APP

application

An application is any program, or group of programs, that is designed for the end user. Applications software (also called end-user programs) include such things as database programs, word processors, Web browsers and spreadsheets.

4 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Having a Mobile App

Provide More Value to Your Customers

Maybe you’ve sat down with your employees and tried to nail down the best way to encourage more of this wallet-opening engagement from your customers. You want to increase their interaction with your business to promote sales, of course, but you also want to provide a level of value for your customers that they can’t get anywhere else.

One way to do this is create a loyalty program within your app. It would work like this:

The more customers interact with your business and product, the more points they collect, which can in turn be used for great deals on the products they already know they want.

Starbucks uses their mobile app to their advantage by offering rewards exclusively to app subscribers, which then motivates customers to buy coffee (And other delicious snacks) from them. They’re even more ahead of the curve by allowing their users to pay directly from the app, speeding up the whole transaction process.
when your customers see their points adding up in real time (rather than having to send in points in the mail or wait until they can access your website to enter them manually), they’ll be impressed and more enticed to follow up on their purchases in the future.

Build a Stronger Brand
Connect Better with Customers
Boost Profits

Other Benefits of a Mobile App

If these points haven’t solidified in your brain the necessity of a mobile app, there are still more reasons to consider adopting a mobile app strategy to encourage more customer engagement and satisfaction.

  • Inform users of new products and offers
  • Stand out from the competition
  • Reach out to younger demographics
  • Sync users’ email and social media accounts

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Key App Stores Data Points:

  • Total number of Android apps on Google Play – 3.3 million
  • Total number of iOS apps on the App Store – 2.2 million
  • MyApp (Tencent) market share – 25% of the China’s Android app market
  • 360 Mobile Assistant market share – 15% of the China’s Android app market
  • Xiaomi App Store market share – 11% of the China’s Android app market

Should I Build a Mobile App for My Business?

Questions to Ask Yourself:

  • Do I already have a mobile website? I rarely recommend investing in a mobile app build until you have a mobile website easily accessible to customers on the web. A high-quality, fast mobile website experience is essential to being found by mobile searchers who want information quickly, and they're not going to go to an app store to download your mobile app if they've never heard of you. If you don't have a mobile version of your website yet, stop reading this article and focus on that instead for now.
  • What's my goal for building a mobile app? What are you trying to achieve here? Is it branding and promotion just to get your business's name in front of a wider audience? Is it to drive more traffic to your website? Is it to make it easier for customers to make a purchase on-the-go? Is it to provide a unique, valuable tool or service to your customers that isn't already provided, or isn't already done well, elsewhere? Decide what challenge you're really trying to solve here, and then determine whether a mobile app really is the answer to that challenge.
  • What exactly would the mobile app do? I really urge you to ask yourself this question regardless of what marketing initiative you're considering, but building a mobile application really is a great example. Like any good website, a mobile application should have a singular primary focus in mind. And as with everything in the mobile space, less is more. To justify a mobile app build, you need to be able to concisely say in one sentence, "My mobile application does ________." Your mobile application needs to serve a unique and useful purpose that someone could benefit from long-term. Otherwise, your app will likely be forgotten or deleted from their mobile device in a matter of weeks.
  • What could a mobile app accomplish that my mobile website couldn't? As much as I love a great mobile app, it's hard to justify the time, energy and financial investment in a mobile app if the free, easily accessible mobile version of your website already fulfills the purpose of the app. Unless the purpose your mobile site already fills is exceptionally useful and deserves to be broken out and put on everyone's phone to be used anywhere, chances are your mobile website could do the trick just fine. Or alternatively, maybe you should think about making this most valuable service more prominent and easy to find on your mobile site.
  • If I were a customer, would I download and use this app? Be brutally honest with yourself now. If you were a customer or potential customer, would you honestly go to the app store, search for this tool, possibly pay a fee to download it, go through the trouble of downloading and installing it and taking up limited space on your phone, and use this app regularly? Think of the apps I mentioned above that people return to regularly and use all the time - social networking, banking, maps and navigation, news and headlines, entertainment. They come back to these apps frequently because they are useful time and again.

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Types of Mobile Apps

Mobile event apps come in three basic forms: native apps, web-based apps, and hybrid apps. Each of these types of apps has its own unique advantages, and depending on your specific needs, one option might be better suited for your event than the others.

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Native Apps

Native apps are built for a specific operating system, such as iOS or Android. These apps are self-contained, meaning most features operate with or without an internet connection once you’ve installed it. All of the content, maps and other information you need on your app will be built-in for optimal performance on each attendees’ device. However, an internet connection will be required to update content once a user has installed it on their device.
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Web-Based Apps

Web-based apps are built using HTML code, just like traditional websites, but are specifically optimized for smaller-screen devices. Using these types of apps requires an internet connection, since all content will be hosted online. On some devices, users can create an app-like experience by adding a bookmark to their home screen that, when clicked, will take them directly to the website.
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Hybrid Apps

Hybrid apps use a native app “shell” that is built for each operating system, but pulls content from the cloud. These apps can offer partial functionality while offline, but require an internet connection for the app to fully function. Some examples of these types of apps would be Facebook or Twitter; the base app is designed for the phone, but the content is downloaded from the internet.

Which Approach Is Best?

The decision to build either a native, web, or hybrid mobile app should be based on your business objectives. Before jumping into development, you should consider the following factors:

 

  • How fast you need the app
  • The quality of the user experience you want your app to have
  • Complexity of the features you need for your app to work
  • Your Budget

 

Whichever approach you choose should, above all, be quick, responsive, and reliable. As users are demanding more from mobile experiences, it’s important to keep up with their changing demands. Whichever app you decide to build, remember the following:

 

  • Your API infrastructure should have reliable and easy access to your content and services
  • A mobile app is not a replication of your website but an extension of your brand
  • Always get an understanding of your users’ expectations and behaviors and adapt as the market demands change

 

Finally, it’s important to work with an app development company that specializes in platform specific design and development.

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Android or Apple — Who should you develop for first?

Developing an application can be a daunting task, but launching it shouldn’t be. There’s no simple answer to the question of which one should you develop for first, Android or Apple. It depends on various number of factors and circumstances which may influence the final decision. Even if your budget allows you to build a native application for every existing platform, various factors should be considered beforehand.

One Platform Paradigm

Building a mobile application for multiple platforms at the same time will cost you time and money. Especially if your goal is simply to acquire your first customers. Most customers use only one platform, therefore there is no sense in making Apple customers wait for your app to be released on Android. Also, post release maintenance of applications on two platforms is extremely challenging — it’s far cheaper and less time consuming to fix bugs for one platform.

So it’s best to start with one platform, but which one to choose first? Let’s consider some factors that can help us choose the right one:
Demographics speaks
Therefore, observing the overall statistics, launching an application on Android allows it to reach a much broader audience. But on the other hand, launching an iOS application allows you to reach an audience with more purchasing power, thus delivering a faster ROI.
Future outlook
Location matters
Your target audience
Development and deployment
Features
Revenue model
Launching in an app store
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Android vs. iOS App Development :

A Comparison and Decision Guide

How to start

Start by putting your idea down on paper as clearly as possible. Look for prototyping tools on the Internet and create a detailed, screen-by-screen mock-up/wireframe of your app. Once you're clear about your requirements, look for a company that can design and develop it for you

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7 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Mobile App Developer

1What projects have they developed until now?

This is the best way you can judge their experience and expertise. A thorough walkthrough of their portfolio will be the most rational step (at first place) to know their quality of work and the clients they have worked for. You will also get a list of their repeat clients and authentic facts and figures. Ask them to provide pioneering projects (if any) from their portfolio.

Ask them to provide real-time app links on Google Play, App Store, Microsoft Store. You must download and use that app to test not just how it looks (UI) but how it interacts with the user (UX). Don’t forget, user experience matters the most.

2What is their app testing approach?
3What are their recognitions, rewards and client references?
4How will we communicate throughout the app development?
5What special features can you create for my app?
6How do payments take place?
7Who will own the app?

Final Words

Don’t be in a hurry to select any app developer and app development company. It’s important to pick a service provider carefully so that the final, end product (a mobile app in this case) matches your requirements and works exactly how you always wanted.

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10 Important things for creating a successful mobile app

Research. Research. Research.

The first and, potentially, most important part of creating an app.  Think about it, what is the point of creating every detail of a project only to find out someone else is already doing the exact same thing in the exact same way; remember great minds think alike and you’re not the only one in this world.

Start with the question, “What is it that makes my app different?”  This can be a thing of values, a unique algorithm, unique logo, anything really that can distinguish yourself from competition.  Some people have had success in their marketing ability alone. 

Do a simple search on some of the keywords your app might be listed on Google or within the app stores (i.e. Denver mobile apps or Denver seo for us, depending on the project that you are creating <your location> + <your project>). Check out the competition, if any, to see who you are up against. The more time your spend on research the more you will know your purpose, direction, and goal for your application.

Planning & Target Audience (Marketing)
Application Workflow
Intuitive Navigation
Color Scheme
Device Orientation

I can say without a reasonable doubt that as a human being that is alive in 2017, you have interacted with many different types of apps.  Have you ever noticed that depending on what application you use the orientation changes?  Some jump straight into a landscape view and others stay in a portrait view.  Why do you think this might be?  Again, we’re confronted with nihilistic question, “What does it all matter!!!???”  Your device orientation can completely, once again, change the interaction a user has with your app (notice how that idea keeps coming up, curious huh?).  What if you had four drop down boxes that you wanted to sit side by side from left to right.  Imagine what it would look like when in a portrait view, potentially, crunching all the text to the point that makes it hard to read what you’re selecting.  How might this affect the popularity of your app if it’s not built with a responsive design that makes it easier for users to interact with.

Mobile-First Design (Great segway right?)
In the Consideration of Your Users (Previous Softwares)
Web App Integration
All and all...

Google Play Store

(formerly Android Market) is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for the Android operating system, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with theAndroid software development kit (SDK) and published through Google.
 

App Store

App Store is a digital distribution platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS operating system. The store allows users to browse and download apps developed with Apple's iOS software development kit.
 
 

Best Google Play Store alternative app stores

1Amazon App Store for Android

When looking beyond Google Play, the Amazon App Store is the place to start. Here you can get thousands of free and paid apps, as well as paid apps for free.

Amazon gives away a paid app for free every day and using Amazon's dedicated app store is the only way to access them. Amazon also regularly offers free bundles of paid apps (good ones, too). 

Aside from great free titles, the Amazon App Store has a huge selection books, movies and songs – often at lower prices than on Google Play. Download the Amazon app at the link, but be aware that you must have an Amazon account to use the service. 

2GetJar
3Mobogenie
4SlideME
5F-Droid

F-Droid can be installed from the official website, and it certainly presents refreshing idea. Unlike other app stores, F-Droid is funded by donations, and the apps themselves don’t have reviews or ratings. But all of the apps contained within there are FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

It's an excellent app store for developers because anyone can access the code of these apps for free. You might find a particular app feature or functionality which you like and would want to use for your own app, and you can, just access the code and copy it. 

The downside is that the apps are not always as "professional" as can be found in stores like Google Play and the Amazon app store. Still, for developers, it's highly recommended. 

6Aptoide: Large, decentralized, dangerous
7Uptodown: An app shop you can trust
8APKUpdater: Get updates earlier

Alternatives to Apple App Store for IOS

1Cydia

Cydia is app store and package manager that lets you download apps that haven't been approved by Apple for your jailbroken iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. ...

2Product Hunt
3iNoJB
4AppCake
5App 704

We want you to find the greatest apps available in the App Store and other markets. In the easiest, cheapest and most entertaining way. Enjoy.

App 704

6Downlor.com
7Mojo Installer
8Zestia

Price

Because there's so many different variables, the price for a mobile app could range anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000; however, the price range will typically be somewhere between $100,000 and $300,000, with the entire development process taking 12-20 weeks.

5 Best Free Mobile App Makers

AppyPie

Drag, drop and create hybrid apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows, and Kindle with a simple and quick cloud app builder. AppyPie is the fastest growing free iPhone app maker out there. There is nothing to download and install, everything gets done in a well-structured interface. Since its launch in 2013, the service has been growing rapidly, attracting users from all over the world with its simplicity, modernity and variety of features. This Indian platform remains faithful to its idea – creating an app with it is as easy as pie.
The following features of AppyPie help it win the affection of users:

  • A highly interactive and contemporary website is easy to use;
  • Video tutorials help users to get started;
  • Drag-and-drop functionality;
  • The widest variety of features among all app builders;
  • An opportunity to create an unlimited amount of apps;
  • A possibility to build games with the help of ready templates having no programming skills;
  • 24/7 support;
  • 30-day money back guarantee when switching to a paid plan.

The not-so-pleasant sides of AppyPie free version are:

  • No app editing;
  • No push notifications;
  • No app analytics with Google Analytics;
  • Relevant ads;
  • AppyPie branding cannot be removed;
  • No customer support for free users, though, the customer service says they do it to prevent their clients from getting stuck in the process;
  • Only manual submission of apps, no support of app stores;
  • To publish an app, you have to choose one of the subscription plans that start at $7 per month;
  • It is impossible to publish an app under your developer account.
AppMakr
Appsbar
Mobincube
AppInstitute

How Do Free Apps Make Money?

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Advertising

Advertising is probably the most common and easiest to implement, and it is done via a third-party ad network.

7 out of 10 free apps providers used advertising as their revenue model in 2016.

Using ads to monetize an app and make money is quite simple. An app owner just needs to display commercials inside their mobile app and get paid from the third-party ad networks.

You can get paid every time an ad is displayed (per impression), per click on the ad, and when a user installs the advertised app.

There are mainly 4 types of ads that are displayed by the app providers for monetization.

Subscriptions
Selling Merchandise
In-App Purchases
Sponsorship
Referral Marketing
Collecting and Selling Data
Advering Digital Marketing