Few Things You Should Know About Android Applications

These modern day technologies are continuously transforming the way companies use to carry out their business operations. Not only business but they have also changed the way we used to shop and search for things on the web. Today more and more people are opting for online modes of deliverance; the dependability on internet mode of communication is rising every day.

The steadily gripping trend of latest innovations has outdated the conventional modes of doing work. People throughout the world are effectively using feasible modes of reliable technologies that assist them in sufficiently carrying out their routine tasks. Nowadays people heavily rely on Android app development services to connect, communicate and socialize with their loved ones.

Google's Android operating system has been able to earn a huge amount of users. Almost every business owner has an Android based app which helps them in connecting with millions of customers spread across different geographical boundaries. The primary reason behind the popularity of Android OS is that it's an open-source platform which means you can tweak it as per your business requirements.

Apart from that, you don't have to purchase any license to carry out development tasks. With the support of Android App Developers, you can quickly develop a robust and scalable app for your users. As Android OS has a huge user base you can promote your app in a hassle-free manner. It will be good that you chalk out your promotional tactics so that your app can easily reach its potential users.

Before you start with the Android development process, make sure you have a brief idea about few things such as the type of app you want to develop, budget, duration etc. These things will help you in having a clear picture and will also make the app development process easy and less hectic. To get your hands on a superb app, it is essential that you appoint a skilled app developer who possesses latest tools in his arsenal.

You should also interview few developers or app development firms so that you can easily choose the best one. Before you hire someone, don't forget to share your project details with them. If want your app to gain a good amount of users then make sure you provide your developers with all the project related information. You should also check their portfolio which will give you an idea about their level of creativity.

In case you have a limited budget for your app development process, then you can also opt for offshore app development firms as they offer same quality services but a fraction of the market price. Along with that these companies also have a team of professional app designers, developers and testers who make sure that they offer you with an excellent product.

You can also take help of the internet technology to locate a reliable mobile app developer. Before sending your project to someone, you should shortlist few companies, interview them, check the client reviews, scan their portfolio and once you are satisfied with their answers, sign a deal and appoint them for your app development. 

Digital Business Card: A New Way Of Promoting Your Company

Are the visiting/business cards dead? Today these cards have been replaced by the websites. Every small and big enterprise has its portal and most of the people use these to get in touch with the company executives. Smartphones, social networks and various marketing strategies are deployed so that a firm can attract more customers.

Nowadays, all the contacts are managed digitally. A recently conducted market survey reported that orders of business cards have witnessed 13% downfall compared to the previous year. All the national and international firms are engaged in Mobile application development and they offer their clients with a personalized shopping experience. There are several apps which assist in digitalising all the paper cards. The advantage of this conversion is that the person would create a consolidated database which can be used anywhere.

Here's a list of apps that would come in handy while converting stack of business cards into digital ones:

Bump (iOS & Android)– With this app, a person can instantly share contact information just by tapping the smartphone against another Bump-enabled cellphone. It is a cross-platform app and runs smoothly on all the operating system versions. Moreover, users can also connect with these contacts via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

CamCard (iOS & Android)– It is highly recommended Mobile apps for this process. The highlight of this app is IntSig Information which handles the batch scanning of business cards. Just photograph the whole series of cards with the smartphone and then it can be finalised later. Well, other apps like these usually have to recognise each image which makes the process lengthy.

CardCloud (iOS & Android)– This app lets users share an infinite stack of digital business cards wirelessly between the iPhones and Android-based smartphones. Moreover, a person can also share the contact information with people who have a different smartphone. CardCloud offers an emailing service through which users can share information.

CardMunch (iOS)– Designed & developed by LinkedIn, CardMunch allows the users to pull physical business cards into their LinkedIn and contact database. The cards scanned via CardMunch are manually transcribed by the humans for the improved accuracy. Soon this app's Android and BlackBerry versions would be launched in the market.

ScanBizCards (iOS, Android & Windows Phone)– The two main highlights of this app is its ability to export contacts into Salesforce.com account & full support for the side-by-side editing of the imported data. Apart from that, you can also export the date to Excel & can also integrate it with Skype.

WorldCard Mobile (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile)– This app uses the optical recognition on your smartphone to quickly scan & merge the contacts into the database. Users say that this app has one of the most accurate recognition engines available. Along with that, this app also integrates iCloud, Dropbox & supports 16 languages.

Conclusion

In this blog, you will read about six apps that will assist you in converting business cards into digital database. 

How To Enhance Your Android App's Productivity

The productivity of your Android-based app not only depends on your in-depth knowledge and expertise but also on the toolset, configuration and team collaboration. It will be good that you follow the below-mentioned practices so that you can easily enhance the productivity of your application. In this blog, you will read about few key points that will make your app stable and efficient.

What does your AndroidManifest really look like?

A lot of us are already aware that the AndroidManifest.xml that you see in the text editor is not always the same as the one which was included while building an application. This thing happens mainly because the libraries which you will add in your project may have an extra <uses-permission/> element in their manifest which is usually blended with the permissions requested in your manifest file. You can also take help of a skilled Android developer to locate these permissions.

It will be good that you check your manifest before building an APK of your app. The new feature of Android Studio 2.2 has a merged manifest viewer. This will tool will display your AndroidManifest that has been merged in your project dependencies based on the variants, flavours and build types. You can access this tool by navigating to your AndroidManifest.xml and then clicking on the new Merged Manifest located at the bottom.

Support annotations are your friends

Another useful tool is the support-annotations library. Make sure you include them in your project by adding “com.android.support:support-annotations:23.4.0” into your build.gradle file. With these metadata annotations, you will enable your code to detect bugs and define code rules. Most of the time, use-cases are used for marking nullable and non-nullable or to specify from which thread they should be called while doing Android development.

Fast and Painless code review

For every developer, it is essential to review his code at least three to four times. It makes sense to check how effectively the developed feature works. The common workflow in this case is:

• Change the stashes of your current branch
• Review your branch
• Reload the gradle configuration in your IDE
• Thoroughly read the code in IDE
• First compile and launch, then test the app
• Get back to your work by repeating your actions from 1 to 5.

Make sure you use a dedicated IDE instance and repository folder to review your code. It will be good that you should use a machine that has at least 16GB of RAM so that you don't have to face any lag while carrying out this task.

Apply changes fast

No matter what is the size of your Android app development project you should always spend enough time to build and deploy the latest changes into the emulator or test device. In case you have hundreds of classes and XML layouts that it will definitely cost your more time, resources and even a more powerful machine. Apart from that, you need to navigate everything manually on the application screen, so if you changed something you will have a hard time reaching it.

Conclusion

In this blog, you will be reading about few crucial tips that will assist you in increasing the productivity of your Android app. 

Five Cool Features Of Apple's iOS Based Apps

With the new iPhone and iPad models launched in the global mobile market, more and more creative individuals are willing to use these devices to accomplish their daily tasks. Besides users, several companies are also using the resources and project development tools offered by Apple. For an aspiring developer, Apple provides amazing tools that make app development easy and hassle-free.

Five lesser-know facts about the iPhone App Development:

If you are a beginner and want to launch a high quality iOS-based app, then it will be good that you stick to the developer programs offered by Apple. Several newbies face obstructions due to less or inadequate knowledge of these tools. Given below are the few facts that will give your right amount of information about the app development tools provided by Apple:

1. Apple Developers Program– Every app developer whether amateur or experienced must join the Apple's developers program. It is a membership based account through which they can develop an iOS-based app as per the standardized parameters laid down by the Apple. Moreover, the developers can also take full advantage of the vast pool of free resources provided to every member who joins this program.

2. Loads of Practice- To create an iOS compatible game or an app you must have to learn all the languages involved in the development of these programs. For an iOS-based app, you need to be an expert in Objective-C and Xcode. The best way to learn these codes is by practicing them regularly so that you can achieve the highest level of perfection that will assist you in building a robust app. You can also hire an iPhone App Development Service provider and can get your project done by professionals.

3. Share and Consult– You may have an excellent app idea, but one must not run to develop an app based on that idea. It will be good that you first share and consult an expert because there can be a chance that an app with a similar idea already exists in the market. Make sure you share your idea with someone who has in-depth knowledge of upcoming app development trends.

4. Completion of Paperwork– A huge amount of effort is required to complete the paperwork related to the submission of an app to Apple. As per the norms set by the Apple, a developer has to complete all the paperwork before he/she sends the app for review. It will be good that you properly check your app and eliminate all the bugs & lags so that Apple quickly publishes your app.

5. Initial Phase- You should not expect much on launching an app. Every app needs ample of time to grow and reach the top position.

Conclusion

Due to Apple's support, strength and worldwide reach, millions of iOS app developers have successfully developed easy and efficient apps which are capable of meeting all the requirements of their users.