advantage of leveraging the native APIs and device capabilities.

3) Hybrid apps (Native + HTML5): Another approach is to include both HTML5 and native development, and adapt the core functionality of all platforms. Depending on the business requirements, you can choose the right platform.

The key method to have the best enterprise is to choose the right framework which is capable enough to meet the changing technology and user requirements.

• Maintain a policy to manage the app within the enterprise

As mobile applications are becoming widespread, enterprises need to ensure that their IT departments control what employees can install and remove from their mobile devices. Also, ensure standard applications and configurations to help the employees derive maximum benefit from their mobile devices.

The system of MAM, i.e., mobile application management is all about managing the apps installed on a user’s device. This has already been used by the organisations through desktops. Now they have to follow the same in mobile devices. MAM provides a higher level of control over the applications.

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Capabilities required for Mobile App Management

1) Authorization
2) OTA application provisioning
3) Regular monitoring of app performance and delivery
4) User and group access control
5) Update the app versions
6) Analyse the usage
7) Event management, reporting and tracking

• Security check for the application

This is the most challenging part of creating an application. With the rapid growth of mobile devices, applications, information protection is critical than before. Particularly when you develop mobile applications for highly regulated industries such as finance and healthcare. Right from password enforcement, data encryption, virus protection etc. organizations need to use robust application security measures to prevent data theft and loss.

Main Security policies that should be followed:

1) Models of devices to be used
2) Minimum requirements needed within the device
3) Networks, data, application etc. permitted to access
4) SSL certificates (data files that digitally bind a cryptographic key to the data of the enterprise)

• Ownership

App management requires a central figure to ensure that they don’t go wrong and loose direction. These project leaders will have to analyse the app from the start to the finish.

• Take regular data analytics

It’s important to get to know who all are using your app and how they’re being used. The continuous analysis of these things will help you improve your organisation’s app environment. The things you should keep an eye out are the number of active users, the number of versions and the number of downloads.

• Keep the user expectations in mind

Since enterprise apps are used on a regular basis, the expectation of the user also increases on the side of design menu, loading time, appearance etc. Human resource is the most valuable thing for any company. Each employee has a different set of experiences and this can be effectively utilized while making the app.

• Estimating the Costs

Making and testing of an app is an expensive act and requires up-to-date cost calculations and implementation. Enterprise Apps actually optimize the processing of the company and results in increasing efficiency which can lead to cost reductions. Thus, before going in for making an enterprise app, the purpose and effectiveness of the app should be well studied and calculated.

• Accessing app functionality

While testing the finally developed app, the loading time and functionality are the main things to be checked. Checking for the bugs and other issues is also important. Slow and dysfunctional apps become reasons for user irritation and can harm the company’s reputation.

• Compatibility with all devices

Each device has its own variations and it should be well tested that the app works within all devices. This also ensures that the maximum number of devices including Android, iOS and Windows are used in order to confirm the smooth usage of the app over all platforms.

Whether it is a large/small enterprise, the strategy to have an enterprise mobile application is a key to stay ahead in the current business environment. No one can escape enterprise mobility for sure because technology has been pushing forward so much. Therefore, the question is how soon and how effectively you can make this transformation in your business.

Posted on September 16, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Bringing in millions in profit by selling apps can seem hype, but we are not talking about admiring anything by its face value. Being a start-up or being an established Android or iOS app development company is not something that will invariably determine the success of an app.

Yet, at an earlier point, it is important to learn how to create what you want to create. Here are the most important things that you need to know before starting Android or iOS app development as a business.

Must Read:

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Get an Understanding about the Abundant Opportunities

It is essential that the entrepreneurs stepping into the app development industry recognize the abundant opportunities that are accessible by them. They shouldn’t falter in being aware of the growing mobile app market and the latest tools and trends. Otherwise, it is possible that they might encounter difficulties later, that will prevent steady growth.

Apart from that, you must check if you are starting a business that is right for your area of expertise. You should also check if you have enough resources available in your area. If not, you should be willing to consider outsourcing the work. For instance, imagine that you suddenly get a requirement for hiring a new skilled personnel, who seems to be not available in your area. Here, the only option seems to be outsourcing.

Understand the Marketplace and the New Form of Business Happening there

Many of us have seen different world markets and has got some basic idea about what sells and what does not. But, when we talk about market in the mobile app development space, we do not mean the ordinary markets or even a physical market of some sort. We are talking about the app store here.

Everyone should keep a watch on the market quite earlier than venturing into the business. Download the most successful apps and the failed ones. Try to figure out the common traits in them. This will help to develop a sense of the existing demand and allows one to explore into the world of innovative and promising ideas further ahead. For those targeting iOS app development, Apple’s cheat sheet will help a great deal.

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Starting an Android/ iOS App Development Company

Once you have decided to carry on with this business, you need to register yourself as a developer, so that you can publish your apps in the respective app stores with a developer account. You can opt the platform of your choice and fulfill the requirements to complete registration, which includes an annual fee and acceptance of the terms of service. For starters, it is always better to begin with iOS app development than Android, as iPhone users are more likely to try new apps from new developers.

Hire the Workforce

Hiring is often a laborsome and lengthy process. First of all, you need to prepare a rough document of expected employee duties and desired qualifications to post the job on various job sites. Then you need to interview them and filter them out through multiple screening episodes. Apart from programmers, a mobile app development company need designers, marketing team, project managers etc.

You should get all your employees to sign a non disclosure agreement before hiring, to protect your various data and intellectual properties. From there, you can begin setting up timelines and goals for each of your employees and teams to move forward with mobile app development. Developing and finalizing your app idea, designing prototype, building the back and front-ends, coding, testing, deployment, marketing, and maintenance are the next steps to be followed.