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Adopt Top Android App Development Trends to Witness Massive Growth

Android, since its inception, has come a long way with a market share of about 86% Android-based smartphones globally. The adoption of this operating system has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, increasing the demand for Android applications.

Android app developers believe that the future of app development is quite promising, thanks to emerging technologies and trends. Businesses must incorporate these trends into their apps to experience massive growth and deliver the best customer experience.

Now let’s dive in to explore these Android app development trends and how you can make your app better than ever.

Instant Apps

An Android instant app isn’t a new kid on the block but has been gaining momentum since its emergence. The core idea behind these apps is to allow your users to test out a portion of your app without installing it on a device. It helps you to boost the installation rate of your app.

This is particularly a powerful technology for e-commerce businesses and game developers. Android instant apps enable users to play a game to a particular level. If the users find it interesting, they can download the game to their device. 

The same goes for an e-commerce business. When customers search for a product on Google, they are redirected to instant apps that provide all the necessary product-related information. Thus, businesses belonging to the e-commerce industry can provide a better customer experience with an instant app.

From the Android app developers’ perspective, an instant app is relatively is easy to create. They can develop an app from scratch or transform your existing app using Android Studio, an integrated development environment (IDE).

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Nowadays, almost everybody has experienced the benefits of AI in various aspects of life. However, when it comes to Android app development, artificial intelligence has a lot more to offer.

AI in Android applications allows you to improve customers’ experience by providing them with personalized offerings. You can quickly analyze customer behavior, product preferences, and interactions with your app, allowing you to devise better engagement plans.

Simply put, you can gather, store, and process a vast amount of data by integrating AI and ML into your app. Besides, you can also perform tasks like text recognition, face recognition, landmark recognition, barcode scanning, image labeling, and more.

TensorFlow Lite, Firebase MLKit, Google Cloud Vision API, and Neural Network API are some of the tools to develop such functionalities in your Android application.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT apps allow users to track their daily activities and processes. It has been anticipated that the IoT market will reach $1.6 trillion in 2025. 

Being the biggest player in the market, Android is the preferred choice of businesses and Android app developers to build IoT applications. The combination of IoT and Android is quite useful for industries like healthcare, energy, e-commerce, Agriculture, and more.

For instance, a lot of IoT-based healthcare devices now track health conditions and transfer collected data to doctors. It helps doctors to diagnose their patients remotely.

Besides, IoT also plays a significant role in education. A lot of learning projects like C-Pen, Edmodo, and Nymi have integrated IoT to facilitate learning across the globe.

Android Jetpack

Android Jetpack is a suite full of libraries, tools, and guidelines for developers to build advanced apps. The primary goal of this suite is to facilitate regular app development tasks.

Google provides structured documentation, making it easy for Android app developers to use this tool. Mainly, there are four main components that we have outlined below.

Foundation – This component offers cross-cutting functionality like testing, backward compatibility, and Kotlin language support.

Architecture – It helps in developing robust, testable, and maintainable Android apps.

Behavior – These components allow developers to incorporate standard Android services like notifications, sharing, permissions, and more into the app.

UI – UI components provide widgets and helpers to make Android apps user-friendly.

Thus, the all-encompassing Android Jetpack expedites and facilitates the app development process.

Beacon and Location-Based Services

Google launched the Beacon platform to make apps and devices operate smartly due to timely and contextual information. This technology is used to define the precise location and contextual cues within applications and help users navigate the world. In brief, when a device comes in the range of a beacon, it gathers the users’ information like current position and what’s around.

Besides, a myriad of Android app developers shows inclinations toward location-based services (LBS) as they enhance users’ experience by providing real-time information. The huge success of Pokemon Go, a location-based augmented reality app, has elevated the demand for such apps or games.

The LBS can be implemented in various areas such as retail, marketing, indoor mapping, navigation, payment portals, tourism, and more.

Final Words

While Android app development trends continue to come and go, it is vital to quickly evaluate the latest technology updates and identify and seize opportunities.

These are some of the key trends having to potent to revolutionize your business and foster its growth. Though we have missed on many other Android app trends, but remember that not every trend is going to add value to your business. So, only adopt those that you think can take your business to the next level. 

For more information or figure out which trend suits the best to your business, approach our Android app developers.

Native, Web, or Hybrid Mobile App Development: What to Choose in 2020?

Mobile devices have reinvented the way people go online. The Statista reports that the number of smartphone users in 2020 is 3.5B, which translates to 45.04% of the world’s population. This number is likely to increase by several hundred million in the coming years, making smartphones a primary way of going online.

Businesses devising to capitalize on this trend are encountering the challenge of understanding the diverse and ever-changing mobile ecosystem. The surge in smartphone adoption and the evolving user behavior is affecting the mobile app development process. One of the most challenging decisions you may face is whether to go with the mobile web app, native app, or hybrid mobile app development.

Mobile Web App:  A web application is basically a mobile-friendly website developed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and probably other web technologies. Users access the mobile web apps using a mobile web browser.

Native App: A native application is developed for a specific platform using programming languages supported by the platform, such as Swift for the iOS platform and Java for the Android platform.     

Hybrid App: A hybrid app is a mobile web app that runs natively on an operating system (OS). Developed using HTML, CSS, and Javascript, hybrid applications are further wrapped in a native shell, which can be deployed to multiple mobile devices.

Once, the distinctions between mobile web and native apps were very clear. However, the increase in hybrid mobile app development is changing the decision matrix. Some of the important considerations that can facilitate decision making are explained below.

Device API

The device API allows a mobile application to interface with the device’s hardware and native functionalities like push notifications, GPS, camera, dashboard widgets, and contact. Earlier, this was deemed a major benefit for native applications. But now, hybrid apps utilize native shells to access the full device API. However, mobile web applications have limited native access because they use the mobile browser’s device API.

Speed

Native applications run faster across all the operating systems. On the contrary, hybrid and mobile web apps operate on top of the extra layers which consume computing resources and reduce the app speed. However, a general thumb rule is that unless the application is graphics intensive, speed should not be a major concern for hybrid or mobile web apps.

Development and Maintenance Cost

Development cost is the key advantage for hybrid and mobile web applications as they can be developed once and then deployed to all major platforms. However, deploying a native application to iOS and Android requires writing two different codes for both the platforms.

Besides, native apps incur high maintenance costs since they need quick updates when new versions of the OS are rolled out. Similarly, mobile web and hybrid apps also need to be updated when new versions of the release, but the mobile browser or the shell makes this task easier.

Development process

Since mobile web and hybrid apps are typically built using HTML, CSS, and Javascript, their development process closely mirrors the website development process. Developers can leverage an array of libraries and hybrid app frameworks to develop an app for specific or multiple platforms.

However, the options are limited when it comes to native app development. In this case, cross-platform deployment requires separate applications for each platform. Thus, the development process becomes time-consuming and expensive in the case of native apps.

Offline functionality

Native apps can easily store and retrieve data on the devices so that users can access them even when they don’t have an internet connection. Similarly, hybrid apps can function without the internet because they run in a native shell. However, most web applications face difficulty in functioning when there is no internet connectivity.

Time-to-Market and Distribution Method

Mobile web and hybrid apps have faster time-to-market as compared to native apps. Besides, a hybrid app can easily be distributed like a native app (via an app store or direct download) or mobile web app (via web browsing). Thus, we can say a single codebase has ample benefits when it comes to go-to-market time and easy distribution.

Final Words

The final decision depends on your business goals and requirements. But hybrid app development is the only approach that can yield you the benefits of both the mobile web and native apps. Faster time-to-market, lower development and maintenance costs, wider audience reach, and intuitive features and UX are some of the advantages of hybrid apps. So, if you think hybrid apps can suffice your business requirements and yield you intended outcomes, approach the experts of our hybrid app development company.

How much does it Cost to Develop a React Native Application?

It is not so long ago when appreneurs shifted their interests from developing native apps to cross-platform apps. React Native, the earliest hybrid app framework brought forth this app development methodology in the market. And now, this framework and approach have gained immense popularity among app developers and businesses all over the globe.

Both startups and established companies know why React Native app development is a smart choice for their business. So, they are showing a strong desire to figure out the cost to develop a React Native application and embrace this cost-effective approach.

Now, let’s cut the crap and take a deep dive into how to determine the app development cost.

React Native app development cost – The Contributing Elements

React Native app developers believe that the cost required to develop an application depends upon a number of factors. Below, we have explained all the elements you must take into account to decide the React Native app development cost.

App’s Complexity

Every application available in the stores can be segmented into three categories – Low Complexity, Medium Complexity, and High Complexity. This segmentation depends upon below-written factors:

Admin Panel – The admin panel is the backbone of every application as it helps businesses keep track of their activities, view stats, and update content without the need for React Native app developers. The more features you add in your admin panel, the more will be the app’s complexity.

Backend – You can develop the app backend in two ways i.e., Custom or Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS). In the custom option, you will get your own mobile app architecture, while in the case of BaaS, you work around a readymade backend architecture.

In-App Purchase – Though most apps, launched in the market, have in-app purchase functionality, this feature is hard to integrate. Also, the number of in-app purchase options is in direct proportion to the complexity of your React Native app.

Third-Party Integration – In order to be more user friendly, your app requires to integrate with other app’s functionality to facilitate login or payments. These integrations are slightly more complicated in a React Native app as compared to other native apps.

Integration with Enterprise/Legacy Systems – Sometimes, the React Native app has to be connected with in-house legacy systems such as enterprise apps. This kind of project automatically falls under the scale of medium to high complexity.

User Authorization

If you’re devising to create a React Native app that requires user login or authorization, the cost would be a bit more than the app that doesn’t require role-based authorization checks.

App Category

The app category can be determined by various elements like functionality set, security considerations, real-time user count, and more. These intricacies significantly affect the cost of developing a React Native app. For instance, a standalone app, such as a calculator, will cost far less than that of a feature-packed on-demand app.

App Design

A well-devised design can boost your in-app user engagement. An app that has an efficient user flow, smooth transitions to move from one screen to another, and well-timed animation will help you to improve your user base. But designing intuitive screens and experience comes with a huge cost.

However, the good news is that the designing cost of a React Native app is much lower than a Native app. The best of all is that only one app needs to be designed in the case of React Native app development.

App Maintenance

To live up to users’ expectations and enhance user retention as well as engagement, you will have to update your app regularly. According to our React Native app development company, app maintenance has three different processes:

  • App Updates
  • Design Changes
  • App bug fixes

The app maintenance cost is estimated yearly as 20% of the entire React Native app development cost.

Developer’s Experience

The experience is one of the most significant aspects to evaluate the cost to develop an application. If you want to hire React Native app developers having profound experience, you have to invest a hefty amount in your project.

However, if you approach less experienced developers, you can build your app at a low cost. But we are worried whether an inexperienced developer knows the best practices that impact or improve the React Native app performance. So, the experience is a crucial price altering factor.

Team Size

The cost of building an app varies according to the size of the development team. When you hire React Native app developers, you have three options:

  • You can hire freelancers
  • You can collaborate with a mid-cap company
  • You can collaborate with a high-cap company

Basically, hiring freelancers to develop your application is the most cost-effective option. But, it is not a good idea when it comes to quality. On the contrary, if you partner with a high-cap company, their base price would be very high as they have set standards in the market.

This is why you must tap into a mid-cap company whose hourly base price starts at $20-$40. These companies are more open to execute innovative app ideas because they strive to drive their growth by delivering state-of-the-art projects.

Company’s Location

The location of your outsourced React Native app development company plays a vital role in determining the cost to create an app. Different countries have different app development rates. For instance, a company in North America or Australia would charge a lot higher than that of an Eastern or Indian company.

Moreover, if you hire developers from India, you will get the same work done at a much lower rate as compared to a US company.

Final Words

So, this is all about the factors that can help you in deciding the React Native app development cost. Each one of these factors collectively answers to how much does it cost to develop a React Native application.

Now, we would say that if a native app development costs around $30k-$50k, building the same app with React Native will reduce the cost by up to 30-40%.

So, if you want to create a high-performance app within a minimal cost and budget, partner with our React Native app development company.

Revealing Powerful Features for a Successful Social Media App

Social media apps have taken a significant part of our lives. From individuals to businesses, everyone has a purpose of staying active on social media platforms. These apps not only provide personal networking opportunities but also serve as robust business tools. So, we can say that social media is all over the place, and its scope is unimaginable, unavoidable, and incredible.

From a business perspective, the niche of social media has become one of the most promising markets. And the businesses are investing heavily in iOS/Android app development services to create a social media app and leverage the opportunities offered by this market.

However, there are several essential aspects you need to consider, such as key features before embarking on a social media app development journey. Integrating effective features into your social media app can make a matchless impact on your business growth and yield you impressive outcomes.

Top Features of a Social Media App

Currently, there are various types of social media apps, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, and more. Each of these apps has its own unique features. Before deciding the features, you must first determine the type of social media app that suits your business. Below, we are revealing basic yet powerful features that can be incorporated into all kinds of social media apps and pave your grounds for success.

User Profile Customization

On social media platforms, users are always eager to create an impressive profile as per their state of mind, interests, and status. They want to feel unique and show the world how creative and extraordinary they are. So, you can allow them to customize their profile with their favorite display picture, preferred username, a short bio, and so on. It will give them complete control over their profile and a feeling of satisfaction.

Easy Network Building

A social networking application is of no use if it can’t help users to build a network.  Connecting and interacting with new people is the prime concept of social media. Thus, enabling users to create a social network by adding or following people easily will give them a reason to stay active on your app.

News Feed and Content Sharing

The reason why social media apps like Instagram and Facebook have managed to stand out is their ability to show engaging content on the users’ news feed. For users, a social media app is a platform to express their views, thoughts, and showcase their talent or achievements. So, you can allow them to view and share content in the form of stories, photos, videos, and audios. It will help them to improve interaction with the people through likes, comments, or shares, and thus grow their network.

In-App Chat and Calling

No matter how much users enjoy public conversation in comments, they will always wish to have a private chat with their favorite ones. Enabling them to message or call them through your app will help them strengthen their connections with each other. You can also give them a provision to create a group of people in their network and communicate with all of them simultaneously.

Live Video Streaming

Live video streaming has taken the social media world by storm since its inception. Using your app, users can stream live video to celebrate an occasion, exchange ideas, and more with their network. Hence, they will be able to create moments of joy and spend quality time with their online family.

Push Notifications

Real-time push updates about content through push notifications can make your social networking application more appealing. This functionality also informs users whenever an interaction takes place on their profile. Thus, sending push notifications will prompt your users to open your app and give them little happiness time after time.

Privacy and Security

Providing an advanced level of privacy and security to users’ data is paramount for the success of your social media app. It will ensure that the users can securely access your application, and their personal details are devoid of vulnerabilities. In this way, you will be able to gain their trust and establish a long-term relationship with them.

Bottom Line

A social media application can be the most significant investment for your business growth. A habit-forming or compelling app will have all the above features as they keep users engaged for a long period. Also, they can help you generate high revenue and gain popularity in the market. So, if you are looking forward to creating a social media app reinforced with robust features, approach the iOS/Android app developers of our company.

How IoT Apps Can Improve Customer Experience

The Internet of Things has been gaining momentum with each passing day. The technology has already paved its way to the smartphone territory in the form of mobile apps and connected devices. Driven by excellent mobile capabilities, IoT is deemed to have an inevitable impact on customer or user experience. It provides deeper connectivity to the world, and businesses can easily observe, understand, and analyze their customer behavior using an IoT app. Thus, most businesses seek the best IoT application development company to create a smart app and deliver the best customer experience.

Now, let’s get an in-depth understanding of how you can improve customer experience with an IoT app.

Provide Better Services and More Convenience

IoT allows businesses to offer the same or better services at a lower cost than their conventional methods. Using an IoT app, you can remotely monitor and maintain equipment without human intervention. Passing these savings onto customers in the form of better features and technology can help you provide them more convenience and maintain an impactful end-user experience.

Understand Customer Behavior in More Depth

Understanding customer’s behavior is one of the necessities for every business to thrive. It enables you to optimize your mobile app experiences to please even the most critical customers. Businesses that overlook this aspect are unlikely to retain a steady and repeat customer base.

With IoT development services, you can garnet relevant information, data, and statistics about customers using social media, mobile internet, video surveillance, GPS devices, and more.

Moreover, IoT-based apps provide ample benefits, including seamless payment process, faster shipping notifications, and easier return processes. By keeping track of users’ activities and keeping them updated with their return history, transactions, and more, can help you ensure the best customer experience.

Generate Better Research with Automation

In today’s technological landscape, IoT, AI, and data science have become indispensable. These technologies are sufficing the never-ending demand for data. Automating data collection via in-app surveys, feedback, browsing trends, and app usage gives profound insights into how customers think. You can also use your company’s own data to optimize the user experience and provide better-personalized communications.

Give Consistent Experience to Users

From the customers’ perspective, an IoT application is beneficial in many ways. You can ensure consistent customer experience by displaying real-time data about their product shipment, their health, and other activities. This consistency is invaluable for customers and will ultimately trigger positive feelings for your brand, creating a potentially loyal customer.

Besides, an IoT app allows you to take your business productivity to a higher level, allowing employees to focus on other tasks. As IoT facilitates real-time measurement, it is easy to monitor your business output at any time. Another benefit of IoT is that you can optimize your to-do lists and employee schedules.

Drive More Efficient Data Environment

Connected devices create an IoT ecosystem that generates a massive amount of data. To ensure the security of this sensitive and private information, encryption and safe storage have become a top priority.

However, in this age of edge computing, many IoT devices have eliminated the need for accessing data storage to generate, analyze, and report metrics in real-time. This faster solution provides users with better prediction, more accuracy, and more trustworthy experience.

Final Words

Internet of Things is rapidly becoming one of the key propellers for mobile app development. Businesses must embrace IoT to stay ahead of the curve as this technology will continue to open new doors of opportunities.

In order to leverage IoT benefits and drive business growth, every player in the industry is investing in IoT development services. Besides, if we talk about customer experience, you’re missing out on valuable data without deep and increased insights into their customer behavior. So, we recommend you to approach a reliable IoT application development company to create a high-performance IoT app and maintain consistency in customer experience.

Top 7 Benefits of Hybrid Mobile App Development to Businesses

In this age of technological growth, the demand for mobile apps has increased drastically. They help businesses to gain a much-needed competitive edge in the market and drive their growth. Thus, mobile apps have evolved from being a simple app to a mission-critical platform.

Mobile applications are generally categorized into two types – Native app and Hybrid app. The choice of the app depends on business goals and user expectations. While Native apps are developed for a specific platform, hybrid mobile apps are known for their adaptability across various platforms. This concept boils down to building a single application that operates seamlessly on Android and iOS.

Below, we have outlined the key benefits of hybrid mobile app development and why it is a perfect fit for your business.

Advantages of a Hybrid App to Businesses

Low cost

Since hybrid app development is a unified approach, you don’t have to spend separately for creating different apps for different platforms. Hybrid app frameworks allow developers to build a single app version, along with writing and maintaining individual codebases for multiple platforms. Thus, this approach can help you save a significant amount of money.

Another secret benefit of this approach is that you can release the MVP to hit the market before your competitors.

Native Experience with Simple Backend

A hybrid app provides excellent user experience like a native app, along with simplifying the backend structure. You can consult with a hybrid app development company to choose the best hybrid framework and create a UX that connects to device-specific functionalities. Also, the UX of a hybrid app stays seamless while fixing bugs and updating the app, and users feel no difference if they shift from one device platform to another.

Enhanced UI/UX

Consistent performance and attractive designs are two key elements that drive more users to an application. With hybrid mobile app development, you can ensure appealing and intuitive UI/UX on each platform. Due to this, these apps are more welcomed to the app store and play store than native apps. Moreover, users don’t encounter issues like low performance or loading time while using a hybrid app. This makes the hybrid app a preferable choice for businesses that seek maximum user engagement on both Android and iOS operating systems.

High-Speed Performance

Hybrid applications have set mighty standards in terms of speed and performance. In fact, they run even faster than responsive and progressive apps, owing to no dependency on network communication. Besides, a hybrid app exhibits high speed on all devices, even if there is a massive amount of traffic. For instance, Twitter and LinkedIn, which handle an overwhelming amount of users, have proven their high speed and performance standards.

Offline Support

Like Native apps, hybrid applications also use the device’s API to store useful data offline. This feature benefits those users who have limited data consumption plans, live in underdeveloped areas, or have a connection that often gets interrupted. With offline usage capabilities of a hybrid app, users can still access some of the app’s features even if there is no internet connection. Thus, they can use your mobile app without frustration.

Ease of Integration

Since hybrid apps use the device’s programming language to synchronize with other compatible applications, developers don’t have to face hassles associated with the integration. As a result, hybrid applications work perfectly with cameras, messaging, GPS, and other device’s environment to deliver the best user experience. This can also contribute to enhancing users’ satisfaction as well as their reliability on your app.

Easy Maintenance

Easy maintenance is another advantage of hybrid mobile app development. For native applications, the app developers have to introduce new versions with each update. Also, users have to update their apps with the release of every new version. However, a hybrid app avoids versioning and makes app maintenance as easy as updating a web page, that too, in real-time.

Final Words

Due to the fierce competition in the market today, it is imperative to invest in the approach that demands lower cost and offers more benefits. Hybrid apps not only resolve the issue of targeting different platforms with different apps but also help in finding the quickest spot in the online app store market. So, if you want to stay unparalleled and grow exponentially, collaborate with an experienced hybrid app development company.

Key Features of a Music Streaming App You Must Consider

Music is a way to soothe emotions through lyrics or melodies. Whether it is a gloomy day or a house party, a single song is enough to change the mood and make the day more relaxing or energetic. The way it connects with our soul, it is no surprise why music streaming apps are gaining popularity globally.

Now that’s one of the main reasons why business-minded people are investing in music streaming app development. They are envisioning the opportunities they can unlock by launching a music app. So, most businesses hire React Native app developers to create a high-performance application and step in the market quickly.

If you’re also devising to embark on a music streaming app development journey, here is a list of few features you must consider to make your app stand out.

Features of a Music Streaming Application

Discover Favorite Track Easily

Allowing users to discover music by category is the first and foremost feature to take into account. It must be easier for users to find their favorite songs by artist, album, or genre, from all-time hits to the latest and trending tracks. Also, providing users with music recommendations based on their music tastes will give them a reason to choose your app over other music applications.

Personalized Playlist

Another feature to consider while building a music application is a personalized playlist where users can include their favorite songs. In fact, they can create different playlists for different moods like driving, working, boozing, reading, and more. Besides, you can suggest users with fan-chart playlist, top-chart playlist, and new releases so that they can binge-listen to them with a single click on the list.

Give Access to Online and Offline Songs

Providing instant access to millions of songs and tracks that users can listen online as well as offline can help your app gain massive traction. For online mode, users need to have a stable internet connection. However, to listen to offline music, they can download their favorite songs with a single tap and access them anytime. This feature is also useful in low network areas.

Social Media Integration

Since a lot of users love to share their favorite songs or the latest tracks with their friends or family, it is imperative to add social media sharing feature to your app. With this feature, users will not only share music via Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. but also create a positive vibe for your brand. This, in turn, will give positive exposure to your brand and improve your brand recognition.

Live Streaming

Live streaming can help your music app stand out from the competition. Through proper channels, music lovers can stream live concerts and events of various artists. Thus, you can keep up with their interests and boost their happiness.

Updates and Notifications

Keeping users updated with the new release and nearby music events through push notifications or alerts will enhance their reliance on your application. It will also provide you a direct line of communication with your customers.

Subscriptions

Besides in-app advertisements, the subscription is another way to improve revenue with your music streaming application. You can provide users with free access to music with ads at regular intervals. However, with a subscription, users will be able to enjoy ad-free music and access premium audio content.

Final Words

To wrap up, we would say that the idea of developing a music streaming application is indeed profitable. Integrating the above mentioned features into your application will not only help you unlock new revenue opportunities but also shine in the market. You just have to collaborate with an experienced React Native app development company to instantly create an app music lovers would love across the globe.

A Guide on Converting an Android App into iOS or Vice Versa

Developing an application for a single platform is a rational decision for most businesses, especially if they are exploring new client acquisition channels or have limited resources. Sadly, it also results in losing potential users hanging out on the other platform or operating system (OS). So, businesses tend to port their iOS app to Android or vice versa in case the first app yields them intended results. Porting also helps them to unleash new opportunities for user acquisition, access new markets, and generate more revenue.

As a business owner, you should understand the ins and outs of converting an app from one platform to another before investing in iOS/Android app development services. So, we have created a guide on porting an Android app to iOS or vice versa, along with the challenges you must consider for this purpose.

How to Convert Android App to iOS and Vice Versa

Firstly, the best option to convert an app is to collaborate with a reliable mobile app development company. In this scenario, you have to provide the source code, documentation, and media resources like icons and illustrations to your partner.

Secondly, never use any kind of app converting platforms because they only result in an unstable, non-functioning app with lots of bugs. Businesses prefer to count on iOS/Android app developers to plan the development process and ensure accurate conversion on each layer.

Moreover, you must also understand that porting an app is a time-consuming process as developers have to create an app from scratch. For example, Airbnb took 14 months to convert its iOS app to Android.  

Tech Challenges of Porting an App

Since we have already covered how to convert an app, let’s jump on the challenges you may encounter during this process.

Different Program Languages –

Mobile app developers use different programming languages for creating apps for Android and iOS platforms. For instance:

Android – Java/Kotlin

iOS – Objective-C/Swift

Applications can also be built using other programming languages, but the above ones are official and most widely used for mobile app development.

Again, translating the code written in one language to another language is not an easy task. It demands a lot of time and effort from developers to make it work. Additionally, every programming language has its own syntax, and the time required to develop the same feature using different languages may differ to a large extent. So, iOS and Android app developers work in tandem to convert applications with no compromise on the quality.

Adaptation for Various OS Versions –

Since Android and iOS versions are updated every year, many users don’t update the latest OS version willingly or unwillingly. So, your app should operate at least on the most popular versions of the operating system.

If you want to convert an Android app into iOS, the situation is more likely to be in your favor since most of the iOS users use its latest version.

However, if you want to port an iOS app to Android, you need to research updated statistics regarding the adoption of the Android OS version. In this case, the situation is a bit complicated since the user count of Android’s latest version is relatively lesser than the previous version. Besides, a significant amount of users are still sticked to earlier versions of Android, like Oreo, Pie, and Nougat.

Anyway, you don’t have to worry about this aspect as your iOS/Android app developers will take care of this. You just have to name the OS versions your target audience uses, and they will overcome this challenge easily.

A Variety of Screen Sizes and Resolutions –

To convert an Android app to iOS, mobile app developers have to adapt the application’s layout to various screen sizes as well as resolutions. In this case, the list of screen sizes is shorter. However, we can’t say the same while converting from iOS to Android, as there are hundreds of Android devices having different resolutions and screen sizes.

But you will be glad to know that Android allows developers to support multiple screen densities by adjusting the app for several resolutions. Subsequently, the application will be automatically adjusted to other screens.

UI/UX Challenges of Porting an App

Like tech, UI/UX challenges are also worth minding while porting. After all, iOS and Android both have different design languages – Material and Flat. So, the development team should also consider the design guidelines provided by Google and Apple to ensure excellent user experience.

Let’s take a look at a few differences between designing applications for iOS and Android.

Fonts –

Android and iOS have a standard typeface i.e., Roboto and San Francisco, respectively. The guidelines of both operating systems specify different use cases for their system fonts by means of various weights, sizes, and letter spacings. This makes the fonts look more natural within a system.

Icons –

The app icons of both systems are also slightly different. Developers must know that all iOS icons have the same shape – a square with rounded corners – and they can’t have a transparent background. However, Android icons can have a transparent background and any shape that fits the icon area.

Apart from these differences, many other factors are considered to convert an app preserving a good user experience. Some of them are bottom navigation/tab bars, navigation drawers, and app bars/navigations bars.

Testing

Testing will determine whether porting an app from one platform to another passes or not. There can be too many possible bugs to overlook this phase. So, make sure your mobile app development ally has skilled QA engineers to plan a comprehensive testing strategy that covers code testing, UX testing, and more.

Final Words

Whether you’re converting an Android app to iOS or vice versa, you will have to plan meticulously and execute the process right. Porting demands a profound understanding of logic and coding, so we suggest investing in iOS/Android app development services to overcome the challenges and get results that might exceed your expectations.

How IoT Plays a Significant Role in E-commerce Sector

The E-commerce industry is witnessing unprecedented technological growth. With the ever-changing people’s lifestyle mainly driven by digitization, it has become essential for e-commerce businesses to leverage the latest technologies and enhance consumers’ shopping experience. However, when it comes to IoT or Internet of Things, this technology has created a buzz in the market. IoT-enabled devices exchange data with one another within a network that enables retail as well as e-commerce businesses to perform their operations seamlessly and efficiently.

The retail investment on the IoT app development services has reached billions. The advent of IoT devices like a smart mirror that allows customers to try on clothes virtually has radically transformed the way we shop online. Thus, IoT has gained high momentum in the e-commerce sector over the years.

Below, we have explained how IoT plays a crucial role in e-commerce industry.

Inventory Management

IoT has facilitated the entire inventory management. The IoT sensors and RFID tags continuously streamline monitoring as well as tracking of various inventory items, eliminating the need for human intervention. Information like the manufacturer’s name, product type, expiry date, and batch IDs can automatically be stored within the system, leveraging IoT.

Moreover, smart shelves considerably improve the customer experience by eliminating the stock unavailability issue. They can easily track the total number of sold items and automatically place orders when the stock reaches the reorder point. 

Warehousing

Besides managing inventory, the IoT sensors like temperature monitors can check the optimum temperature of various perishable items and even send alerts if required.  Some IoT sensors can also examine the forklifts for predictive maintenance, reducing the overall productivity loss.

Currently, Amazon is using warehouse robots to improve the efficacy of the picking and packaging process. These robots move rapidly and even load tons of parcels. IoT app developers are working relentlessly to incorporate this technology into e-commerce business for better product management.

Supply Chain Management

An uninterrupted and efficient supply chain management is quite essential for the success of an e-commerce business. IoT expedites the process of moving products from one particular place to another. It also facilitates the real-time tracking of various items from the production stage to their final delivery. GPS and RFID technology not only help in tracking items but also give complete information about the temperature, location, and more.

Additionally, IoT helps in managing the route as well as the speed of the shipped items along with predicting the products’ delivery time and averting loss of shipments or misplacement.

Improving Consumer Experience

IoT allows e-commerce businesses to stay one step ahead of their competitors. This technology enables them to deliver a higher level of personalized experience to their customers, leading to enhanced customer satisfaction as well as engagement. Furthermore, IoT offers personalized advertising and marketing opportunities to target a particular group of customers easily. It can also identify different shopping patterns on search trends, which enables businesses to sell targeted items to different customers.

Leveraging IoT, businesses can tailor products, services, and offers according to their customers’ preferences. With the availability of massive data about consumer behavior, it becomes quite easy to attract customers and even influence their purchase decisions. IoT also contributes to improving the overall customer service by anticipating issues or complaints before they occur. This leads to prompt resolution as well as a seamless customer experience.

Conclusion

With the proper usage of sensors and other IoT components, IoT is believed to have a significant impact on the entire e-commerce spectrum. The more the devices get connected, the more data will be garnered to improve the consumer experience. Besides, the increasing IoT adoption in this industry will result in better inventory management, tracking of thefts and losses, along with the optimum product delivery. Thus, we can anticipate that the e-commerce sector will undoubtedly witness massive revenue growth in the foreseeable future.

If you also belong to e-commerce industry and want to stay ahead in the wave of digital advancements, investing in IoT app development services would be the best idea.

List of Leading Databases for React Native App Development

React Native app development has become a prime choice for SMEs seeking rapid growth while saving time and money. The increasing demand for this approach is encouraging React Native app developers to create high-performance offline-first applications that can be scaled whenever required. This, in turn, has led them to take a lot of prerequisites into account for developing robust cross-platform apps. React Native database is one of the most important factors among them, which is also deemed the backbone of an app.

In this article, we have curated a few names that are worthy of being listed in leading React Native databases.

So let’s dive in…

Realm

The Realm database was launched for facilitating the development of real-time and offline apps, which run seamlessly on both mobile and wearable devices. The database is equally valuable when it comes to creating cross-platform apps using React Native. 

Realm has its own database engine and doesn’t rely on the key-value stores. This is why React Native app developers prioritize this database. Besides, it helps them in handling massive data and developing large-sized applications.

Benefits of Realm for React Native App Development:

1. Realm Sync – Realm synchronization services operate in the background to record and save the user interaction and the service requests offline. Once the device is online, it sends back data to the server and executes the operations without affecting the user experience.

2. Offline Friendliness through Redux Offline – For those seeking a way to integrate offline-first architecture for React Native applications through Realm, Redux can be the best option. Redux suffices almost all the arbitrary requirements of offline-based architecture.

3. Security – Realm utilizes various encryption standards for each mobile platform.

SQLite

SQLite is a relational database management system designed to provide local storage to mobile apps. This database has a lightweight library and requires minimal setup. The key benefit of SQLite is that it can be integrated within the app for accessing the database directly.

1. ACID-compliant – SQLite is an ACID-compliant database which implements SQL standards, although with some omissions. This database has a file-based architecture with some tools that can easily handle all types of data

2. Offline Persistence – To enable this functionality, developers can implement a react-native-SQLite-storage plugin to manage data within the application.

Firebase

Firebase supports real-time NoSQL database for React Native app development. It is mainly used for offline data synchronization as well as data modification. This database is completely capable of sufficing the requirements of M and C in MVC needed for React Native apps.

Benefits of Firebase for React Native App Development:

1. Real-Time Data Sync – The most significant advantage of using Firebase for React Native is that the data is synced in real-time across all the clients simultaneously. This plays a vital role when the app goes offline due to no internet connection.

2. Minimal Setup – Firebase offers a cross-platform API that requires minimal setup while using it within an app. Besides, React Native app developers won’t need an application server to access data as it can directly be done through a mobile device.

3. Offline Persistence – The blend of Firebase and React Native allows developers to create real-time applications having offline persistence capabilities. This includes marking users’ online or offline presence and storing a timestamp when users get disconnected.

PouchDB

PouchDB is an open-source JavaScript database that stores data in JSON format and allows developers to create, read, update, delete, and query objects using a simple JavaScript API. The API can be accessed with a single call on React Native, which is also a JavaScript-based platform. Additionally, PouchDB is compatible with CouchDB, MongoDB, MySQL, and PostgreSQL.

Benefits of PouchDB for React Native App Development:

1. PouchDB eliminates the need for performing queries over the network, as the database stays inside a browser. This results in faster and more optimized execution of the queries.

2. React Native app developers can sync data with any supported server, resulting in both online as well as the offline working of the application.

Async Storage Class

This is a local storage system designed to allow developers to store data locally and persistently over the device. The database comes in-built with React Native and can be used without additional deployment. However, Async storage is not suggested while dealing with massive data due to slow runtime and no indexing capabilities. 

Benefit of Async Storage for React Native App Development:

  • It enables developers to save data that the application needs to use even after the users close the application.

Vasern

Vasern is a fast, lightweight, and open-source database for React Native. The API of this database is used not only for local data storage but also for cloud storage as well as synchronization across the app’s clients. Vasern is developed using Goland, which is a server-side language introduced by Google. Besides, its design and structures are inspired by multiple open-source databases.

Benefits of Vasern for React Native App Development:

  • It is open-source
  • Focus on consistency and performance 
  • Write schemas. Create, Update, Query, and Delete records.
  • Developer friendly end-to-end database syncing
  • Operate quickly

Watermelon

Built on SQLite, Watermelon is a reactive database for React Native. It comes with the capability of scaling tens of thousands of records without losing its speed. The database is well-optimized for developing complex apps in React Native with maximum attention on real-world performance.

Benefits of Watermelon for React Native App Development:

Besides scaling a multitude of record, Watermelon allows developers to leverage React Native through:

  • Offline-first system
  • Static typing with Flow 
  • Developing apps on SQLite foundation

Final Words

While these are the leading React Native databases currently, there are plenty of other backend tools React Native app developers can use to build robust applications. The answer to which is the best database ultimately depends on the type of your project. To figure out which database would fit perfectly to your project and align with your requirements, approach the experts of our React Native app development company.

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