Month: December 2017

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Why Do Companies Outsource Their Mobile App Development Activities?

why company outsource mobile app development projects

Market for the apps is growing by leaps and bounds with every passing year. Development of apps has taken an exponential rise. Companies are looking to outsource their mobile app development activities to other mobile app development companies. But the big question is- why would they do so? They simply do it because they don’t have enough time, technical expertise, money, resources and experience.

A business is obsessed to rope in external sources to develop the mobile apps because they are driven by desire to save money. They scout for the companies that provide cheap and the best mobile app development. It is vital to have a great healthy working relationship with a technically strong organization as they must provide a professional working environment along with the timely delivery of quality products.

When we choose something, with every advantage, there come some disadvantages as well. So lets us look at some of the positives and negatives of outsourcing the mobile app to a company.

Advantages of outsourcing mobile App Development:–

  1. Saves lot of pocket money

The prime advantage of outsourcing mobile app development to an  is that it is very budget-friendly option. When you outsource app development, you will be charged only for work done by them; this can be done on an hourly basis on can be fixed payment according to your negotiation to the company.

 

You can cut off overhead costs which can help you to bring down the development price of your app. You will have to pay only for those features that you want in your app. So outsourcing is an affordable option where you don’t have to worry about the constant improvements in your in-house technical team.

 

  1. Convenient Technical Expertise and Resources

When you outsource your app, the outsourced mobile app development companies have dedicated teams which take care of your project right from the beginning till your mobile app comes up in the market. By selecting an external mobile app development enterprise, you can benefit the services of industry designers, experts, project managers, testers and marketers; all those experts who are linked with the outsourced company.

 

  1. Exploiting the technology

When we export our app to an agency, they have a dedicated team that is focussed on using the technology that suits your mobile app development requirements to bring out the best. Due to the mutual agreement, they use the best technology available.

 

  1. Time Saver

You might have heard proverb “Time is money”. Outsourcing your work saves you a lot of time as the outsourced company have to finish your project before the deadline. Huge amount of revenue is generated if the work is completed before time.

 

  1. 24/7 Support

The right support at the right time is very essential. Outsourced company provide 24/7 support to resolve any problem that may pop up during the mobile app development.

 

  1. Complete Transparency

Outsourcing your app provides you complete transparency over the app development according to your need. They provide certain tracking tools that are the milestones of progress linked with your project. This paves the way to create a healthy win-win relationship between both parties.

 

Disadvantages of outsourcing mobile App Development:-

  1. Data Privacy Insecurity

When you are hiring an external agency to develop you app, you are jeopardizing the confidentiality of data. So you must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) before handing over you project to the company. There are many freelancers who do not even care about the data privacy.

 

  1. Not much control over the App development process

When you hand over your project to the external party, you may loose track of what is happening on the other side- how your project is building up? Constant assessment of your project may not be possible due to remote access.

 

  1. Time Zone Gap Lapse

If the project is outsourced to a company of different time zone, then it may result in poor communication due to different time zones. To address this issue, project managers are hired to bridge the gap and constantly keeping you up to date about the current developments of you project.

Conclusion

You must outsource your project after keeping in mind all the pros and cons. The flaws can be corrected by in-depth analysis of the company, its reputation and the customer feedback in the reviews and blogs. The NDA must be signed by reading it completely to prevent any future glitches

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HOW TO CREATE A HYBRID APP WITH ANDROID STUDIO?

how to create hybrid app with android studio

There has been an exponential rise in the purchase of android devices. With this growth of android devices, the demand for the apps is constantly increasing.

What are hybrid apps?

Just like websites on the Internet, Hybrid apps are designed and developed using the web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Hybrid apps are similar to any other app on the phone. You can install and download them from the app store. The key difference is that hybrid apps are hosted inside a native application that uses mobile platform’s web view. This helps it to access all the capabilities like camera, accelerometer, sensors, contacts etc.

Android Studio is an easy to use Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that is used to develop android and hybrid apps. One can develop hybrid apps by following these simple steps:-

Design your Application

The first baby step towards building hybrid apps is designing your project. Before you start the development process, it is advisable to make sure that you have all the pre-requisites of the development process.

It is essential to have access to the features available in the browser if you are creating a pure HTML5 application. Make sure that you have all the pre-requisites in place. For example make Cordova CLI and the android SDK tools ready before going into the development phase. You will have to install Node.js before installing Cordova CLI.

Now, to install Cordova CLI, run the following commands

sudo npm install -g cordova

The next step is to download the Android SDK tools which you can download by clicking the following link…

http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html

 

HTML5 Mobile Framework Application

HTML5 Framework is the building block for creating an HTML 5 application. Another major tool JavaScript enables you to add animations, show/hide things on a website. Now in the next step, you can edit the index page of your website

Testing Application through Browser

HTML5 comes with an advantage that you can test the application through your local server browser. You can easily access your application by going through the following URL replacing MyHybridApp with the name of your app

http://localhost/MyHybridApp

If you are a chrome user, then you have added advantages. For example you can use Chrome DevTools to debug your application. You can even check the responsiveness of the app by clicking of the mobile icon on the top left side of the debugging page.

You can debug your application by inspecting the elements and using features like console, Network, source, application etc.

Packaging the application

To package the application, you will have to use third party applications like Xamarin and PhoneGap. Now, what these third party applications do is – they package the application in a native wrapper which acts as a bridge between the native API and your app. The application is loaded into the web view by the third party applications like PhoneGap. And this web view displays the application to the users.

Now, after the packaging of the application is done, we can generate a release version of the APK

Cordova build –release

When we have generated a release version, you can find your apk in the following location platforms/android/ant-build/MyHybridApp-release-unsigned.apk

To submit the apk in the app store, simply sign in and submit it.

The Testing Process

We know that we can test and debug our application using the chrome DevTools like console, Network, sources, application etc. But do you know that you can debug the application without using chrome development tools? We will have to run the application on actual device to test the hybrid app using native API.

One of the options on phone to debug app is GapDebug. By using this Gap Debug you can install .ipa files for IOS or .apk for android. It provides a debugging interface in which any kind of change in the interface will reflect the change in the application.

Distribution Process

Before you can launch the application on the play store, you will need to sign your application on app store. The pre-requisite for signing your application on the play store is to generate a keystore.

To create a keystore, one can use Java Keytool utility. This utility already comes with the standard JDK distribution and can be located at %JAVA_HOME%\bin. In windows, this can be found at C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin.

Final Process

After creating a keystore, you can easily sign in and users can install the uploaded app on the play store.

 

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Chatbots Trends To Look Forward To In 2018

app developer

As per the present prediction , almost 50 % of enterprises will spend more on chatbots implementation as compared to traditional mobile app development by 2021 .

Mobile app development companies are helping the way out for small and medium size companies  by facilatiting them to cope up with new trending technologies like intelligence chatbots implementation powered by Artificial Intelligence .

Chatbots are just the medium to chat via messages . If you think of , we all do chat by various available medium like Facebook messenger , WhatsApp . These all medium are really fast and reliable . Similarly chatbots can be implemented on business website and app to server their customer  directly through messages .

Chatbots has the ability to change the way organisation do their business and server customers . So we are nearing the end of 2017 , we can do the recap of technological things we can do in 2018 .

It’s a good time to welcome 2018  , in the world of endless opportunities , where lot more is to be discovered .

Growth In Voice Assistant Bots In Retail And Automation Industry

We have seen many of the top companies like Amazon , Google and Apple who have implemented the voice bots in their system for facilitating customers . Many other companies has also joined hands with them . In 2018 ,  growth is this industry is expected to be seen .

Chatbots With Dynamic Nature Will Become Popular

Chatbots will become more popular among customer and organisation due to its ability to handle any situation . Any customer wants immediate solution for their queries . Chatbots are capable enough to handle any situation whether it is sales related or retention of customer . Customer now a days want quick response instead of delayed response .

Progress In Conversational Interface

2017 was the year of conversational interface . Among the most widely used , sales and marketing was on the top of the hills . In 2018 , its expected to early adopters of conversational interface , that might be the winner of the market .

Chatbots Will Help Gain Customer Satisfaction

Chatbots are now a days being used to gather information for improving the marketing and conversational skills , wile interacting with the customers . In the same time all the information will be saved automatically and can be accessed quickly wherever we want . Chatbots are developed according to the trending trends of the customer , although we are yet in process of developing a chatbots that may be capable enough to answer all the question of customer , but chatbots are continuously improving .
Taking this further , a competitive marketing team by collecting the customer analysis need to be acted on the cycle of constant improvement continues . Chatbots automat the process and hence leads to consumption of lesser man power .
As per the present trend people are still smarter than chatbots , and that is the reason we are still in the process of optimising the chatbots .

Chatbots For Website

Implementing the chatbots on website is somewhat like heavens comes true for customer and sales executive . It is proven as an excellent source of interaction for sales and customer satisfaction related issue .

Conclusion

We can’t expect the chatbots improvement all at once, but yes it will improve over time . This will improve as the result of continuous research and development . Chatbots are expected to see the new phase of maturity in 2018 .
In case you are searching for chatbots to be implemented on the website you can contact Winklix .