Staying on Top of Mobile Application Development

Today, paradigm shifts in shopping, driving, commuting, transactions, education, or even interactions with personal appliances, manifest that promise. The mantra ‘there’s an app for that’ is well and truly coming real and living up to itself every step of the way.

As much as that gives businesses good reasons for pursuing a mobile app, getting a successful mobile app is often unwieldy. To help businesses get through, apps developers SDI share some of the most fundamental ground rules of how to plan, design, and work out mobile app success:

1. Stand out: The need to stand out is pretty obviously the single most important deciding factor — and by a long shot. It’s not the teeming Apps Stores alone that need accounting for, but also that your mobile app mustn’t end up being seen as just another alternative business tool. If you’ve a mobile website for example, it must not eclipse the app’s functionality. Focus on creating distinct value for each.

2. Sync with users: Any mobile app is only as successful as its users make it to be. User experience is a great trigger and for that you need to know exactly how to bring about user stimulation. There are several means available to tap into user sensibility. Social media and geolocation for example are great when it comes to stimulating engagement and should be intelligently deployed.

3. Platform sensibility: Developing for Android is just not the same as developing for iOS, Blackberry or Windows 8, and this variance must be clearly understood. The kind of device range on Android is unparalleled and poses big challenges of screen size, hardware, and intuitiveness. Your developer has to have a decisive roadmap upfront dealing with specific mobile app development platforms aberration because clearly one size doesn’t fit all.

4. Testing and support: One crucial fact often ignored by businesses is that testing is not only integral to a successful launch but also for shortening the development cycle. Once a store detects a below par app, it straightaway translates into investing additional hours into diagnostics.

5. Marketing: Creating a good app is only half the job done; now think about making it visible and gaining some eyeballs. There are more than 750,000 mobile apps each on Apple and Android which makes it nearly mandatory that yours sticks out. Depending on the monetization model built into the app, define the most adequate marketing channels for promotion and buzz.

Ref==>https://medium.com/@swapnil.hokuapps/staying-on-top-of-mobile-application-development-df8e0e0899c0

Why Android is the Most Beneficial Mobile App Development Platform?

With more than 7,50,000 apps developed and many more coming in on this platform and a existing growth rate of 32% per month it wouldn’t be inappropriate to declare Android the most sought after mobile application development platform.

Android provides for a hassle-free experience for the users as well as developers. Android works on Linux, which is an open-source version of the UNIX operating system. Also, apps for Android can be developed on any platform: Linux, Mac OS-X or Windows.

The primary support that Android provides to its developers will help them design and build super revolutionary and advantageous apps but the fact remains that only an expert app building team can come up with well-performing apps. Becoming a Google product, Android can seamlessly be integrated with almost all Google attributes likes Gtalk, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendars, etc. Android also follows various methodologies for application development depending on their size and nature. This is why, Android is known as one of the most systematic techniques for application development.

Android which has made its presence felt in more than 190 nations has an open entry system. The developer can launch their apps conveniently at nominal costs. Also there are no hidden costs like the royalty costs or the license fees. With this, the developer can create and design apps as per the client’s requirements without needing to compromise upon the performance as there are little restrictions on this mobile-platform.

Android is available on majority of the smartphones like the Samsung, HTC, Motorola, to term a few. These phones cover a huge proportion of smartphone audience because of which many developers have been drawn towards Android for application development. Majority of the companies prefer Android over additional mobile app development platforms courtesy the various benefits that it provides for. In addition to this, the Android market has seen an astounding boost in the past few years owing to its transparent features, extensive effectiveness and features and several functionalities.

Android offers for almost all categories of apps: games, e-books, lifestyle apps, social networking apps and many other utility apps too. Not just this, Android works seamlessly on 2D and 3D graphics also has a huge picture library, Audio and video files and many technologies like CDMA, Bluetooth, GSM, WiFi to send and receive data.

Trends of Mobile App Development for Enterprise Growth

Being a Businessman, it is very important to keep a strong eye on your enterprise productivity and growth. Living in the technological world requires walking up-to-date and trendy. Nowadays mobile apps are booming a lot and this is making entrepreneurs shake as everybody is in the race and want the top position. Only one can be in the first place and for this reason, everyone out there is working so hard to shine their enterprise.

Building a solid Mobile App will take your enterprise to the next higher level. People nowadays found the app as the best medium to manage things accordingly. With a quality app, you can reach as many customers as you want. This is the best way to expand your enterprise globally and gain huge profits and increase sales.

1. 24*7 Business Availability

With a great mobile app which is based on your enterprise ethics, you can provide the best user experience to your targeted customers. A mobile app has the ability to make a person convince even if he/she is sitting at home. The time flexibility is also an important part which is given by the mobile app as people can access the app anytime, anywhere. This will ultimately increase enterprise sales and will lead to profits.

2. Cuts The Distance Factor

This is a fact that with the invention of mobile apps, the distance between stores and customers is getting reduced. All the work is getting smoother with the help of Mobile Applications as people are going mobile and getting addicted towards the use of SmartPhones. With the help of an app, you can access everything which is present on the store and hence, remains no need to visit the store.

3. Unique Advantage

Developing an app for your enterprise is beneficial for building a brand name of your enterprise in front of people out there. Today making a good reputation of your enterprise in the eyes of your customer is a vital task. This is possible when you will build an app based on your enterprise theme and will keep it up-to-date on the online platform.

4. Provides offers and discounts messages

With the help of a mobile app, you can get all the relevant messages for alerts and discounts. Just by sitting at home, you can get all the important notification on your SmartPhone. This will help you to be up-to-date with the enterprise mobile app development offers and discounts.

5. Enhanced Customer Experience

A mobile app provides the best way to communicate with customers and knows their reviews. A person can interact with you by using the mobile app and this way you can get all the positive as well as negative comments about the mobile app.

https://medium.com/@swapnil.hokuapps/trends-of-mobile-app-development-for-enterprise-growth-6f7094ae6c68

Trends That Define The Future Of Mobile Application Development

If you are looking forward to outsource your clients’ projects to a mobile app outsourcing company, you are headed to make huge profits by minimizing your overhead expenses and also maximizing your profits. Here are the trends that will define the future of mobile application development.

Wearable gadgets

Year on year, the volume of wearable devices manufactured is surging up by about 30 percent. There is also a sharp transition noted from just basic to smart wearables. App developers are highly excited about this development since wearable devices like healthcare sensors, smart watches, smart jewelry, display devices and many others have to communicate with mobile applications to deliver the information in innovative ways. Hence there is a huge requirement in the fields of sports, fitness, healthcare, hobbies and fashion for mobile apps. These gadgets will ultimately decide the future course the mobile app development sector must take.

Internet and smart objects connected with mobiles

Experts say by 2020, there will be over 26 billion connected devices including thousands of small objects like toys, LED bulbs, domestic appliances, medical devices, sports gadgets and power sockets. These things will have to communicate through their Apps with the smart phones and tablets serving as remote controls and to facilitate the display and analysis of information, interfacing with the social networks and monitoring the devices. Hoes are being automated now through voice command. Such developments point out the immense need in front of the mobile apps development world.

Mobile commerce

Purchases through mobiles are on the sharp rise. Over the next four to five years, this segment is expected to reach a phenomenal growth. The Apple Pay and Google Wallet are increasing in popularity. They too facilitate purchasing through mobile phones rather than credit or debit cards. This segment will require mobile app developers to create mobile apps to process the transactions thereby ruling out the need for debit cards or cash. Therefore mobile commerce segment is yet another huge segment for the mobile apps to target.

Motion sensing and location sensing

These days, most mobile phones come with location sensing capabilities. These phones deploy multiple positioning methods to give different granularities of the location information. Motion sensing apps have come to serve several functions in the areas of mobile games, anti-theft measures, power-saving and others. Experts say in the long run, the concept of smart lighting is also expected to boom up. Sensing of the precise indoor location is very useful in Geotagging, games, vehicle navigation and fitness apps. These developments will help achieve personalization of services and information to a great extent. Therefore the immense potentials for growth in front of the mobile app development platforms sector has motivated a large number of technology companies to jump into this arena and take advantage of the exploding business opportunity.

Apps for Taking Care of The Elderly! Care giving Is A Lot Easier Now

There’s no doubt that use of on-demand mobile apps have surged tremendously in wide-ranging services, from online booking, food delivery to baby care. While smartphone apps are like a mini guide to every one of us helping us to reach work, get some food ordered or have the bills paid, they have now entered the arena of personal care services to make sure we all have a blissful and healthy life. That’s what caregiving apps all about! Apps that help the youngsters to take care of their aging parents, even being away from their homes. Besides, there are apps too to make the more active or energetic aged members engaged in some refreshing activities.

To cut it short, the demand for caregiving apps is increasing. People are actually using apps as a tool at their fingertips to foster care for their aged parents. But, what services does the apps actually offer? Take a look.

Complete care services

In the first place, a caregiving app help to securely and sincerely manage their elder’s health, their daily schedules, food habits, activities, medical care and what not. The users just need to put in all the details and the app organises all the information. They can create To-do lists, save events and set reminders. Besides, some apps even let users save documents, essential contacts, journals on health information so that they can get everything within their hand’s reach when needed.

Self-care services for the elders

Apps came up as an excellent self-care resource for the caregivers to guide elders on how to reduce stress and boost positivity. By providing tutorials on meditation, easy yoga and fitness exercises, healthy food recipes and recreation ideas, the apps are helping elders to embark on a routined and healthy living.

Solutions for health problems

There are apps too to help caregivers find solutions to the health problems of their parents or any aged member. They help caregivers to contact and interact with other healthcare experts or caregivers going through the same experience. On hearing an issue, they might share their ideas, give some assured solutions, medications or give contacts of physicians, hospitals where the concerned elderly can be well treated.

Tips on elder care

Some apps evolved to create a community of members that are involved in caregiving management. The purpose of such apps is to provide the caregivers with hundreds of pieces of advice's and tips on healthy living and safety of the elders.

Caregiving apps are offering a lot to the people on how to take care of their parents. To put in a nutshell, they are assisting today’s generation in every way to become expert caregivers with more control on the activities, health and lifestyle of their parents.

https://www.hokuapps.com/custom-apps/custom-mobile-application-development/

Source By:-https://medium.com/@madp.hokuapps/apps-for-taking-care-of-the-elderly-care-giving-is-a-lot-easier-now-27fc12b20614

7 Mistakes Every Mobile App Developer Should Avoid

The success of a mobile app depends on how its development and marketing takes place. Any developer who is good at programming and has technical abilities can start making mobile applications after gaining adequate knowledge of the application development. However, they need to consider the pitfalls involved in mobile app development. Otherwise, they may have to pay high prices for their mistakes with their app eventually failing on the app stores. Let us look at the seven mistakes, which every mobile app developer should avoid in achieving success.

Including too many features

Developers might think that developing a mobile application with extensive features would be an instant hit. However, it is not the right approach to include too many features at the first launch; a user finds the app difficult to comprehend and may not be able to know what is useful for them and what not is, thus losing interest. A mobile application should be simple, user-friendly and most importantly purposeful. End users look for apps that are easily understandable and simple to use. An application loses its purpose if it has too many features stuffed into it.

Therefore, it is first important to understand the purpose the application will serve and then include only those features that are important and purposeful for end users, to avoid complications. A developer can later add more features in the future releases.

Developing on multiple platforms in the first go

Developers should not build applications for multiple mobile platforms, all at once. It is important to first focus on one mobile platform and then move to the others. In case of any future changes, the developers will have to implement them on all the platforms, resulting in more time and high costs.

Thus, it is important to formulate a well-thought strategy for the launch, on one platform first and then releasing it on the other platforms.

Focusing everywhere other than on the user experience

A developer should create mobile applications by keeping users at the center. It is very important to focus on user experience aspect, as the end-users should find the app simple, easy to use and attractive. The UI of an app should be intuitive and easy to learn. An application will not be successful if it does not impress users and give them an enriching experience.

Not keeping room for flexibility

A mobile application developer should always develop an app, which is flexible enough to include upgrades. Upgrading is a continuous process; an app should work in newer upgraded versions as well. It is important for a developer to ensure that the application works efficiently and flawlessly even after upgrading mobile operating system several times.

Developing mobile apps that are not flexible will result in their failure, as they will become unusable after a certain period.

Improper monetization planning

Planning about monetizing your application is a difficult task. Many developers fail to plan on the monetization aspect thinking they will earn easily through ads or users will pay for their apps. Developers can have two versions of an app, a free version and premium version consisting of additional features or even keep in-app purchases option. Placing ads on regularly visited apps can also help earn revenues. A combination of different options is also helpful.

Whatever option developers choose, it should cater to their requirements. They should plan this aspect in the early stage to avoid future losses.

Not understanding the importance of marketing

Uploading a mobile application at the store does not guarantee success. Its marketing is equally important, as the audience should come to know about its launch. Developers should not wait to market the app after its launch in the store. Visibility is important from the very beginning, for which they should market their application well in advance.

Without a well-planned marketing strategy, a mobile app will get completely lost in this competitive market, resulting in its failure.

Not using analytics services

Developers will not be able to measure the success of the mobile application without tracking tools and analytics. They can use any analytics services that best fits their requirements and use the retrieved data for improvement in the upcoming releases. By using analytics tools, an app developer can come to know about guests viewing, number of active users & downloads, purchasing habits of users and much more.

Therefore, it is important to have analytics from the very start.

Avoiding mistakes will much likely help mobile application developers to succeed in app stores; keeping the users engaged will improve the ROI. No doubt, the idea of the application may be innovative, but the execution of the idea is equally important. Channelizing efforts in the right direction will help the mobile app developers to build applications that users love and achieve desired results.

https://www.hokuapps.com/custom-apps/custom-mobile-application-development/

Develop Custom Mobile Apps to Empower Enterprise Employees

Digitizing a business with technology is more than just transformation with off-the-shelf software. To push all departments to work at capacity and in tandem, businesses need to develop and deploy custom mobile apps. Enterprise mobility solutions can be developed with custom mobile app development platforms. These solutions offer customers with unparalleled user experience, a normalized and unified user interface, and adapt to change rapidly.

The top reasons why businesses invest in custom mobile apps are:

1. Improved return-on-investment
2. Increased productivity
3. Empower field service employees
4. Big data collation and analysis
5. Consistent UX

These five points give power to customers, CXOs and most importantly, employees.

Optimized Support for Employees

Typically, developing custom mobile apps with an intuitive experience is important to employee productivity. Whether the employee is desk-bound, heading into a meeting or out in the field, the employee is bound by time and an intuitive experience helps them save time. Their success depends on their completion of tasks within deadlines.

Moreover, employees can create tasks, prioritize them and get notified of meetings/deadlines which helps them manage time efficiently. This is why businesses should partner with battle-tested custom mobile applications development platforms.

This mobile apps development platform has automated the process to reduce the time-to-market and costs by up to 70% (compared to traditional mobile app development). The automa

ted process creates a logic-driven front-end and the enterprise administration back-end is customized to suit a business’s unique hierarchy.

This allows employees access the right information at the right time, from any smart-device.

Customization and Scalability

Unlike traditional mobile app development, rapid custom mobile applications development creates apps using reusable elements to save time and costs. These automated elements are highly customization to suit any business or any part of a business.

This ability to customize sets custom mobile apps apart from traditional and off-the-shelf solutions. This is because employees use software that is customized to suit a unique workflow. With streamlined processes and employee empowerment, custom mobile apps offer sustained ROI, which businesses find attractive.

As businesses grow, many expand operations and even diversify. In such cases, enterprises need to expand the functionality of the mobile apps. Custom mobile apps have the ability to scale to new levels. The rapid custom mobile applications development platform can integrate additional solutions and scale current apps in days. On the contrary, other processes require the development of new apps or to rework older apps, which is time-intensive.

Employee Satisfaction

It is common knowledge that employees are the most important assets for any enterprise. Custom mobile apps allow employees to do their jobs easily by maximizing satisfaction and minimizing challenges.

Moreover, managers have access to business intelligence where employee productivity can be gauged in real-time. If an employee is lacking anywhere, he/she can be provided with appropriate training. By integrating an advancedHuman Resource Management System, functions such as grievance addressing, employee onboarding, resource sharing (content, manuals, updates and such) and notifications will help employees be informed at all times via mobile or desktop.

Custom Mobile Apps Common Use Cases:

• Secure Enterprise Messaging App
• Business Intelligence (Dashboards and analytics)
• Asset Management
• Secure Payment Apps Integration
• Automated Invoice Creation and Sharing
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Task Management and Scheduling
• Employee Management
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• Project Management
• Digital Marketing (Loyalty programs and rewards)
• Human Resource Management (HRM)

Your Digital Transformation Partner

With an automated custom mobile applications development platform, get delivered custom mobile apps that AUTOMATICALLY work on iOS, Android and the Web. These custom mobile apps development are reliable, affordable, scalable and secure.

Key features:

• Custom mobile apps for custom workflows — built 10x faster than traditional app development

90% automation includes reusable modules, components, designs and connectors + 10% is business-layer customization for tailor-made solutions = 100% custom enterprise mobile apps

• Automation = reliability
• Automation = affordable pricing

Planning To Develop A Custom Mobile App? Follow These Tips!

Creating a smart and user-friendly smartphone application calls for considerable professional expertise and complete familiarity with the latest mobile app development platforms and frameworks. Every year, many apparently ‘fool-proof’ applications are launched, which do not manage to make any major headway among targeted clients. If you wish to develop a successful application, the following pointers would help you:

1. Determine the purpose of the app — To be practically useful for customers, mobile apps need to actually serve one precise purpose/solve a specific problem of end-users. The purpose can range from real-time updates on stock market data, to simple gaming for kids. Find out what would be the exact genre of the app you are planning to create. That would keep the process focused, and help you identify your target buyers easily too.

2. Start of with a concept — At any professional mobile application development company, experts typically get together to deliberate on alternative ideas that can be implemented, to create the app. Once you are sure about its purpose, you have the option of choosing from alternative interesting concepts via which the application can serve the same. Make sure that the selected idea is technically viable.

3. Avoid ‘me-too’ apps — It’s all very well to get into an intriguing process of Android or iphone app development in USA — but will your application have significant uniqueness value? That is a question you need to resolve, before proceeding to the designing stage of the app. Find out whether there are already any similar apps in the market, along with their popularity counts. If there is already an app similar to yours doing well among users, it would be tough for your application to make a mark.

4. Choose the design type — This would probably depend on the nature of the app, along with the proficiency of the mobile app developers at your organization. If the executives are experienced enough with sophisticated smartphone app development framework and tools, you can opt for a Native design for the application. Alternatively, in case you are looking for quickly releasing a no-frills app, the Web design scheme is likely to be more suitable.

5. Choose the targeted platforms — As far as mobile apps are concerned, one size definitely does not fit all. That’s precisely why professionals from any leading iphone application development company in USA would stick to creating advanced apps for iphones only. Of course, if you have the requisite skill-set at your disposal, you can go for designing Android and/or Blackberry apps as well. Remember, apps for each different mobile application platform have to be separately customized.

6. Make your app user-friendly — Smartness in the choice of app development graphics and functional features goes a long way in determining whether it would be able to survive and prosper in the fiercely competitive mobile markets. Chalk up the app user interface (UI) and layout in a manner that, users would never have any problems in using it. Using elegant yet simple mobile application designs is particularly important when you are making apps for kids. The dashboard of smartphone apps should never give a cluttered feel.

7. Examine the prototype — With the basic functionalities and design features, create a wireframe of the application, and build a model prototype — which can be promoted to potential users. Highlight the advantages that the app is going to provide in the prototype itself. You can easily do this via your company’s social media channels. At this point, you will also need to acquire the necessary development and marketing licenses for the app.

8. Pricing — Unless you are developing a free app (which can, of course, be done to promote your business), a proper pricing and revenue plan needs to be in place. Monitor the app development cost at every stage, so that you do not need to set its final price too high, to earn decent profit margins. You can conduct market surveys too, asking people about the maximum amount they are likely to pay for the application you are developing. Competitor analysis would also come in handy.

9. Implement an analytics tool — You need to be aware of how your app is doing in the market, and presence of an accurate and reliable analytics tool is an absolute must for that. The tool should give you real-time figures on the number of people who are downloading and installing your app, as well as the total revenue figures it is managing to generate. Scopes for improvement (if any) can also be identified at this stage.

10. Do beta-testing before release — If your app slows down the handsets of users, or has bugs in it — not only would the final sale figures remain low, but your mobile application development company would also be viewed in an unfavorable light. Create a core group of Blackberry or iphone app developers, who would actually use the app on their phones for a pre-specified period of time (at least a couple of weeks). If no issues are detected, you can go ahead with the full app launch.

11. Promote and distribute your app well — The custom mobile apps you create need to have adequate visibility on the online space, for buyers to be aware of them and actually purchase them. Start publicizing your applications on your social media pages and business website, from a few days before its release. Distribute the app through the leading web app stores. You need to ensure that the entire purchasing process can be completed in a few clicks.

After releasing the app, constantly monitor its performance metrics, and decide upon the upgrades/improvements required accordingly. Actively seek feedback from actual users, regarding the performance and the visual features of the application. Creating a mobile app can be a whole lot of fun — and following these tips would ensure its success too!

3 Points Why Mobile Application Development Is Important

Mobile applications completely alter the importance of cell phone, whether it is pre-installed or third party applications. The most modern phones like the iPhone and Android are the mini-notebook that enables users to execute many task on your mobile app development platforms instantly. Mobile development refers to the procedure of developing applications for dedicated mobile phone that turns the phone a full useful device. The Apple iPhone is one of the most popular phones that make business more full of life.

It is a fact that the iPhone comes with many features that makes it a useful gadget for your entire enterprise. It changes the business of working in the trading mechanism in line with the development of applications for the iPhone. There are many ways that mobile development helps in improving your own company.

Accessibility — iPhone offers trouble-free accessibility to applicable information while you’re away. Today, many entrepreneurs use this technology to manage their work. You can access your important files and data with the use of iPhone application. As an organization, you obtain everything you require to manage your organization through iPhone applications. Therefore, mobile development for the iPhone and other smartphones is seen as important to your business.

Market growth — the development of iPhone applications on the market is growing at a rapid rate. You can be part of this growth using the latest mobile software development.

Market Shift — The days when people buy products the conventional way is now gone. Now, with the innovation of new technology, people use the Internet to research products and order directly from the comforts of their home. Therefore, the newest version of mobile development should always be installed on the phone to the new market updates and details.

These points suggest that selecting mobile application development is really important. Now you need to carefully research the market to find the best service provider. You will receive the latest applications that will definitely make your iPhone a complete device.

Mobile Application Development: Options and New Trends

The sway that mobile devices hold over the whole industry provides a stirring opportunity for website owners and web developers. They are gnawing their applications into these gadgets while cross-platform mobile applications and website interfaces are set to fire their salvo into this vibrant sphere.

Whether it is for iPad, iPhone, Blackberry or Android a compatible application is every website’s gateway to exposure. In creating applications a list of HTML5 frameworks for mobile development provides a starting block- Ripple helps to test and debug the application on multiple platforms like JavaScript.

An impressive built-in Geolocation module enables testing of geolocation-related applications.

LungoJS which is supplied with full features of HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript can implement essential features such as Geo location, History, Device Orientation and WebSQL.This framework does not require any web server support.

Joshfire is an open source mobile development framework that supports HTML5 and JavaScript. This framework will run on iPad, iPhone, Android and even on TVs and connected objects.

Sencha fully supports HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. Our applications can be equipped with HTML audio and video components, local storage element and CSS3 styling effects. They can be adapted to iOS, Blackberry and Android devices.

Jo creates applications compatible with iOS, Android, Blackberry drawing the cream of CSS technology to solve design and animation issues.

Kendo UI is a set of HTML5 controls released late last year is quite akin to though it claims non-compliance with jQuery but when we try to use it, a lot of jQuery- style codes appear enmeshed.

In developing a web-based application it is necessary to ensure that our application is compatible with browsers in use today. Much less of a problem for the mobile world because of the rampant purchase of new devices and the advancement in technology incorporated in them. But our site needs to be tested with intended user devices.

New trends have emerged in the form of writing Ruby instead of Objective C. It was released in May this year in the form of Rubymotion to develop and test native applications for Ipad and Iphone. For those accustomed to Ruby language this is quite an amazing makeover.

Before we set foot on the development phase let us decide whether to use Android, Apple or Blackberry models. A recent Forrester survey of 4000 information workers in 17 different countries found usages were in equal measure with Blackberry taking a light jab.

Mobile Development Platforms help low-power handheld devices such as mobile phones and digital assistants handle pre-installed applications during manufacture of these gadgets. But with the proliferation of Smartphones, tablets and mobiles it is necessary to take a relook at pre-installed software. Needless to mention, we cannot waste precious time developing new applications for each and every device.

Cross-platform framework has now emerged as a solution to this problem. A hybrid mixture of HTML5, JavaScript along with extra libraries provides enhanced access to the device over a pure HTML5 web application. Local Storage in excess of 5 MB, photos upload, background services run are all possible.

Leading this field is the PhoneGap framework- now donated to Apache Software Foundation as an open source project and renamed Apache Cordova. It provides a platform-specific wrapper for Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone, and exposes a platform-independent API to code against in JavaScript.

The final hitch is how we build the platform. For instance iOS requires Mac, Windows Phone calls for a Windows PC and the others come with a price tag. Today Mobile Development with options and new trends has come to stay and the web developers are now all over the mobile development platforms scouting for an entry on the mobile bandwagon.

Mobile Enterprise Application - A Component-Based App Development Approach

The components of mobile application development for enterprises are largely dissimilar, thus, the uses and design vary as per the needs of the organization. This article explores Component-based Development (CBD) for enterprise applications.

Mobile enterprises are common requirements for most organizations in a digitally-driven ecosystem. From delineating inventory management to keeping track of field operations, mobile enterprise applications are being employed to derive higher productivity from the workforce and faster turnaround. Hence, component-based development is becoming increasingly popular in enterprise mobile application development.

Here are some interesting facets of the process:

1. What is Component-based Development?

Component-based Development (CBD) refers to a software engineering development methodology that highlights the demarcation of concerns in the light of the multitude of functions being carried out in a software system. This process places emphasis on reusing different components and merging them into systems. This method has far-reaching benefits from a system as well as organization perspective (as compared to traditional mobile app development).

2. How can component-reuse be implemented?

Component reuse is a popular technique in enterprise-based mobile application development processes. An enterprise’s scale of operation makes available a range of different components in the company’s digital repository. Let’s consider the different components required to build an internal purchase application.

The latter will require a user interface design to accept information collated through data fields. This collated data can be used for pre-emptive ordering in the future and the inventory application can be directly connected to the storefront through a point of sale component. This process can be mirrored across different enterprise mobile apps to increase resource productivity and ROI.

3. What are the types of components in a mobile enterprise application?

Depending on the type and scale of the organization, different components are present in the repository. These include enterprise connectors, which comprise software used to intersect mobile components to create enterprise apps. Other components include business modules — the main module featuring basic functionalities based on industry type; technology components — functionalities that complete specific requirements of a business like GPS integration, notification & reminders, payment gateways, QR code scanning, and calendar sync.

The HokuApps automated platform includes inbuilt components like a communication platform, enterprise administration backend with dashboards and granular reporting engine, and a security framework. All apps created on the HokuApps mobile app development platform work on all mobile devices like phones, tablets, and PDAs that are crucial to the mobile app development process across Android, iOS and the Web.

HokuApps features deep libraries of business modules, technology components, and a design studio that goes into building apps and workflows. The list of technology is long and enables HokuApps to drag-drop any of the components to fit the unique requirements the business might need.

Summary

Mobile application development is an exercise that is crucial to the functioning of any modern day organization. Enterprise applications simplify the everyday operations of the business and help in a variety of functions ranging from inventory management to dissemination of promotional material remotely, from managing a field workforce to collecting product-related on the ground feedback to aid quicker management decision making.

The component-based application approach is a popular practice in mobile app development that offers apps that are affordable, scalable and reliable. It works on the underlying premise of reusing existing components present in the digital repository for building discrete but connected mobile applications.

This is a method that can increase ROI in the enterprise mobile application development and ensure higher productivity from technology and other resources in an organization. Mass producing applications in the workspace can be an expensive and time-consuming process; component-based app building can simplify this process and help reign in corporate budgets.