iOS 9 Beta Restricting Beta Testers To Post App Reviews

As per the latest restriction from Apple, beta testers can no longer post their reviews related to a specific app, on the App Store. By implementing this restriction, Apple wanted to make sure that no Internet bugs can hamper the App Store security, or individual app security for that matter, because of a pre-released unfinished version exposing vulnerability to outside attacks. 

Unlike previous iOS versions, iOS 9 did not make a debut as a beta release meant specifically for developers. In fact, this time a wider audience segment was targeted, allowing for more people to use the app, through a public beta release for the first time in the history of Apple. Although public beta release, establishes more stability than a mere developer build, the company wanted to ensure security against any kind of compatibility issues, because of a wider audience reach this time. 

A negative first hand user experience, has the potential of an overall pessimistic impact when the actual OS releases. Beta versions are more prone to crashes, behave anonymously, or even let the OS hang. As of now, the ability to leave across star ratings is still intact. These changes appear to take place on the server side, and they are right now limited to only full point beta versions i.e. iOS 9 public beta. This means that beta testers still using iOS 8.4.1 will be able to post their reviews, if in case it is not possible to do on iOS 9 beta. 

The changes will be highlighted in all the pre-released versions shortly. Nevertheless, until we see the final release of iOS 9, beta testers will be refrained from posting the feedback about a particular app, on the App Store. It will be interesting to see what will be the impact of this security move on the iPhone application development and the apps present in the App Store, because of most iPhone users opting for iOS 9 in the pre-release version. Meanwhile, iOS 8.4.1 users will play a crucial role, in defining the positives and negatives of an app, ultimately deciding their App Store presence & fate.

Ground rules to follow prior to mobile app design

You might have a vision, mission, and logo ready for your mobile app. But is it all that you need before the actual mobile app design? 

Small nitty-gritty details before the practical mobile app development stages, are the nuts and bolts of an app production. As long as you stick to the ground rules, you will have your mobile app stand out from others, following the completion. 

What these nuts and bolts are, leading to a user-friendly mobile app design? Let us find out. 

1. Design should not overcome clarity

The key features should be made clear to the users. Do not leave them confused, through an over the top design, hard to digest. Insert menu tabs, content, labels, buttons, fields, and multimedia, simple enough for even a first time user, not well versed with using mobile apps. As soon as they arrive, they should feel comfortable looking at the app design structure, offering both tangible and intangible values. 

2. Identifying the right audience segment 

It is very important to analyze your target users, in order to plan features and functionalities around the design. Provide valuable information and content within your app, which will help users save both time and money. The best ways to go about are: 

• Recruiting a focus group of selected individuals who can conduct a market research. 

• Creating online communities, and getting one on one with the users online. 

• Organizing live conferences, seminars, or workshops, where users are allowed to use the app live. 

3. Speed is just about everything 

An app gives the impression of performing faster, when a progress bar, or a loading bar is displayed. The reason being, a user expects interactive and immediate responses, on performing an action. If their actions are acknowledged, they will have no issues whatsoever, waiting for the loading bar or a progress bar to complete 100%. There are two ways to deal with it: 

• Provide an engaging animation while a user clicks, taps, or swipes. 

• Simple moving icon such as bouncing, sliding, or glowing symbol will also do the trick, entertaining users while waiting.

5 Things to Keep in Mind While Developing Native Apps

Mobile apps have become household names, and probably an inseparable part of human lives. With an increasing awareness and usage over a past few years, of all people using electronic devices, 86% of them spend their time on apps. This is not going to stop right here, as you might think. 

So, why not think of having apps for separate mobile OS platforms? Yes. We are talking about native apps. 

You can get web apps developed accessible across all platforms, native apps being specific for different platforms, or hybrid apps combining both web and native capabilities. Most companies or businesses today, prefer native mobile apps development for iOS, Android, and Windows, since they perform and appear the best, among all the three app categories. 

Do you want to know what things to keep in mind, while going for native mobile app design? Let us find out. 

• Check out the OS specific interface guidelines, as every mobile OS has separate parameters or criteria, regarding apps they accept and the ones they reject. 

• Seat with the developer team, and have an in depth discussion of the related challenges and insights. Have a talk regarding the strong points and weaknesses associated with individual platforms. Get designers to design accordingly, considering what is feasible, and what is not. 

• Study the top rated native apps, and try to rebuild them by having a makeover. It is not a bad thing to copy, unless you deliver a replica, which is far more better in terms of performance, and offer users way more functionalities than the actual. 

• Differentiate your native apps by integrating transitions, animations, and multimedia components. Go for a raw prototype, letting you have a glimpse of the elements study, before actually breaking or making an app. 

• Focus on features more, rather than just mind boggling appearances. It is the services that power an app. Deliver top-notch front end and back end experiences, so that user needs and context in which the content is presented, are both taken care of.

Guaranteeing organizational success with mobile operational efficiency

If you are to choose between accessing web on your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop, then what will be your pick? 

Quite naturally, you will choose a smartphone due to ease of mobility. 

This tells us everything about how mobile market is dominating the technological arena, especially with the advent of iOS, Android, Windows, and other smartphone OSes in particular. The sales of smartphones devices have increased drastically over the past few years, allowing businesses to consider shifting their businesses on mobile in order to reach a global audience within no time. 

Today businesses not only aim towards leveraging the power of mobile application development marketing, but also monetize on apps capable enough to strike a right chord with the audience. While measuring the effectiveness of already launched mobile campaigns, businesses consider two primary factors: 

• Is the mobile campaign capable of enhancing customer satisfaction leading to an increase in user engagement with the app? 

• Have the adoption of mobile role in leveraging the marketing approach, has made a difference in organization’s operational efficiency? 

Let us check out both the factors in detail. 

i. Increasing user engagement by satisfying customers 

As users become more used to doing things on their mobile phone, they start being detached from using desktops, laptops, or even tablets. Hence, a time comes when they expect to do everything on their smartphone without any need to switch on to other sources. In such a scenario, it becomes evident to deliver best in the class customer satisfaction by delivering information in real time. 

ii. Successive role in organization’s operational efficiency 

Mobile is on the top of list for every organization to capitalize on consumer activities leading to an increase in satisfactory customer service. Mobile enhances workers productivity enabling them to fill up the gaps created by inefficiencies within the app, helping customers to have a smooth sail while accessing your business or apps on mobile. Variables like lead acquisition, retention rate, sales conversion, are those few metrics playing a vital role in measuring the results. Moreover, key performance indicators (KPAs) such as no. of active users, total no. of users, no. of app downloads, also play a major role in calculation of the mobile campaigning numbers.

iOS 9.3 update bringing out 3 new features for iPhone users

After a low profile kept over few past months, iOS is back with a bang bringing in iOS 9.3 update. It is a release adding 3 new smart features to the kitty. Let us see what are these 3 upgrades and how can iPhone users be benefitted from these.

Users can opt for Smart Education now

You can consider education as the heart and soul of custom iPhone Apps Development. It delivers a multi-user support for iPad users enabling students to sign in their iPad and get an access to places, documents, books, and apps. With the help of ‘Photo Id’, a student picture gets displayed who has logged into the device so that no mixing up takes place during class.

With groundbreaking ‘Classroom’ app, a teacher can have a complete control of iPads used by students in classroom. The teacher can even directly jump to individual iPad in order to monitor their work. Meanwhile ‘Apple School Manager’ used to compile their apps, books, as well as the courses.

Go for a Night Shift with newest OS version

This is a feature in hibernation stage overdue from some time. Now there is an added support for smart screen filtering because of which iPod, iPad, and iPhone users can actually track sunset times by using a combination of geo-location and clock, so that colors moved accordingly, from colder to warmer end and vice-versa, making it visually soothing to eyes.

An enhancement to a more mature 3D Touch

3D Touch extended one-step further within iOS ecosystem with some new shortcuts for a quick access to Weather, iTunes Store, Health, Compass, and App Store. This is a revolutionary development with 3D touch getting more prominence and pressure commands working instinctively with a steady consistency across apps. 

To check the actual effectiveness of 3D Touch, you can make it work across on every possible platform with varied screen sizes. It is the responsibility of the developers skill set, to get things even smoother with rising user expectations across devices.

Custom iPhone Application Development for Successful Businesses

In the present times, if there is one platform that has taken app development to a completely new level, then it is the iOS. The iOS is a multifaceted operating system that can be used on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Especially today, the iPhone commands a very high prestige with its users all around the globe. Its manufacturer – Apple is known for its commanding position in the technology circles and is the leader in developing the best and the most sophisticated gadgets in the world.

Today, there are many app development companies, which can develop the best of custom iPhone apps, but our eyes should be trained on picking up the best-in-class apps developers from the market who can turn an innovative business idea into reality. Once these apps are developed, these can go on to the apps store to win customers across the world. 

Most custom iPhone app development companies follow a thorough and integrated process for developing iPhone apps. Thus, depending upon your need or strategy, the iPhone app can be distributed for free or for a price on the iTunes store. 

One of the examples of custom iPhone application development is games development, which has the innate capacity to capture the attention of the target audience. The same applies to high-end corporate documents. This means that the concerned team should be an expert in the relevant iPhone application development technologies such as XCode, Cocoa Touch and Objective C. It is always better to talk to your iPhone development team personally, in order to understand how your application development will move forward and take shape. Good Luck!

Custom iPad Application Development for Corporate Success

Today, the iPad is the highest sold tablet in the market, with over 80% of the market share. As a popular tablet, it incorporates a huge range of features that give developers a very high level of freedom and ability to develop the best of iPad apps. 

Today, iPad app development is at its zenith; nevertheless, it is important for an iPad application developer to consider some important points for iPad application development.

1. Make your apps customer friendly:

Considering the user base for which the apps are developed, ipad apps are best usable when they are customer friendly. Also, customers for the ipad come in two flavors. They either are business and enterprise users who like corporate apps, or general uses who like to play games, surf, and so on. Hence, if you are developing your apps for the corporate scenario, then develop such apps which are customer and user friendly, so that they can be successful in the corporate scenario. 

2. Make the best use of the iPad’s features:

Since the iPad is a much larger device than a conventional smart phone, it has a larger screen along with many other smart features, why not utilize your ingenuity and resourcefulness to incorporate such features in your app? However, place a reasonable limit on the number of features you include, as if you try and include more features than essential, then you could possibly blow your app away. 

3. Keep your costs low:

Cost factor is also an important consideration in estimating the overall app cost before you build an iPad app. If you keep your app costs too high, it could become possible that you app won’t succeed. Don’t exceed your budget by calculating how much the overall cost would be from start to finish.

Conclusion: 

A good iPad development strategy can lead to the success of your corporate plans and the can help in achieving the overall goals of the company. Make sure your iPad development plans are not derailed because of the failure in implementing these points.