What Should You Know About Your App Analytics?

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It’s now a lie that the growth of your social media app depends only on the value you bring to your customers. Today, more than ever, many factors determine app performance. These factors include: complexity, design, app testing, butterfly effect, and the list is endless. So, developers are careful about how they view and assess their apps. Therefore, without knowing how your clients react to different marketing strategies and which acquisition channels work best for them, you’ll never be 100% sure of how to make your app increase traction. Today, using app analytics yields countless possibilities and endless insight. However, there are special benefits that stand out.

Here’s What You Should Know About App Analytics

  1. App Analytics Drive ROI in Every Aspect of Performance

Millions of apps on the stores are competing for customer attention and better visibility. In this cut-throat contest, you can’t afford to have an acquisition strategy that lacks monetary goals. Marketing costs huge money. As such, you need to measure how much different channels deliver and compare with different acquisition strategies to determine what results in the best ROI. A winning app analytics strategy includes the following two points.

  • Looking at which channels offer the best customer lifetime value. Customer lifetime value LTV is calculated by customers generating higher revenue and higher possibility for retention.
  • A focus on in-app messaging. Hearing from prospects who have the power to connect to your employees at any time throughout your app experience is helpful to improving your strategy.

  1. App Analytics Help You Gather Accurate Data to Better Serve Your Customer

It’s hard to listen and serve your clients without looking keenly at their feedback and use patterns. Thus, app analytics help you to gain insight into customer data to serve them across all lifecycle stages. Many apps suffer the unfortunate fate of gathering a bulk of followers and failing to serve their needs adequately.

  1. Personalized, Customer-Focused Marketing

Creating an individually targeted and customized customer experience is now possible with app analytics. Customer-targeted push messages sent to specific people can make your app double its rates in a short time. It also converts up to three times better than traditional push messages.

  1. Tracking Individual and Group Achievements

Most app marketers rely on marketing strategies they’ve experienced before to drive results. But, using app analytics gives you a whole new set of customer data. Now, more than ever, app marketers can gain insight around small groups and individuals completing specific, directed activities within the app. What’s more, the possibility of using this knowledge is endless.

  1. Data-driven Results in Issues Concerning Retention

There’s a lot of buzz concerning customer retention these days. However, you can’t have a strong app engagement score if you don’t have many customers using your app regularly. The bottom line is that apps with higher retention rates enjoy better engagement, and more engagement and retention helps the app to gain customers and achieve growth. The most successful apps use analytics by focusing on high life time value customers and acquisition channels. In addition, app analytics close the gap between churn and retention.

Bottom Line

App analytics work in your social media background to enhance your app marketing efforts. It helps you achieve better growth and higher ROI. The above benefits paint a picture of how helpful app analytics is in today’s marketing space. And now, with NS804, you can create a social media app and collect app analytics in just a few clicks.

 

What Voice Means for your App

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Companies create mobile apps to improve the experiences of users who interact with their brand. Besides branding, a mobile app helps to increase sales, take in feedback, and increase the quantity and quality of interactions with customers. The average American spends almost 4 hours on their phone every day. This explains why many businesses now have their own mobile apps. However, the way people are interacting with their phones is changing as voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant become ubiquitous in daily life. Companies now must consider integrating voice into their mobile apps.

Staying Ahead of Competition

Only a small number of companies have apps with voice-enabled features. This is a chance to get ahead of competition by enabling voice commands on your mobile app and using it as a key selling point for your application.

A major advantage now is that your company does not have to build the speech recognition algorithm itself. Instead, your developer will help pick the right solution to integrate into your app. This saves time and cost. You also will not have to think about improving upon the algorithm as time goes by. Giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have libraries from which developers can obtain tools and resources to enable speech recognition on your app.

Integration Options

Integrating voice into the app involves two technologies- Text to Speech Synthesizer and Speech Recognition Technology. The former reads text to the app user, while the latter receives voice commands from the app user. The strength of voice recognition is dependent on the ability to hop over challenges such as accents, stammering, and syntax errors in speech.

One model for integration is that speech recognition takes place in the cloud. It’s accurate and the app on the device is much lighter. However, it is dependent on the user’s internet connection quality. The second model is embedding the technology locally on the app. The risk is that the app will be bulky and potentially slow. Most developers prefer going with the first option.

The Advantage for Users

Voice search on your app saves users the time it would otherwise take to browse through the app to find a specific function or piece of information. 10% of Americans use voice search. The number is likely to increase as the accuracy of voice search technology improves. In addition, voice recognition technologies are multilingual. Google Assistant now understands 30 languages. Using multilingual voice technology on your app widens the number of users who can interact with the app.

The benefits of interacting with a device hands-free are perhaps not appreciated enough. Integration of voice into more apps in the future will make people less dependent on screens. It is likely to change how designers think about UX. Screens are sometimes seen as distractions during productivity hours. However, if your users can still interact with the app without touching their phone, it’s likely to have significant effects on revenue.

What Voice Means for Your Business

For your business, enabling voice on the app gives your business to gain insights on user needs. What are they searching for the most, how many times in a day or week, and what time of day? Users gain from accessing their needs faster while the business can constantly improve the app. 

Successful Mobile App Launch in 6 Steps

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Did you know that at least 50% of businesses that have millennial owners have their own apps? There is clearly an incentive to businesses having their own apps to enable better interaction with clients and grow sales. Airlines, banks, tech service companies, and restaurants have apps to enable customers to access services quicker and to keep them within their ecosystem to boost loyalty.

This sounds quite appealing. However, scrolling through app stores shows you that for any service, there are tens, if not hundreds, of options. The barrier to entry into the app space is rather low. As such, major groundwork needs to go into preparing for an app launch to boost the chances of success. The financial cost of launching an app can go into tens of thousands depending on the nature of the app. This further increases the incentive to carry out the launch process as precisely as possible. Here are 6 steps to follow when launching your app.

Market Research before Launching your Mobile App

Whenever you get an idea for an app, chances are that several apps already exist to solve the same problem you intend to. Therefore, you will need to carry out research to see if a market really exists for your idea to flourish. Prepare a spreadsheet with the list of all the apps you’d have to compete with. Note whether they are available on both Android and iOS. What are their pricing models? What is their average rating? How long have they been on the market? When was their last update? Such questions will help you see whether a gap exists.

 It would be futile to go through with the launch of an app without a clear strategy. In fact, any investors in your idea will want to know your differentiation strategy. Is it price, regular updates, customer satisfaction, better functionality, or something different?

Defining the Metrics of Success

Once you are sure that a gap exists for your app, you must develop a method to determine the success of your launch. It is not advisable to simply look at the number of downloads from the different stores. Active install rate shows the number of users who install your app and do not uninstall it after interacting with it a couple of times. You could also look at the amount of revenue generated, if your app is not available for free. Other metrics include the average customer rating. In fact, you should have a method to absorb the written comments that accompany ratings on app stores.

It’s crucial that your app is available across multiple platforms, including browsers. A cross-platform development approach may be expensive in the beginning, but it pays off in terms of reach in the long-run.

Creating Content for Marketing your Mobile App

Before your beta launch, you will need to generate content to market your app. You should record demos on how to use the app, including how it weaves into the real-life scenarios for your target audience. You will also need press releases, blog posts, web copy, and email marketing copy ready before the launch.

By now, you should have social media accounts across all platforms to help generate interest among potential early users. If possible, join a community of fellow developers to help generate feedback on the UI of your app. It is also important to have a dedicated webpage for your app prior to the big launch.  Here, users should be able to view a demo, read about the app, and sign up for an alert once it hits the market. Companies that do this tend to see more numbers than they would have had immediately after the launch.

ASO and Creating a Buzz before Launching your Mobile App

You’ve probably heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is optimizing your web pages to rank for certain keywords your audience are likely to look up. Similarly, you need to optimize your app (App Store Optimization) on the various stores so that your potential users can find you easily. You’ll need to write excellent copy with your chosen keywords, pick the right categories when adding your app to the store, and include screenshots on your download page to show use cases of your app.

A comprehensive digital marketing strategy is non negotiable in this process. First, to generate a buzz, it would be advisable to invite tech journalists, bloggers, reviewers, and other thought leaders to try out your app. This should happen weeks before the launch of your app. This can help find bugs or take in suggestions on the UI/UX of your app. Give them free range to review your app to their audiences. If any of them are not willing to produce review content, you can request them to share a download link once the app is launched.

If you have a marketing budget for the launch, you can set up paid advertising during the launch week. These ads should mainly create awareness of what problem your app solves. On social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, users can either be redirected to your profile or straight away to the app store where they have the chance to download your app.

There are companies that have created a buzz through an invite-only beta launch. This exclusivity makes people eager to test your app, especially if it is a social app. It also gives you the chance to make mistakes without too much reputational damage as only a few people will have joined your community.

Major Launch of the App

After having given your app a few weeks in the market, you can plan a major launch party. It’s now customary to have a livestream where people can follow the proceedings as if it were a webinar. Go into a detailed demo of the app’s main features, what makes it different from competitors, and any offers you might have during the launch. At this point, ensure that your downlink is widely available on your website, your social media handles, and those of any influencers you may be working with.

Reviews and Coming Soon Features

After launching your app, you will need to constantly monitor feedback on user experiences and expectations. No matter how good your research was, you will hardly get everything right on the first iteration of the app. A customer-centric approach to development is crucial for sustained use of the app. Send out communication to your users on new features you are testing and bugs you have recently fixed. Users who are invested in the app need to feel that their feedback is being taken seriously.

Major companies have an update blog where they constantly keep users informed on changes made to the app. The blog also serves as a sort of hub to collect comments from the savviest of the app’s users. When major changes happen, you can send push-notifications to users on their devices to ensure they stay informed on how such changes will affect their experience on the app.

Research, Prepare, Succeed!

The successful launch of a mobile app is never a fluke, especially when tens of competing apps already have an established market share. Research is quite important in identifying a gap and strategy to carve out a market. Research helps to also define the metrics of success for your mobile app launch. Generating enough marketing content, app store optimization, and working with industry thought leaders is crucial in creating a buzz in the market. Once your app is widely available and beta testing has been conducted, you can proceed with a major launch. Still, you will need to keep refreshing your app and informing your users of new features you intend to roll out. 

How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Social Media App?

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One of the most asked questions by businesses is how much does it cost to create a social media app. So, the average cost of designing an application like LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Facebook, can range from $15,000 to 50,000+ depending on app types, elements, features, design, complexity, and software development.

From Twitter to LinkedIn and Facebook to Instagram, all have become a social sensation that is booming the internet these days. Furthermore, with the projection that social media users will reach 4.6 billion by 2025 from 3.6 billion in 2020, it is fair enough to surmise that social media applications will take the world by storm. So, the existing social media platforms have revolutionized the way people communicate these days. And they are becoming an integral part of everyday life.

Cost of A Social Media App

In calculating the cost of a social media app, it is important to factor in three fundamental elements. These elements include; the complexity of the app, features, and the operating platform. The first level of complexity is the simple social media app. This level has embedded app features such as sign-in, text messages, profile editing, and push notifications. In addition, it provides access to in-device features like camera and storage. The simple social media app uses a single-platform operating system and costs $15,000+.

The medium app entails the following features: profile editing, sign-in, push notification, user profile, sharing stories, and video sharing, and costs $20,000+. The advanced social media app entails superior app features like text chat, voice notes, video sharing, push notifications, and more. The advanced app utilizes a cross-platform operating system and because of this, it costs $25,500+ on average.

Minimum Viable Product Cost

According to the best practices of mobile app development, it is important to start your project with a minimum viable product. The MVP will help you see whether your product meets the market demand because users interact with the minimum viable product. It provides an overview of how effective your marketing strategy is. The minimum viable product provides much output from the least input. As a result, developers and app owners can see the potential benefits, costs, and expenses of the social media app long before it is developed.

After determining the cost of the MVP, you can proceed to coordinate your marketing and development efforts with the results obtained from the MVP study. Essentially, an app MVP is a great tool for reaching out and keeping in touch with your intended audience.

This leads us to the question: So, if you build a minimum viable product for a social media app, how much will it cost?

Well, the cost will depend on a combination of factors like the set of features you want to implement. These features include; technology stack, deadline, project design, and the operating system. A simple ten-screen app is likely to be cheaper than a ten-screen application with a complex design.

Features of a Minimum Viable Product

Research shows that a minimum viable product with a basic feature set could feature the following functionalities:

  • Sign up
  • Private messages
  • Post feature
  • Personal profile
  • Feed
  • Search
  • Comment feature
  • Group

So, as you embark on your journey, remember that creating a successful app is not easy. Luckily with app development experts like NS804, you can take your shot. The world has witnessed small ideas materialize into great apps, your story could be similar. Visit NS804, your app development partner, to know how much it costs to create a social media app.

Social Media App Development: The Overview and Trends

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The social media revolution has dominated the first ten years of the online world. Therefore, there is no doubt that with the widespread use of smartphone devices and the advancement in tech solutions, people want to create a social media application.

Users across the world are active on social networking platforms. Users are keeping in touch with distant relatives and friends, sharing professional information on LinkedIn, and exchanging all sorts of information. Social networking has emerged as a new frontier in the online space. In recent years, the situation continues to take a fresh turn due to an increase in the number of smartphone users.

In 2020, the world has gone mobile with 3.5 million mobile users globally. Just 200,000 shy of the world’s population uses their mobile phones to play games, surf the internet, and most importantly communicate and share information with other users. Targeted social media platforms have already transformed the development field. This has caused a surge in social media usage across the world.

The extremely high demand for superior social media apps results in new products being developed at every turn. In addition, new apps are being launched on the market daily. The revamped competition combined with the presence of big boy brands like Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram forces start-ups to seek new solutions. Furthermore, it forces enterprises to keep up with new trends to win clients.

Overview Of Social Media Development

For time immemorial, humans have always been social creatures. As such, people have developed ways of communicating with one another – from the use of smoke signals to advancements ushered in by the ever-growing internet use. All these styles of engagement make up the history of social media development as demonstrated by the following sequential stages. So, let’s take a quick glance.

  • Ancient History – Chinese, Greeks, and Egyptians used smoke signals by day and beacon fires at night to convey information. The first regular postal system was established in Iran in 550 BC.
  • Beginning of the 18th – 19th Century – The use of the telegram system in 1792, pneumatic post in 1865, radio 1891, and telephone 1890 were the main highlights of this century.
  • 20th Century – Christened “the dawn of the new century”, the 20th century ushered in exciting developments. These developments included: Extensive of Email 1966, Arpanet 1969, Usenet 1979, Six Degrees 1997, LISTSERVE 1986, and Blogger 1999.
  • Millennium – The millennium was the cornerstone of 21st-century communication. This period saw massive developments in innovative technologies such as Wikipedia 2001, LinkedIn 2003, Friendster 2002, YouTube 2005, Facebook 2004, Twitter 2006, Netlog 2009, and Google+ 2011.

The social world has solidified the definition of social media as to where social interactions are powered by the online world. Social media provides a digital space that facilitates online engagements, making it possible to build small communities of friends and peers.

Social Media Development Trends

To design a social media app that will be competitive, you need to equip it with trendy features that will make it stand out. These trendy features and designs are becoming a necessity particularly for start-ups that want to ignite touches with online users. So, what important social media development trends should you look out for?

Let’s take a look:

1. Messengers Outdo Mobile And Desktop-oriented Applications

In 2020, the creatively adaptive design of social media websites is not adequate to cut it anymore. Communication resides in messenger – rapid, mobile and focused around a specific product feature that distinguishes each from other available apps. A desktop version of your social media app will find its audience. However, the focus must be shifted towards rounding off the corners of your mobile version to reap maximum benefits.

2. Virtual Social Platforms

In the past decade, virtual and augmented reality features embedded in social media apps used to be quite unfathomable. However, in 2020, with the advent of KitKat and the ARCore for android, app developers now have a classic opportunity to introduce virtual elements. In social media, the demand for virtually supported social media elements is on the rise but there’s still a lot of space for innovation since these technologies are at their nascent stages.

3. P2P Payments

Online payments systems are being integrated into virtually all pieces of software due to their convenience. A social media application might seem like the least likely place to benefit from. However, peer-to-peer payment systems are an incredible feature particularly when you want users to interact with other people. Snapchat, Skype, and Facebook messenger are already using embedded online payment systems, with WhatsApp planning to incorporate the same.

4. Cross-Platform Development

Native development has its advantages. Unfortunately, it also has its downside and costs that businesses can avoid if they opt for cross-platform development. Unless you want your social media application to be tailored specifically to a particular platform, you can access platforms like Xamarin, Flutter, React Native and other tools to see if they can suit your needs. Most importantly, platforms make the design process faster and easier without compromising on the quality of your design. For app development solutions from experienced vendors, you can contact platforms like NS804, your development partner from conception to completion.

5. AI-Powered Functionality

Artificial intelligence and machine learning can improve user experiences, reduce expenses and improve business analytics. In social media applications, these technologies are most useful in technical support, chatbots, and other platforms requiring facial recognition. Embedding machine learning and AI-powered tools will yield better functionality in terms of security, user experience, and customer relationship management.

6. Content With A Short Life Cycle

The estimated concentration span for desktop content is 2.5 seconds, compared to mobile phone users who spend 1.7 seconds on any piece of content. The concentration span users have on social media continues to decline each year as documented by reliable sources. Keeping aside these statistics, account for this fact when developing any social media app. You need to account for both how large a piece of content is, and how long it’s available for viewing. Keeping the content focused and succinct will garner more viewership as targeted users browse the social media channel for feeds.

7. Functionality For Business Accounts

Content marketing is inevitable. So, businesses must learn to use available social media platforms to promote their products. Therefore, apps that embed this particular functionality are likely to win a broader audience and gain loyalty points. Business functionality can greatly vary depending on the type and nature of social media applications. Therefore, give your users sufficient tools to track likes, visits, reblogs, and similar activities inherent in your platform.

The Growing Relevance of Social Media Apps

Single-purpose apps offer a wealth of benefits particularly to enterprises that want to gain an edge. The first advantage is there is a 100% chance of hitting your target market. It’s also easier to find relevant and necessary information, whether product information, price, or promotional information.

The social media app is a convenient way to promote and to stay in touch 24/7. Social media applications extend a classic opportunity to connect and pool together brand enthusiasts, creating a group of like-minded individuals. For users, it is possible to create helpful, entertaining, and interesting media content, anywhere and anytime. You can share it with friends, colleagues, and anyone else – anytime.

Contact NS804 for a timely solution in your social media app development journey.

How A Custom Mobile App Widens Your Target Audience

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Growing Your Audience With a Custom Mobile App

The information era is in full swing and is widely roaring forward. In fact, the last year acted as a massive accelerant into the age of digitalization. This is because, in part, so many people stayed inside during the breadth of the pandemic. However, even as things open back up, it’s unlikely that the age of digitalization subsides. Evolving, adapting, and going with the flow are some of the best traits that a business leader can exemplify. For businesses in the modern economy, this means preparing to go digital. One way to do this is by building a custom mobile app.

Custom apps are different than your everyday run-of-the-mill application. First of all, a custom mobile app is, well, customizable from the top to the bottom. Rather than using a template application that limits your creativity, functionality, and presentability, a custom app gives you full control. Plus, certain app templates won’t work across all devices and screen sizes.

Therefore, to ensure that your mobile app works for everyone, regardless of device type or size, it makes sense to go with custom.

Testing

Beyond scope, design, and function, a custom mobile app undergoes far more testing than freelance or template mobile applications do. A custom app designed and developed by a legitimate agency will be tested across a broad spectrum of demographics, target markets, and devices. This significantly widens the reach of your mobile application and in turn, grows your audience.

Final Thoughts

Bringing your modern company into the digital era is no easy task. Especially because keeping up with technology is going to be an ever-shifting strategy moving forward. Launching a custom app for your organization, however, is a great first step to take.

For more information on custom app development, keep browsing NS804’s content library.

Everything You Need To Know About Agency Development Practices

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A Quick and Comprehensive Rundown of Agency Development Practices

Risk is an aspect of everyday life because it’s always present. In other words, there’s no way to completely eliminate risk. However, there is a way to manage risk. This is the goal that many businesses and enterprises aim for. By balancing risk on a large scale, businesses can make huge profits and huge progress. The other side of this coin is quality control. Without quality control, risk can quickly get out of hand. Agency development practices bridge the gap between risk and quality control, allowing for the highest quality, lowest-risk results.

Of course, agency development practices often require more than a single developer or programmer. This level of scale comes with a cost, which can elevate the service’s cost as a whole. Breaking the cost down further though, agency development fees prove well worth their salt.

A Look At Agency Fees

When considering agency development vs freelancer development, the upfront cost of freelancers is certainly appealing. There are a variety of factors that bring the cost of a freelance developer down, but choosing the freelance development route for a large-scale project, comes with a hefty set of risks. Some of the risks associated with freelancers include looser timelines, less experienced development skills, and oftentimes, a lack of quality guarantee. These are major risks to take with a professional-grade project. Not only that, but some freelance developers will present a finished project that’s dysfunctional and riddled with bugs. Finally, some freelancers charge so little that in turn, they take on more projects than they can handle.

There’s an age-old phrase that goes, “you get what you pay for.” And that sentiment is no truer than it is when it comes to app development. Agency development practices aim to address the gaps that many freelancers cannot. This is also where the price starts to climb. First of all, agency development practices normally assign a full team of developers to any single project. This not only creates efficiency but also weaves a natural quality control into the process. Additionally, each of the team members assigned to a project typically has a certain specialty that they’re contributing. However, the presence of more manpower also creates a higher cost.

Not only are there more people working on the project, but those professionals are specialists, as mentioned above, which means they have a higher level of training, education, and experience than the average freelance developer; this too, adds cost. Finally, both the quality and the timeline of the project are guaranteed when it’s brought to an agency developer.

Final Thoughts

The costs associated with agency development are often higher than going through a freelance developer. However, those costs contribute directly to the quality and care with which your application is built and delivered. There’s no reason to take unbalanced risks with your application. Instead, trust true professionals, and go with an agency, it’s often the right choice.

For more information on agency development practices or anything else related to app development, keep browsing NS804’s content library. NS804 is the app developer of the everyday appreneur.

Why Android App Development is Becoming More Popular for Businesses

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Taking a Closer Look at the Rise of Android App Development

There’s no such thing as a strictly domestic economy anymore. Rather, domestic economies are now a part of the international economy. In other words, in thinking about business internationally, one must consider a multitude of perspectives. While iOS systems are name brand, if you will, that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in Android systems. In fact, Android systems are more popular on a worldwide basis for business purposes than iOS systems. There are a few factors that play into this. However, with the current rise of Android business applications, it’s important to consider why there’s been a rise in Android app development.

Factors Behind the Rise of Android App Development

First and foremost, one of the most appealing traits of Android app programming is the flexibility. While iOS systems are well known for their robust security programs, sophisticated aesthetics, and proprietary software; Android applications give the creator much more flexibility and versatility. This allows designers and developers to be more creative in the solutions they create and the applications they deliver. In turn, this also brings about a more unique user experience to various applications and systems built to run Android.

Additionally, Android applications are typically cheaper to develop. This is because of two main reasons. The first is that Android applications use multiple languages; unlike iOS systems that solely read python. Beyond the accessibility of development, however, Android app development is also generally cheaper because of the required expertise and the devices that normally utilize Android. In other words, cheaper equipment leads to lower costs.

However, saving money isn’t the only reason that businesses are choosing Android systems over iOS. Between the heightened flexibility of Android development and the lower costs involved, this makes it even easier to customize Android applications. Since the programming is slightly easier, and the expertise is lower, it often gives designers more time to run trials and truly pinpoint the end result they want.

Finally, there’s the global factor. As mentioned above, there’s no such thing as a domestic economy anymore, and this means that, to some extent, the majority rules. More precisely, this just refers to the concept of accessibility. Businesses and organizations want to be accessible to the people who rely on them. This not only means the stakeholders and consumers, but also the workers, employees, and staff. One way to boost accessibility, especially to a global audience, is by being available on the most globally popular operating system that exists: Android.

Wrapping Up With Final Thoughts

There are a lot of reasons that businesses are choosing Android app development over iOS. From the flexibility that Android offers both designers and developers, to the less expensive costs associated with Android development, and the unbeatable accessibility; it makes sense that organizations all over the world are choosing Android.

Join the modern era and prepare your organization for the coming wave of digitalization. For more information on Android app development, or anything else app development-related, keep browsing NS804. NS804 is the mobile app developer of the everyday appreneur.

What Are The Best Tools For Android App Development?

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When embarking on the Android app development journey, you’ll need to choose the right tools. Google provides several excellent tools at no cost to developers to help them get started. But third-party vendors such as Microsoft and Unity also offer Android developers powerful and versatile solutions. We’ll be covering these in more detail below.

1. Choosing The Right Tools For Android App Development 

The world of Android software development can be fascinating and rewarding, provided you choose the right tools. Fortunately, there are several mature and robust tools on the market that facilitate a smooth development process. Here’s a shortlist of tools that every Android developer should have as part of their toolchain:

Android SDK – The official software development kit (SDK) that makes Android mobile app development possible. It contains several battle-tested libraries and tools for building, compiling, debugging, monitoring, and testing apps. 

Android Studio – All developers need an integrated development environment (IDE) to make their ideas come to life. And Android Studio is the quintessential IDE for Android developers, even though there are many alternatives in the marketplace. Moreover, it’s the official IDE for the Android platform and comes with an emulator, image files, and SDK. 

Unity – If you’re developing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) apps or games, consider using Unity. It’s a versatile game engine, renowned for its powerful and user-friendly editor and ability to build games for the most popular platforms with a single click. To target Android, you’ll need to download the Android Build Support module together with Android SDK/NDK and Open JDK.

2. When To Use Another IDE Instead Of Android Studio 

If you’re building native Android apps or targeting the platform exclusively, you’ll probably want to stick with Android Studio. But if you’re targeting Android, iOS, and Windows, you may prefer a cross-platform solution. And one of these is Xamarin, which utilizes Microsoft’s rich .NET ecosystem and tooling and offers native performance. However, Xamarin requires Microsoft’s Visual Studio 2019 IDE as a prerequisite.

3. Why You Should Consider Using Firebase

For a simple mobile app, you probably won’t need to access cloud services. But if you’re developing something more complex, you may require a suite of tools that allow easy integration to Google’s back-end infrastructure. And if you need analytics and authentication together with AdMob integration, then Firebase is a solid choice. Before forging ahead, consider Firebase’s pricing and hidden costs to see if it fits within your budget.

4. Always Profile And Test Your Mobile App

Your development team may be incredibly talented, but it would be a mistake to ship your app without profiling and testing beforehand. The good news is that both the Android SDK and Android Studio come with powerful profiling tools. 

Android SDK includes the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) that allows developers to emulate phone calls, examine threads, profile methods, view the heap, and gather information about the CPU, GPU, and frame rate. And the Android Studio IDE offers real-time monitoring of the CPU, GPU, memory, and network. 

5. Android Software Development Is Constantly Evolving 

Without a doubt, Android app development will be around for a long time still. There’s a massive international audience with an insatiable appetite for innovative apps released on the Google Play Store.

And while most developers will want to support both iOS & Android, they can’t go wrong if they can only support Android at the start. Moreover, they’ll find that Android’s tooling will only get better and more diverse with time. Contact us today to learn how NS804 can help you with your Android software development endeavors.

Mastering and Understanding the MVP

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Mastering the MVP: Elevating Development Strategy

In every industry and marketplace, there are historically proven and tested tactics and tools. Looking to these proven tactics and tools, then, is helpful in painting a pathway to success in the future for new players in the industry. In the context of app development, one such proven tool, is the MVP. MVP, in app development, stands for minimum viable product. In other words, this is the smallest version of the product your team can produce while accurately representing the functionality of the concept. This sounds relatively simple, but understanding the full breadth of the MVPs role in app-development is vital to creating a strong reputation.

While it may not seem incredibly intuitive at first, the MVP is often what makes or breaks an application. This is because MVPs often act as an introduction to the application concept for any interested parties external to the development team. Therefore, the MVP is extremely weighty in forming opinions about your application prior to its launch. Furthermore, though, MVPs also leave a mark on your reputation as a developer; doubling down on the important role that they serve.

Defining The MVP

As was mentioned above, MVP stands for minimum viable product. This serves an important purpose as providing a universally accepted term for essentially small-scale versions of applications. Having said that, though, there is value to further defining what constitutes an MVP for your specific firm or development team. By further expanding what an MVP looks like for your specific team, everyone should be on the same page.

This type of team and vision alignment builds value into your firm, and will help you in producing more consistently high-quality MVPs that attract, and retain, attention. Further still, with your team aligned to the vision of the project; and everyone on board with what a finished MVP looks like, there will be a reduction in miscommunications.

Develop A Process

Like with any business practice in your organization; once done a few times successfully – it’s time to replicate the process, and the resulting success. This is the same principle behind developing a process for your MVP development. Once your firm or team defines their standards for a finished MVP, then you and your team can reverse engineer the process from there. Standardizing the MVP development process weaves consistency and quality assurance into your application development lifecycle.

A standard MVP development lifecycle is multi-faceted and contains more than a few steps. Commonly, the process begins with the birth of the concept. From there, the driving concept for the application gets nurturing and brainstorming between colleagues until a value-proposition is born. Now, with a driving concept and a value proposition, the real design work begins. This is where designers, developers and programmers start working on the general framework of the application.

These first lines of code, that will eventually compose the MVP, act as the foundation for the application and its entire future. Investing in a strong team of programmers, developers, and designers will ensure that your MVP comes out high-quality, with the important features on display and some level of user-experience design included as well.

The Importance

As should be obvious, the role of the MVP in app development is a robust one. Since the minimum viable product often acts as the introduction to the application-to-be, prioritizing its development leads to higher-quality results. Well, you may be thinking, if the end-user doesn’t ever interact with the MVP; does it really matter how strong it is? The answer is a resounding yes.

While users and players may never interact or even see the MVP, potential investors, advertisers, and partners will all want to see your MVP; before making any sort of decision toward partnering with you or your application. Therefore, its vital to present a strong minimum viable product that accurately showcases the value proposition and core functionalities of your application.

Not only this, but MVPs should also contain a thought-out design and user-experience element. These don’t need to be nearly as thought out as the value proposition or the core-concepts need to be; but their presence will elevate your MVP greatly, and indicate that you’ve thought about these various important features and factors.

Who To Go To For MVP Development

Some appreneurs, however, come to the game without the technical savvy or coding know-how. This though; should never act as a deterrent from entering the application-development industry. Especially with the explosion of the mobile and web application markets over the past year. the opportunity is as bountiful as ever. For the appreneurs who fall into this category; there are plenty of options for you to pursue and launch your application.

There are, of course, freelance options who will come with relatively cheap development rates, and promises of quick turn-arounds. However, working with freelancers, especially on application development projects, always comes with a relatively high-risk. From missed deadlines, to projects that completely fall-through, or finished products that are low-quality or bug-ridden. Before signing on a freelancer, be sure you know the risks involved.

On the other side of the development wall are agencies. Agency developers usually come with a slightly higher price-tag, but their quality and deliverable guarantees are much stronger. Plus, with an agencies support, you will usually have additional support-options that assist you in taking your application all the way from MVP through app-store launch, and even updates and reiterations.

The Benefits of Strong MVPs and Presentations

MVPs are clearly a huge part of the application development world. Their role is expansive and they serve a myriad of purposes. So let’s explore a few more of the benefits that yield from prioritizing a strong MVP presentation. Having a well-developed and well-designed minimum viable product is half the battle; presentation is the other half.

Making sure that your MVP presentation does the value-proposition justice, emphasizes the core-concepts of the application, and brings its main features into the limelight is just as important as having an MVP in the first place. By prioritizing the MVP development, your application will start its journey with a leg-up on competitors. This advantage stems from the interest that strong MVPs garner from external parties, prior to app-launch.

Financing, Investors, and Interest

Financial support, investors, ad partners, and a generally bolstered level of consumer interest in your application all start with a well-developed and thoroughly thought-through MVP. The MVP is arguably one of the most important aspects in application development because of it’s direct correlation with building, generating, and maintaining financial interest from partners, sponsors, and investors.

Therefore, by prioritizing the MVP development in your firm by defining the standards of an MVP for your team, building an MVP development process, and properly packaging your MVP proposals, your firm will be well on its way to long term success with a strong reputation and a formulaic process.

Wrapping Up

There are many tactics and strategies that app developers use to garner support for their projects. The minimum viable product is by far one of the most powerful and impactful tools that developers and designers can produce. This is especially the case as a proper MVP showcases the value proposition and the main features of the application.

For more information on how to begin your app-development journey, or the importance of a strong MVP, keep browsing NS804’s content library. NS804 is the proud mobile app developer of the everyday person, more than happy to help.