Posts Tagged ‘Android’
The Web as we know it have been born and matured on computers, but as it turns out now, computers no longer have dominance in it. According to a recent report by analyst Mary Meeker, mobile devices running iOS and Android now account for 45 percent of browsing, compared to just 35 percent for Windows machines. Moreover, Android and iOS have essentially achieved their share in just five years and their share is getting tremendously larger.
According to some forecasts their worldwide number of mobile devices users should overtake the worldwide number of PC users next year. If forecasts come true, this shift will not only continue, but accelerate. Based on data from Morgan Stanley, Meeker estimates roughly 2.9 billion people around the world will be using smartphones and tablets by 2015.
What does it mean now that more people are accessing the Web through tablets and smartphones rather than laptops and desktops? And is it really a big deal? Anyway, Internet is intended to be accessed from anywhere and thus from any device. Well, it is quite a change at least in terms most people consider the Web and how it gradually adapts to be used on mobile devices.
Apps-like sites
As mobile devices take over, the use of today’s desktop browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari will decline. Mobile browsers are already very capable and will increasingly adopt HTML5 and leading-edge Web technologies. As mobile devices naturally have less screen area, the sites need to function more like mobile apps and less like collections of links. So the sites are likely to look like apps.
Apps may rule
Native apps for smartphones and tablets almost always surpass websites designed for mobile devices because they can tap into devices’ native capabilities for a more responsive and seamless experience. This is most likely to change in the nearest future – most experts agree HTML5 is eventually the way of the future. This is already the status quo in social gaming: for example Angry Birds and Words with Friends. Some services won’t be available at all to traditional PCs — they won’t be worth developers’ time.
Less information at once
Web sites and publishers will no longer be able to display everything new for users and hoping something will catch the user’s eye. Smaller screens and lower information density means sites will need to adjust to user preferences and profiles to customize the information they present. Increasingly, the Internet will become unusable unless sites believe they know who you are. Some services will handle these tasks themselves, but the most likely contenders for supplying digital identity credentials are Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Twitter, and mobile carriers.
Sharing by default
In a mobile-focused Internet, anonymity becomes rare. Virtually every mobile device can be definitively associated with a single person (or small group of people). Defaults to share information and experiences with social circles and followers will be increasingly common, along with increasing reliance on disclosure of personal information (like location, status, and activities, and social connections) to drive key functionality. As the Internet re-orients around mobile, opting out of sharing will increasingly mean opting out of the Internet.
Emphasis on destination
Internet-based sites and services will increasingly function as a combination of content and functionality reluctant to link out to other sites or drive traffic (and potential advertising revenue) elsewhere. These have long been factors in many sites’ designs but mobile devices amplify these considerations by making traditional Web navigation awkward and difficult. Still URLs are not going to die – people will still send links to their friends and Web search will remain most users primary means of finding information online.
Going light weight
As people rely on mobile, cloud, and broadband services, the necessity to do things like commute, store large volumes of records or media, or patronize physical businesses will decline. Businesses won’t need to save years of invoices, statements, and paperwork in file boxes and storage facilities – cloud storage comes as their rescue. Banks will become purely virtual institutions consumers deal with online via their phones. Distance learning and collaborative tools will let students take their coursework with them anywhere — and eliminate the need to worry about reselling enormous textbooks.
Going mobile is an obvious trend today. Experts envisage that nearly every service, business, and person who wants to use the Internet will be thinking mobile first and PC second, if they think about PCs at all. Do you agree? And what other related changes can you imagine?
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts 
Kind regards,
Aliona Kavalevich – Business Development Manager (LI page)
Aliona.Kavalevich@altabel.com
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
One of my latest articles was about the android app advertizing networks, where I tried to enumerate one of the best and most popular networks existing at the moment. And what about iPhone networks ? – I thought. Developers and publishers can certainly make money with iPhone apps as well as with Android ones and receive quite good money. So in order not to be accused of being a “mobile platform racist” I`ve tried to prepare the list of some interesting ad networks that iphone app and game developers may use You could pick the one you like and use it to monetize your iPhone app. Let`s get into the list….
iAd – iAd is considered to be one of the best Ad network that is directly owned by Apple and it is serving the most number of iPhone Apps already available in the market. iAd claims that currently every 100′s of their publishers are earning $50,000 per quarter in average. iAd shares the owners of the apps 60% of the income generated by the iPhone App.
Similar to AdMob, iAd facilitates integrating advertisements into applications sold on the iOS App Store. If the user taps on an iAd banner, a full-screen advertisement appears within the application.
LeadBolt App Advertising – With this Mobile App network, you could integrate their SDK to monetize your Apps. They support different formats of advertisements like Text Ads, Banner Ads, Video Ads etc. You could customize the Ad placements like entry Ads, exit Ads, Menu Ads and test around to maximize your earnings.
Smatto App Advertising Network – This is one of the highest paying Ad network which gives 90% of Ad earnings to developers and publishers and keeps only the remaining 10%. It has simple APIs which gives access to multiple Ad networks around the countries and you could pick the required Ad networks. However, to join Smatto you must generate 30+ million page impressions per month . It is compatible with iPhone iOS, Android, Nokia OVI, windows, blackberry.
iPhoneAlliance – Alliance represents about 50 million page views delivered from 10 million App users around the world specialized in iPhone App advertising. They are providing an end-to-end Ad solution which helps to configure, manage and to optimize ad performance so that you could maximize the earnings from iPhone Apps.
Mobclix App Advertising – This is one of the ad network which supports real-time bidding for advertisers and hence there are more possibilities to maximize your earnings. They have impression based earnings and your App gets the power to earn from each Ad impression it makes. Like other programs, it connects with multiple ad networks and gives single payment.
MobFox – MobFox is world’s highest-paying mobile advertising network for US & EU Traffic on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 applications and mobile websites. Instead of working with hundreds of different advertisers and networks, they concentrate on placing the most engaging and most paying premium ads on users applications or mobile websites.
Here you see a short list of interesting iPhone add networks available and I hope this list will be of interest and use to you Have you ever tried to promote your iPhone apps and games through some ad network? It will be great if you could share your experience.
Kind Regards,
Anna Kozik
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
- In: Android | Google
- 2 Comments
My previous article was dedicated to promotion of the applications on the AppStore but in this one I would like to focus on the Android application promotion. So you are welcome to read my article and to find some useful tips in these regards.:)
It is known fact that nowadays Android becomes more and more popular and there are a lot of individual apps uploaded to the Google Play every day. Thank is why it is also crucially important to take all the possible variants to promote your application and make it worth to be downloaded. Below I’m sharing some of the working tips which you can utilize and create a buzz about your latest app developed by you.
- First of all you before you submit your Android app to the market, you should not to forget that the application has to be fully complete and should have a good interface. It is not a good idea of submitting a partial app. Submitting a partial app will lower your users ratings and will blow your plan permanently. Also it is known that google’s play market algorithm will take your app higher if the users rate well in the initial stage. That’s one of the tricks to improve your download count.
- App stores: Submitting your app to several app stores is an easy free way to make the application more visible. The first stop should be made on Google Play. You could submit it to GetJar and Amazon Android Market places as well. But I would like to note that Google Market + Amazon take a revenue share of money you make from either selling your app or from any in app purchases (IAP) that are made through their billing solutions which is the trade-off for exposure. Getjar only accepts free apps and allows you to implement your own billing solutions if you use IAP.
- Get an eye-catching icon: Make sure that you have an attractive and eye-catching app icon that best represents and sells your application to the user. Poor icons blows you app to the bottom and will indicate an unfinished or poorly made app. Optimize and beautify your icons.
- Launch the free “Lite” version of the application. The free apps gets the user base and then it will tend the user in buying add-ons or the full version if he likes it. Or you can simply launch a free app with ad and promote an add free with some advance feature in your premium version. You can also consider launching your app for free for first 2 weeks to increase the user base and later on you can upgrade the price.
- Promoting through reviews: before someone would like to download your application you should take care of its promotion. So the best method to market your app from my experience is through content and reviews. You can have reviews in the form of small description about your app, ratings of the apps, review date. This will help people to know about your android app.
- Video marketing: The video marketing is important tool for internet advertising. We can explain the features of our apps by creating videos. The videos can be placed on various websites to attract the audience. This can serve as great tool for promotion of android apps. So you can make a couple of YouTube videos showing how the app would look like and how people can use it. Also try to make the video using a better clarity and understanding which is also worth sharing.
-Use of Social media, Forums & Blog posting: We can use various social websites such as FaceBook, twitter, linked-In, You-tube for promotion of android apps. We can participate in the forums & blog posting for the marketing of the android apps. It will help to share the information about your apps. You may also sent emails to any bloggers for review of your app, make sure that you also send them your video link. This will help a blogger to understand your product better and will help them to write better app reviews.
These are some ways to promote an Android application that just came to my mindJ. Please feel free to add any variants you’ve had a chance to try and they worked well for you and what is more important that they were effective.
Kind Regards,
Natalia Kononchuk
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
With the growing popularity of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices the living has become more comfortable. The different types of apps help us to wake up in time, to entertain reading books, booking tickets, listening to favorite music and just chat with friends without extra expenses. Among the challenges in mobile app market stands also the developing of effective web browsing solutions.
In this article I would like to take a look at DHTMLX Touch framework that helps to create nice-looking and easy-to-use mobile web apps oriented to touchscreen devices.
DHTMLX Touch is a free open source Javascript framework/library for building HTML5-based mobile web apps.
DHTMLX was originally designed to work in traditional mouse-driven web browsers, however since the web moved to mobile devices, it was important to have all parts of the web interface touch-ready and looking good on small screens. After some tests made were approved that DHTMLX library will definitely work in mobile environments with Javascript support too. So the planned mouse was replaced with touch events to provide touch-based user interactions.
Let’s see what the characteristics of DHTMLX Touch are:
-compatible with the main web browsers for mobile platforms that support HTML5;
-free under both GNU GPL and commercial Licenses;
-lots of technical samples with the source code that simplify studying how the UI elements work;
- expanded builder tools:
• Skin Builder – an online tool that allows you to build mobile web apps through a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface. Since v.1.2, you can save your design or share it by sending an URL.
• Visual Designer - a simple online tool that provides an easy way to choose the skin for you app and customize the skin colors. A set of predefined skins is included.
• Touch UI Inspector – a free extension for Google Chrome that provides a handy visual tool for monitoring the inner state of DHTMLX Touch JavaScript components on a web page.
-server side is based on the on dhtmlxConnectors (the same that used for DHTMLX Ajax library) that simplifies client –server communication;
- simplified scheme of CSS editing.
The current version of DHTMLX Touch framework took a long way from the release of its first components dhtmlxTree and dhtmlxGrid in 2005-2006 to become a complete tool that covers the most required aspects of modern application interface. Three months ago in September, 2012 was presented the updated version 1.2. And now we will see what are the new features and improvements were added:
* Bug fixing – more stable and faster performance, better compatibility with the latest iOS and Android platforms;
* Updated visual designer tool: new Unitlist component, new charts, and the ability to share and save your design;
* Auto-complete for IDEs: Microsoft Visual Studio, PHPStorm, WebStorm, NetBeans, Aptana Studio, Eclipse, and others
* Multiple fixes in form validation logic
* Better memory management: automatic destructors clean up the memory, which helps to prevent memory leaks if the app has a complicated inheritance structure
* Better support of full-screen mode
Many companies around the world make the preference towards DHTMLX saying that it’s very simple, flexible and easy-to-use with a live support forum.
If you have already an experience working with DHTMLX Touch framework or heard something about using it, feel free to share your thoughts/experience by leaving a comment.
You can also have a look at new features of DHTMLX Touch framework and the samples of apps already implemented following the link to the official website http://dhtmlx.com.
Thank you for your attention,
Kind regards,
Katerina Bulavskaya
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
- In: Apple | Mobile
- Leave a Comment
Steve Jobs wasn’t a fan of Android. He thought it was a rip-off of the iPhone. He saw the iPhone as a ground-breaker and Android as an attempt by Google and a consortium of device manufacturers to bring a similar product to a wider market. He famously told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he would “spend my last dying breath if I need to” and “every penny of Apple’s $40bn in the bank” to right the perceived wrong done to Apple by Google. “I’m going to destroy Android,” he pronounced, “because it’s a stolen product…” Jobs’ quest led indirectly to the decision of a US court to award Apple $1bn in damages, and to place an injunction on Samsung distributing some of its product in the US.
But Android had been under development since 2003 and was purchased by Google in 2005, two years before the advent of the iPhone. Granted, its later development was undoubtedly influenced by the range of features incorporated in the iPhone, and the potential and scope of Nokia’s Maemo project.
Theft is an emotional concept and technology is a complex proving ground. The iPhone is an elegant synthesis of intricate ideas and technologies that had gone before, many of them originally developed, patented and supplied by companies such as Samsung and Motorola – now owned by Google. Smartphones and touchpads existed before the iPhone.
Samsung says it has spent billions on research into mobile technologies over the past 25 years and noted in its own submissions to the court that “the flash memory, main memory, and application processor for the iPhone” are supplied by Samsung. It said “also manufactures Apple’s A5X processor and is the sole supplier of the Retina display used in the new iPad”. It also initiated many of the wireless standards and technologies that make it possible for an iPhone to talk to other phones.
Apple’s distinctive contribution has been collation and design, derived from an understanding of why and how a Smartphone could and would be useful and attractive to an end user, and which features would enhance that effect. The iPod, iPhone and iPad are instantly recognizable for their cleanliness and simplicity – and the software is focused on simplifying the tasks of the end user.
Apple’s talent has been to transform utility into an art form, to reduce apparent complexity and anticipate the wants of the user. By collating the possibilities of the Smartphone, and pulling together the virtues of design and utility, Apple has lifted the concept of smart devices to browse the web from geek heaven into user space, which makes it all the more surprising how little attention other device and computer manufacturers have paid to the role of design in selling hardware.
But the bigger issue isn’t copying, or imitation, but the broken nature of the patent and so-called intellectual property industries. In an industry where last year’s must-have is already out of date, there is something obscene about a court case that involves, among other things, a dispute about patents and design registrations such as the one “for overall design of the product, including the rectangular shape, the rounded corners, the silver edges, the black face, and the display of 16 colorful icons”. Or the one “for the configuration of a rectangular handheld mobile digital electronic device with rounded corners”. These are not technological or design innovations.
The decision of the court to punish Samsung for its intrusion into the markets Apple considers its own, and in the words of Samsung’s press release “to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies” is symptomatic of the ongoing crisis in the creative and technological industries.
The decision against Samsung is just the latest event in the war. It is bad news for everybody, not least the users and developers of Android and the iPhone, as each of these companies scrambles to buy up the ownership of patents. As Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, put it last year: “A Smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 largely questionable patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a tax for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.”
And what do you think? Are you on Apple side or Samsung?
Kind Regards,
Lina Deveikyte
Altabel Group – Professional Software Development
