Let’s start with statistics. In 2021, 2 million new apps were released. It would be an understatement to suggest that there is an intense rivalry. The latest data shows 3,739 apps are added to the Google Play Store daily. They understand how the market changes were critical for mobile app success in 2022.

The business mobile app market has increased since the beginning of the decade. As more people enter the digital age, they have come to rely on their smartphones to assist them with everything from banking to shopping.

You have many options for researching various industry needs and deciding to build a problematic app. A thorough knowledge of data analytics, market segmentation, advertising, app store optimization, revenue channels, shifting business models, the marketing landscape, and more is essential for nailing trends and rising above the competition. 

Making a name for yourself in the insanely saturated app market is difficult for most people. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it a shot. It’s also true that there is still a sizable market for mobile apps, and new ones are continually being developed, released, and becoming prosperous. 

It might enhance your online presence, and your platform could become incredibly sticky by including social features and concentrating on various aspects of your business. We need applications to focus on providing users with quality services and making their lives easier.

With a solid understanding of the app development process and a clear marketing plan, you can make your mobile app stand out in a crowded market and establish a sizable user base.

Let’s review what you can do to stand out from the crowd, make your mobile app successful despite the public, and download lethargy. 

Understand How To Target The Needs Of Your Potential Users

Getting inside your users’ heads and comprehending their lived experiences is the first and most crucial step in truly understanding their demands. What kind of persons do they gravitate to en route? What hobbies do they have in their spare time?

What are some of the most pressing issues customers have with your service? What companies do they contact for guidance, and how can you stand out from your rivals? These are a few inquiries that, when properly incorporated into your plan, will significantly improve your possibilities of developing an effective app and a devoted online following.

Place Emphasis On Design

First impressions matter; therefore, carefully considering your app’s visual design should be a key priority during its development and any subsequent upgrades. An attractive and practical design will grab users’ attention and enhance their experience.

Analyze Your Rivals

It would be best to start by compiling a comprehensive list of your competitors and completing a deep competition analysis, whether you are developing a new mobile app or already have one that needs to prevail as you’d like.

Learn what makes their apps unique or why people enjoy them. Use the app to determine which features you want and which user interface elements keep you returning to them. See how well they perform the original function that created these apps. Compare these results to your app now and consider how you may make it as exciting or effective as the rivals. 

Create A Comprehensive Marketing Plan

Every product in the world requires a successful marketing plan. As many people as you can need to see your mobile app, your marketing campaigns must be compelling enough to grab their attention. You must consider how you desire to approach your mobile app marketing, including various forms of advertising, social media campaigns, event promotions, collaborations, and so much more.

• Promote effective adverts: Use the best writing, language, visuals, and video to produce compelling advertising highlighting your app’s best aspects and the benefits your consumers will experience. It is not the purpose of advertisements to solicit boasts about your app. They center on identifying a problem your users are experiencing and demonstrating how your software can address it. Demonstrate to your users how great, simple, or unique their lives will be once they use your program. Show them the time they will save, the comfort they will have, or the fun they will have as a result of using your software.

• Discover various forms of advertising: The most common ad formats are in-app, banner, and video ads. Use well-known ad networks like Adsense to optimize your ad placement and raise awareness of your mobile app.

Content Marketing Strategy 

Good content is not inexpensive. To strengthen your presence on social media and the digital landscape, you may need to hire exceptional content creators, writers, and SEO strategists. Content marketing offers a variety of paths to success, including enticing snippets, emails, long-form blog posts, and compelling stories.

You must hire the ideal content producers to differentiate your app from the competition and outperform your competitors.

Consider Writing Efficiently

Written content on applications is crucial, even though people’s attention spans are getting shorter, and they frequently scan sites. Do directions make sense? If your content is compelling enough, readers with limited time or reading skills will only scroll past if it speaks directly to them.

If you’re having trouble writing yourself, work with professionals who can ensure that each phrase clearly outlines what to do next to move things along fast and ensure that we meet all deadlines.

App Store Optimization

People use keywords and information on the app page, including descriptions, screenshots, and—most crucially—user ratings and reviews when conducting searches in app stores. Utilize each of them to the fullest extent possible to ensure that your app appears in search results and appears appealing enough to draw in your target audience.

The app store is optimized in this process. Begin with your app’s name and logo. Use an eye-catching and straightforward logo. In the app description, include a keyword. Use the best screenshots that logically depict what your app’s users can expect.

Spend time creating a detailed video demonstrating everything your app can do for your users. Use this video to highlight the best features of your app. Make it so appealing that your users are compelled to download it.

Customer Feedback: Pay attention to customer reviews. Engage users, expressing gratitude for favorable feedback and assisting those who have had a bad experience. You can transform a bad review into a good one by apologizing for the inconvenience and rectifying issues. This will encourage additional users to download and try out your software.

Create A Wonderful Experience First

The one thing we are here for in the first place — a fantastic app — comes before all the methods we will soon explore. It can heavily promote a defective product, but it will never be able to compete with high-quality alternatives.

Therefore, start laying a solid basis for your mobile app development approach. Pay attention to adding value for the users. Find and address a real issue. Perform it better than anyone else is currently doing. Have a UVP, or unique selling proposition, that distinguishes your goods from your rivals.

To accomplish that, you return to the first topic we covered, competitor research. Do it well and use your technical and creative skills to develop something beneficial.

Marketing For Differentiation

• Website: For your app, you must undoubtedly create an internet presence. Why? People will want to know that your app is authentic and that you have a strong business plan.

• Social Media: Social networking is necessary to market your app successfully. Utilize these accounts and begin following users who share your ideals and work in your sector if you want to interact meaningfully with your target audience. Remember to refrain from spamming and offering content that interests readers so they can participate in the discussion. Spending some money on your advertising will draw more users to your app. Since Facebook owns Instagram, they make it very simple to run an app install advertising on both platforms, making Facebook and Instagram very effective at this.

• Press Release: Your brand can gain from increased involvement and public awareness through press releases. Having a place to post your updates helps develop a brand and an app that sticks in people’s minds and is admired by experts and employees. This is true whether you’re letting people know about your newest product or offering a special promotion.
• Blogging: Regular blogging can improve your company’s web presence. It enables your audience to recognize you as the authority in your industry, raising brand awareness and credibility. It will eventually assist you in growing your customer base.

Secure Mobile App

Most apps ask users to submit sensitive information to function more effectively, making app security a touchy subject. Since the data they collect directly impacts their customers’ lives and well-being, reading the regulation guidelines can ensure that users are being taken care of in the most effective way possible.

Introduce Fresh Elements

Adding additional social features to your mobile app allows you to differentiate your app from the competition. This would be advantageous if you want to enhance in-app engagement and retention and maximize your platform’s revenue. You start with the initial set of features that please most users.

Size Of The Application

Any mobile application’s size is significant. As a result, developers constantly consider the app’s size to avoid the conflict above. Some applications are large or bulky and have a length of 20 MB or more, but they should be justified in their size.

Modification

Some applications acquire more downloads after a strong start, but the consistency needs to be kept up. Of course, every smartphone application has a few flaws and omissions. Top Developers should update it frequently to eliminate the previous outcasts. Below the Review area, you can see the “Last Updated” date, which should be as close to the present moment as feasible to indicate that just updated application.

Logo And App Description In App Stores

The aesthetic quality of the logo is crucial. It grabs our interest. The most challenging aspect of creating a logo is ensuring it is as distinctive as possible while remaining elegant, magnificent, and straightforward.

The app description will entice users who have never heard of your program before to click the “Download” button when visiting the “Play Store.” They’re true when they claim that “Content is King.” It doesn’t matter what you write; how you write counts. You should write it correctly.

Trendy App Name 

The application’s name ought to be hip, clever, and tenacious. Second, it should be succinct and to the point. Thirdly, it should strongly connect to the mobile app’s genre. Consider this as an example: Messenger is short, relevant, and unique, and it sounds fantastic when it is uttered. Modern methods of naming mobile applications include adding a “Z” at the end of the app or sandwiching it between the name and another letter, word juggling, adding a prefix or suffix to the vocabulary, etc.

Monitoring Post-Download Activity

Is the user’s downloaded application idle on the homepage or utilized once a week? That is indeed depressing. Of course, this plan allows for analysis and enhanced engagement while addressing weak points. 

Closing Remarks 

One of the most competitive businesses in the world is undoubtedly one that involves mobile apps. With about 2.8 million apps available in the Google Play store and 2.2 million in the Apple App Store, it can be challenging to get your app noticed, let alone downloaded.

Given the intense competition, creating your software’s most excellent possible version is critical. Conducting a competitive analysis to determine where your competitors are at, what is working for them, what isn’t, and what you can do better is one of the most effective approaches to achieving this. Why should clients pick you?

Mobile apps are a fantastic method to stay in touch with your customers and meet their needs. You must ensure your app is updated with technology to meet their needs. By doing this, you’ll be able to customize your software for each user individually and guarantee that they enjoy using it. Hire a mobile app development company that provides quality mobile app solutions with exquisite features based on your business requirements to stay competitive.

The post How To Ensure Your Mobile Application Stands Out In Highly Competitive App Stores? appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

The most effective method for web application developers is constructing progressive web applications. Not only does this program load quickly, but it also performs better than similar web applications. There is an app for almost everything these days, including banking, studying, trading, and shopping. Most businesses rely on apps to improve client experiences and gain an advantage over rivals. Several stakeholders are frequently involved in shaping your digital strategy: the chief marketing officer and product manager are co-owners of the business impact of each feature, the chief technology officer evaluates the viability and dependability of technology, and the user experience researchers confirm that a component addresses a genuine customer issue. 

What Is PWA?

Any online browser can view PWAs, a mashup of web pages and native apps. Mobile users found it to be more convenient. Customers will be asked whether they want to add a website to their home screen before it is added after user approval. This will enable the user to schedule a meeting while on the go. It has some of the website’s typical characteristics, like a distinctive loading screen, eye-catching animations, and no navigation bar. Top players have already been using this new technology.

Combinations let you build lightning-fast websites with P.W.As that enhance user experience, engage visitors longer, and boost conversion rates. Experts from a website design firm claim they connect mobile apps with responsive websites. PWA technology broadens people’s perspectives on web pages. PWAs are designed with features like alerts and offline functioning. Modern APIs are also used in their development, which makes it simple to give greater functionality, dependability, and flexibility to install them on any device.

Progressive Web Applications: Core Features

Progressive Web Apps should not only be considered a rival to native apps. Even a business with an existing app can profit from them. They are cross-platform, and segmenting the purchasing experience into several platforms is becoming less and less successful in the multichannel era.

What should be taken into account when creating a PWA is listed below :

Security

Since the content of these apps is supplied via HTTPS, unauthorized people cannot access them. These days, a website must be encrypted with an SSL certificate to function; this provides another degree of protection. As we already know, PWAs are websites that have been turned into applications, making them more secure because they employ HTTPS. These security protocols enable a secure data transfer between clients and servers so that the data cannot be altered.

To protect your native apps, you must implement several security measures, such as multi-factor authentication.

Auto Updates Or No Updates Required

Apps keep up to date because they can update themselves automatically. Users have some responsibility when it comes to application updates. Your users will benefit from PWAs because they won’t need to be updated. Users will see their app’s new and updated features since it actively updates itself in real time, exactly like a website.

Offline Work Mode 

Progressive web applications are more than just lightning-fast programs. Additionally, they can keep operating if the user has a sluggish or inconsistent internet connection or is offline. The technology behind that feature, called service workers, enables the app to store data offline and manage network requests to get it from the local cache flexibly. It immediately leads to another advantage: reducing the data we utilize to execute the software.

The service worker can cache an application shell (interface) to load quickly on subsequent visits. The necessary dynamic content, such as the shopping cart, avatars, messages, or payment history, is reloaded whenever the connection is reestablished. These mechanics make good app performance and an enhanced user experience possible. A messaging user, for instance, won’t notice an interface difference between the online and offline modes: There is a message history, and it is still functional. Nevertheless, texting needs a connection.

Responsive And Advanced

A developer must ensure that all consumers, regardless of their device, appreciate the product. Different firms make devices with various screen sizes. It is a good idea to ensure that your software can be utilized on any screen size and that its content is accessible at every viewport size. They are built by the rules of continuous improvement. According to web design principles, the core functions and information should be accessible to everyone, regardless of the connection’s browser.

UI Resembling An App

Finding a way to combine the finest experience — one that is app-like — with the open nature of the web is the primary concept underlying PWAs.

Except for how they are downloaded, PWAs and native applications have very little in common from the user’s perspective. PWAs are created, released, updated, and shared differently from native apps. The app should have the same appearance and experience as a typical app, so include elements like an app icon to help it stand out and splash screens to give it that final touch.

Push Notification Features

Push notifications are a great tool for communicating in PWA. Customers can stay interested in your brand and open and use your app longer thanks to this effective message Digital strategy.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the technology behind the Progressive Web App has wrapped up with its native app counterpart in terms of functionality, given that the movement is always evolving.

Easily Installed 

Statistics show that people interact with installed apps more frequently than official websites. A PWA gives consumers the appearance, feel, and level of interaction of a typical app.

A PWA can be found using standard search engines like Google or Bing because it is a website with some extras. There is no need to sift through the mountains of new apps that appear daily in the app stores’ sea of apps. Installation of a PWA is simple and takes place in the background of the initial visit.

Home-Screen Save

PWA saves consumers from bookmarking websites and browsing through Play and App stores to find and download the necessary applications. After the PWA has been added, your user won’t require a web browser to use the program. Since it is visible on their Home Screen, they may always access it whenever possible.

The Pros Of A Progressive Web App 

The Progressive Web App (PWA) is a rapid web and app development innovation. Web and app solutions used to differ significantly, but today’s PWA offers a potent combination of a website and a native mobile app. Because a PWA can be used as both a mobile app and a website, it provides a single solution for all devices.

Improved Efficiency

The key benefit of a PWA is the faster user experience it provides. You may speed up the loading process by prioritizing resources, employing cache-first networking, and using adaptive loading based on network quality. This software improves website loading times, boosting user experience, customer loyalty, and retention rates. 

Least Development Cost

Specialists who develop progressive web apps employ a web stack, which is more time, effort, and cost-effective.

The rationale is that since a single progressive software may function well on Android and iOS and accommodate different devices, developers can create the program for several platforms.

The most economical option has been PWA. The intricacy of the project affects the price of PWA development. A small, less difficult project will take fewer man-hours to complete, greatly decreasing the price of building a PWA.

User Satisfaction 

Thanks to progressive web applications, users benefit from a trustworthy experience. Service workers bring offline capabilities to the globe of P.W.A.s because of their technology and speed. This makes it possible to pre-cache the page for eventual offline consumption. This is fantastic for readers who live in places with subpar technology or inadequate connectivity. They can still have a wonderful time, and speaking with P.W.A.s provides a solid framework. The seamless upgrades of P.W.As are another factor in their reliability.

No Distribution Of Apps Via Third Parties

Putting your program in an app store is an additional expense for the project. Before the software may reach your end consumer, some stores charge a price and require the project to go through a cumbersome, drawn-out publishing and certification process. This approach increases costs and lengthens your average market time, which can occasionally result in missed opportunities for commercial holidays or the release of untested releases to make a deadline.

Storage Arrays And Consumption

Native programs need users to visit an app store, download, install, and grant all the necessary permissions to function, but these processes offer consumers plenty of time to change their minds. Users may skip it completely if an application is too large or consumes too much data. Progressive web applications load everything instantly as websites do. As a result, data usage and size issues disappear, greatly improving the likelihood that a user would continue with the PWA.

Integration 

The API includes support for progressive web applications, which feel natural to you and your device. APIs can help start and make P.W.A.s function similarly to other native apps. The API provides the perks of user interaction and aggressive application integration.

Quick Install

Progressive web apps do not necessitate a complex installation procedure, unlike their native mobile half-brother apps. The procedures are easy to

comprehend, so you don’t need to visit the app store. This lowers the likelihood that a user will uninstall the software. Users can also use the desktop icon to access the program.

Market Growth And Future For PWAs

PWAs have many benefits, such as being smaller, easier to maintain, less expensive to develop, and many more. According to most technology industry professionals, Progressive Web Applications are the way of the future.

The technology industry is investing significantly in PWAs as they gain popularity and customer engagement strategy. Progressive web applications have the potential to become the web applications of the future. 

Higher conversion rates, more sales, and greater profits. You want to accomplish all these things if you own an online store. The growth of mobile commerce offers companies countless opportunities to reach their target customers. Instead of only serving as an alternative to older websites, many companies started to create fully featured mobile apps. PWAs, however, have become more prevalent recently. And it’s not surprising given that it’s a more practical, user-focused, and cost-effective approach.

The post Progressive Web Apps and Their Benefits in Business appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Table of contents

• Extended Reality Business Applications for Industries in 2022
• Introduction to Extended Reality
• Three Remarkable Components of Extended Reality(XR)
  • Augmented Reality(AR)
  • Virtual Reality(VR)
  • Mixed Reality(MR)
• 5 Powerful Real Time Business Applications
  • Healthcare
  • Retail
  • Gaming and Entertainment
  • Marketing
  • Education & Training
• Real time Examples
• Challenges
• Conclusion

Extended Reality Business Applications for Industries in 2022

Introduction to Extended Reality

Extended Reality(XR) is an umbrella phrase that consists of all real and virtual environments generated by computer technology. It comprises Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) and Mixed Reality(MR).  All immersive technologies grow the reality we experience by creating a fully immersive experience by blending the real and virtual world.

Research reveals that more than 60% of respondents believe XR will become mainstream in the coming five years. The Extended Reality(XR) market will grow from 33 billion dollars to 125.2 billion dollars by 2026. Visualize yourself walking on the moon or diving into the deep sea, all while you are sitting on your couch at home. Just as we spoke, Extended Reality(XR) makes all of this possible.

To know more about Extended Reality, we need to understand the three components of Extended Reality, which are Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) and Mixed Reality(MR).

Let us have a look at the three remarkable components;

Three Remarkable Components of Extended Reality(XR)

Augmented Reality(AR)

As the word suggests, Augmented Reality(AR) takes the existing reality and overlays it with different types of information, thus enhancing the digital experience. It can be classified as marker-based, marker-less and location-based.

To experience AR, we have to use glasses or screens using tablets or smartphones.

Examples of AR are ‘Pokemon Go’ games where digital structures are created and placed in the real world and a Snapchat filter that lets you put on the hat or glasses.

Virtual Reality(VR)

In contrast to Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) fully immerses users in a simulated digital environment. Individuals must put on a VR headset or a head-mounted display to get a 360 -degree picture of a synthetic world. This artificial world tricks the brain into believing they are swimming under the ocean or walking on the moon, letting them step into a new world created by the Virtual Reality developers. The entertainment and gaming industries were the early adopters of this technology; however, companies in engineering, Digital Healthcare, construction, and more are researching their way of implementing it.

An example of Virtual Reality use case implementation is Volvo. Volvo introduced VolvoReality that lets customers experience a complete VR test drive with their phone.

Mixed Reality(MR)

Mixed Reality(MR) is the latest immersive technology, often referred to as hybrid reality. In mixed Reality, real and digital-world objects co-exist and interact in real-time. It needs more processing power than VR or AR to avoid speed problems and latency. We can experience Mixed Reality with an MR headset or glasses.

5 Powerful Real Time Business Applications

Healthcare

Imagine exploring human anatomy virtually. What if there is a life-size 3D model right in front of you where you can walk and interact with it- that’s what XR can do- it creates a virtual experience. Extended Reality in Healthcare is paving the way for new opportunities for medical practitioners. Extended Reality solutions own the potential to assist surgeons in the operation theatre. To understand it in detail, let us have a lookup into the best 3 uses of XR in Health Care :

1)Building surgery simulator to train medical practitioners 

Immersive technologies help doctors conduct surgery simulations. We can create a surgery simulator with the support of extended Reality. We can also use it for training medical practitioners.

2)Helps Surgeons Prepare before actual surgeries 

With the help of Extended Reality(XR), we can generate 3D replicas based on patient scans that let surgeons study and collaborate with the team on surgical tactics. An XR immersive headset is used to showcase the draw, cut measure tools, and develop an actual operation procedure.

3)Better Diagnosis of Health Conditions  

What if doctors can scan a patient’s body and point out health problems straight away? As fascinating as it sounds, it is now possible with an XR application. Immersive technologies are brought together with the help of 3D models to help detect patients’ illnesses.

By 2025, Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR) market value is forecasted to be $10.82 billion.

Retail

One of the most thrilling areas where XR is set to make a mark is retail/eCommerce. The line is clouding between online and in-store shopping experiences; like today, more brands are experimenting with Virtual Reality(VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to build innovative customer experiences.

But why should we imagine a virtual shopping experience when you see it in person in the store? All of this was true until customers couldn’t go to the store anymore due to pandemic restrictions.

In January 2020, 8% of retailers stated they were interested in AR/VR. Six months later, that number increased to 20%. Today, retailers see the opportunity of Extended Reality in a different light.

Top 3 Examples of VR and AR bring used in the Retail Sector

1)Nike– Nike used Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in their physical stores so that Customers can scan items like clothes or shoes to view information.

2) IKEA developed The Place App, which lets shoppers use augmented Reality with their smartphone camera to position furniture items in their houses to visualize exactly how the thing will look.

3) BMW’s augmented reality experiences let car shoppers head into showrooms and customize cars with various colours or styles using their phones or tablets. They can even put on virtual reality goggles and experience driving cars to understand their options better.

Gaming and Entertainment

Gaming

With its share in the XR market being 34%, the video games industry has been XR’s early and foremost user. Many game designers are now creating interactive 3D experiences, using different devices and frameworks to build Extended Reality games that let them feel like they are playing in a real environment. Like being in a Star Wars environment where Darth Vader is present? Vader Immortal is a VR game that gives an immersive experience of how it truly feels to be in the Star Wars world. You can play this VR game using the Oculus Quest headset.

Research emphasizes that the VR market for gaming was worth $5.12 billion by 2019 alone. Further forecasts state that the numbers will grow at a CAGR of 31.8% by 2027, by which the VR market size is about to reach a net of $45.20 billion.

Entertainment

Virtual Reality plays a dominant part in the entertainment industry. It focuses mainly on producing and improving video-based immersive media like TV shows, movies and numerous other forms of video content. Virtual rides are designed for Theme parks which are usually difficult to simulate in Reality.Beyond this, Virtual Reality is also being executed in art galleries and museums to make it interactive with a contextual background and to provide a rich user experience. Other AR entertainment mobile apps like PokemonGo have transformed the real world with a simulated overlay attracting and engaging audiences.

While Virtual Reality(VR) is liable for gathering a lot of traction due to its highly immersive characteristics, Augmented Reality(AR) is now becoming a game-changer. It is a lucrative immersive technology that will benefit the Gaming and Entertainment sector in the long run. AR technology is used daily in smartphones via camera filters on social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. The filter utilizes computer vision technology that relies on an active shape model categorizing features and a human face-recognizing feature; filters are applied accordingly through the camera. The VR and AR media entertainment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 48.8% from the year 2018 to 2023.

Marketing

Extended Reality(XR) empowers marketers to give their customers a shot before purchasing the product. It lets customers immerse themselves into that environment and convince them to discover it. For instance, Cathay Pacific used a 360 video to help clients understand the brand.; This raised customer consciousness by 29% and brand favorability by 25%.

From a marketing point of view, let us understand what XR brings to the table?

• Product Showcasing With XR, consumers can experience new developments in new ways like never before. Imagine trying out a shoe or a smartwatch before you even pay for it! That’s the pulse that the marketing strategists want to target.
• Interactive campaigns XR is all about building an immersive experience for the consumer. Thanks to digital transformation, the calibre of hardware available to the average customer have improved vastly. Every smartphone is capable of processing AR tech, which empowers marketing strategists.

Education & Training

XR holds great potential to change how we get education and training. XR will help get trained and educated in low-risk, virtual environments to master the skills fast and without spending a significant amount. Employees can efficiently focus on the task in a simulated environment built using XR. Remote learning is another vital aspect of XR that will solve the problem of distance barriers.

Benefits most from using XR solutions in Education & Training

• •  NASA is vigorously experimenting with XR to train its repair and maintenance workers in the space station.
  • The electrical technicians at Boeing aeroplanes use AR-headsets to check maintenance checklists, which are reducing their inspection time by 25%.
  • The US Marines have used an “Augmented Immersive Team Trainer” system that trains soldiers virtually by adding different fire effects and enemies that has enhanced their performance in real-world scenarios.

Real time Examples

• Walmart training with AR

Walmart uses Oculus VR headsets to augment employee training. Positioning staff through training with VR boosts the confidence and retention of the team, enhancing test scores by 10 and 15%.

• Coca Cola AR

The Coca Cola Augmented Reality(AR) app allows users to point their camera phone at any Coca Cola can and make one of the twelve stories come to life.

• Ford’s

Ford’s new technology, HoloLens, lets designers wear wireless headsets and see digital designs and parts as already incorporated into the physical vehicle.

• Jaguar Vehicle VR

Jaguar generated 3D models of every car part, letting them picture every element of the vehicle and fit it all together. The model will simulate the performance of components and systems.

Extended Reality Challenges 

• Screen Door Effect- This visual effect allows fine spaces between pixels to be seen due to a large image scale. However, this can be solved with advances in both lenses and screens.

• Motion to photon latency– It is a delay between the user’s head movement and the change in the display of the XR device imitating its movement. This can cause motion sickness. Researchers have designed a freedom model for user movement prediction, lowering positional rendering error.

• Safety Concerns– If the app uses an Extended Reality controller, then the user may clash with other objects provoking harm at both ends. Moreover, the user may trip over an obstacle while moving around, causing them to lose their balance. Intel has put together guidelines on creating a safe, comfortable, and immersive VR experience.

Conclusion

Extended Reality (XR) is creating breakthroughs in finding unique ways to interact with clients. XR solutions are augmenting and increasing the productivity of many industries, including real estate, retail & eCommerce, education & training, entertainment, and more. We may see a world where virtual interaction prevails over real-life experiences in a more distant future.

The post Extended Reality Business Apps for Industries in 2022 appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

51% of the people living in the US haven’t downloaded an app in a month. With more apps crowding the app space, customers have reached a state where they don’t want to download new apps. We recently conducted a survey to understand what, according to mobile app users, defines a user-centric and successful app. We hope that the results help our readers understand mobile experience from a user’s perspective and enable them to improve their mobile app strategy.

Check out our detailed infographic for all the answers and understand how you can fortify the very crux of your mobile app strategy.

The post Survey Results: Top Things Users Want to See in Mobile Apps appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Table of contents

• The growth in app development trends: Unprecedented and ongoing
• 10 Mobile application trends to watch out for in 2020
  1. IoT
  2. Instant Apps
  3. AR/VR
  4. Chatbots
  5. BYOD
  6. Apps for foldable devices
  7. Beacons technology
  8. 5G
  9. Blockchain
  10. Low code/no-code development
• Conclusion

The growth in app development trends: unprecedented and ongoing

According to Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide today surpasses three billion and is forecasted to grow further by several hundred million in the next few years. China, India, and the United States are the countries with the highest number of smartphone users, with each country surpassing the 100 million user mark. With the increasing usage of smartphones, mobile app development trends are also growing and have made it essential for developers to stay updated and relevant.Businesses globally are keeping an eye on the latest trends to reap the maximum advantage and create a stronger, more engaged user-base. While we saw unprecedented growth in app development trends till 2019, this year is set to witness a similar trajectory of growth, with more promising trends. We have listed the top ten among them that businesses and developers must watch out for in 2020.

10 Mobile application trends to watch out for in 2020

1. IoT

   2019 witnessed brands like Amazon and Google leveraging IoT and strengthening the competition by introducing the “Echo” range of devices and “Home voice controller” respectively. The investment of hardware companies like Cisco and Dell in IoT and Google’s move to acquire wearable company Fitbit and its collaboration with Nest, a home security camera manufacturer, further hints at the fast movement of these companies towards IoT technology.

   So far we have seen various use cases of IoT in real-life such as continuous supply chain management in retail, connected homes and savvy healthcare monitoring. We are yet to see more and with the increase in demand for IoT solutions, the demand for IoT-enabled apps will grow simultaneously. Forbes magazine predicts that the IoT market would double by 2021. App developers, therefore, will be looking to develop apps for connected products.

2. Instant Apps

   Unlike native apps, you don’t need to download and install instant apps to run them, they can be accessed via a shared link. Instant apps give you access to limited features or a fundamental features-only version of the app. One of the prime reasons they are gaining traction is app demos. These apps provide a look into an app’s complete version and make it easier for you to decide if it’s useful for you before choosing to download. It has become a better way of reaching out to target audiences and convince them for installation. Another advantage of instant apps is that they are smaller in size when compared to regular apps which reduce the page loading time and bounce rate. Vimeo reported an increased session rate by 130% with instant apps.

   With users continuously demanding a better experience and shorter load times, instant apps are something to look forward to in 2020.

3. AR/VR

   Many eCommerce stores, realtors and apparel brands have integrated AR/VR technologies in their applications- Sephora and IKEA, for instance. This not only enabled them to boost and enhance user experience but also increased conversion rates. New use cases are underway as technological giants like Apple and Google are investing heavily in innovation using AR. This year, Google plans to introduce a new AR feature for Google Maps, which would provide people with directions from their camera phones in real time.

   According to Statista, the augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) market is forecasted to reach 18.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. Looking at the growth drivers and potential use cases, we can confirm that this year, AR integration will be one of the significant mobile app development trends that would shape the mobile industry.

4. Chatbots

   Initially, only apps like Facebook, Skype, and Slack used chatbots at large but now we see most of the businesses leveraging chatbots for customer interactions. With nearly 50% of customers preferring self-service chatbots over human representatives, it has become imperative for every major product and service sector business to deploy a chatbot. Till date, there are approximately 2.5 million apps in the Google Play Store and nearly 1.8 million in the Apple App Store. However, there are very few apps that have deployed chatbots to enhance customer experience.

   As per Gartner, chatbot interaction is set to increase from just 20% in 2017 to 93% in 2022. With 80% of enterprises expected to use chatbots by 2020, the integration of chatbots to mobile apps will escalate quickly.

5. BYOD

   Bring Your Own Device is a trend under which companies allow their employees to use their personal smartphones and tablet devices for work. This way, enterprises save the cost of device purchase. This comes with security challenges such as employee frauds and industrial spying but they can be averted by deploying a BYOD app. They can install the app on their personal devices which can have different features and rights.

   According to Insights, BYOD market will reach $367 billion by 2022. Many companies are expected to follow the trend set by large enterprises and build company app for their employees.

6. Apps for foldable devices

   With Samsung coming up with its foldable phones, the operating systems are getting ready to make use of this technology to improve smartphone experiences. Google, in 2018, officially announced the foldable support on Android phones by using its ‘screen continuity’ API. According to Samsung, many android apps such as Amazon prime video, Twitter and Facebook have already been optimized for their Galaxy fold. Video streaming and gaming apps can also reap more benefits from foldable technology by simply increasing their screen size or using the extra space for additional information and controls.

   Since foldable phones are the next big thing of 2020, developers must plan their strategy in a way that their applications are poised to run seamlessly on foldable devices.

7. Beacon technology

   A beacon technology-enabled app on your device shows you where you can have your preferred products, their costs, and other specifications. Beacons utilize BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) signals. When your device enters a beacon’s zone, the particular app instantly gets this signal and offers appropriate notifications and instructions for the users. Industries like healthcare, museums, and hotels have already included beacons in their services. After Apple’s iBeacon and Google’s Eddystone, now beacon is a part of both iOS and Android app development.

   Beacon technology has been around for some time now, and 2020 will make its presence even stronger. Beacon-based notifications are increasingly helping many businesses and industries to connect with their customers in a highly contextual manner.

   According to GeoMarketing, by 2020, the number of beacon deployments is expected to reach 400 million globally, thereby generating $56,554M by 2026.

8. 5G

   The introduction of 5G networks will not just strengthen network performance but create a data-intensive environment, facilitating new opportunities. By providing lower latency and speeding up data-sharing by upto 10x , you can automate more core processes and deliver improved applications for capturing and sharing data. 5G services offer an extensive range of opportunities, app developers should design the apps that can handle volumes of data being transmitted without compromising with performance.

   It is anticipated that the transition from 4G services to 5G wireless network will be completed by the end of 2020.

9. Blockchain

   Blockchain technology, launched many years back, became a buzzword in 2018, and it was 2019 when we witnessed its many use cases across various industries. With data breaches and security becoming major challenges for business leaders worldwide, blockchain as a trend is growing fast. A large number of fintech companies have already reaped the benefits from blockchain app development.

   According to Transparency Market research, the blockchain market will reach $20 billion by 2024. This clearly indicates that app developers must get ready to capitalize on this technology.

10. Low code/no-code development

    Businesses looking to have an in-house app development team sometimes lack the resources needed to effectively plan and develop a mobile product.  Low-code or no-code development is increasingly becoming popular among such businesses as it eliminates the need for in-house personnel to have a thorough knowledge of coding. In case of no-code development, they can develop the product with no coding knowledge at all.  These platforms are easy to use; where users can simply drag and drop visual components and compile an app.

    While low-code/no-code development platforms are not here to replace traditional coding, this trend will get a boost in 2020, especially among enterprises where budgets are a constraint.

Conclusion

As the trends change and new technologies evolve, it is important for business leaders to stay abreast of the latest trends and technologies and stand out in the highly competitive mobile app development space. The evolving app development trends would drive the need for enterprise mobile app development services. Make sure you keep up with the technologies and trends we mentioned here and try to implement them as much in your mobile app. You can also leverage the expertise of mobile app development companies such as [x]cube LABS to scale your businesses through mobile applications.

The post 10 Mobile application trends to watch out for in 2020 appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Table of contents

• What are cross-platform applications?
• Why is it important?
• Frequently asked questions
• Conclusion

While developing a mobile application, one of the first decisions you need to make is whether it will be a native, web, or hybrid app. With multiple pros and cons of each type, it becomes difficult to decide which one is right for you. Your decision should ideally depend on key factors such as budget, time to develop, user experience, ease of maintenance and developer skills. Since mobile development keeps evolving, cross-platform applications have become a popular choice, as they are easier to update over continuous iterations.

What are cross-platform applications?

Cross-platform are those that can run across multiple operating systems, such as iOS, Android, Universal Windows Platform and Web. With changing preferences and shifting loyalties, having the same footprint across major platforms is crucial for businesses to retain and engage customers. Cross-platform development has thus emerged as an indispensable strategy for enterprise leaders.

Why is it important?

Cross-platform development enables companies to create low-cost custom applications that are secure, stable, effortless to maintain and easy to iterate, thereby facilitating faster development cycles and quicker time to market compared to traditional app development undertakings.

With cross-platform applications, you can achieve:

• Wider access to the target audience
• Reduced development cost
• Easier maintenance
• Quicker development process
• Reusable code
• Faster time-to-market

Frequently asked questions

[x]cube LABS, with its decade-long history of helping enterprises multiply their businesses with the right app development strategy and execution, recently organised a strategic session where some of the top tech architects came together to discuss questions they face often. We present their thoughts below which would be beneficial for professionals to plan their mobile initiatives right.

1. How cost-effective is it to choose a cross-platform application over native application?
   Other factors remaining same, in most of the cases you can build a cross-platform app for only 60% of the cost that it takes to build native building apps separately for multiple platforms.
2. Are cross-platform apps recommended for gaming as well?
   Gaming works differently. For enhanced user experience, it is recommended to build them separately for each platform so that the native platform features can be utilized to their full potential, which might otherwise perform poorly on other platforms.
3. What factors should I consider in deciding whether to build a cross-platform application or not?
   Primarily, you need to decide the purpose of your app. Then decide on how the UI is expected to perform. If your application requires gaming-level animations or is expected to deliver high performance overall, then native apps are the right choice to go with.
4. What is the impact of content size on my cross-platform application?
   The app size of cross-platform applications is large as compared to native applications.
5. Which category of applications is recommended for cross-platform development?
   Non-heavy B2C applications are the ideal choice for cross-platform development. For heavier applications, native apps are recommended.
6. Which platform is more secure- native or cross-platform?
   There isn’t much difference on that end. Both offer a secure environment.
7. How much is the deviation in native and cross-platform apps when it comes to time to market?
   Cross-platform apps can be delivered approximately 20% faster when it comes to time-to-market.

Conclusion

Cross-platform mobile apps are installed on your device, just like any other app. What differentiates them is the fact they retain elements from their native and web apps counterparts. Since technologies like Javascript, Dart and .Net are easier to maintain as compared to Android and iOS, cross-platform applications are often the first choice when developing applications that demand continuous iterations, easier maintenance, faster time to market and a lighter content and UI design.

The post Cross Platform Applications: FAQs to help make the right choice appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Table of contents

• Why is scaling a challenge for most products?
• Four tips for creating a product that scales to a million users
  1. Relevance
  2. Design and Experience
  3. Distribution and Reach
  4. Ability to Scale
• Conclusion
• About [x]cube

Why is scaling a challenge for most products?

Five tips for creating a product that scales to a million users

At [x]cube LABS, we have the experience of conceiving and executing multiple digital initiatives that scaled successfully to millions of users. We have delivered these successes for a wide variety of large enterprises globally. Our practiced approach to achieving product-market fit, as well as our DevOps-driven execution processes, have been instrumental in this success. In the write-up below, we leverage our experience to offer you quick guidelines on the four key areas you need to excel at to build a product in Digital Product Development that scales to a million or more users.

1. Relevance

• Solve problems:  Your digital product or service must solve a specific, tangible problem in Digital Product Development. This is so obvious that mentioning it might seem almost frivolous, yet this fundamental point is more complex than most people think.The nature of problems that the product needs to solve, for example, changes based on the various segments within the target audience. Additionally, users evolve, and their needs and habits change. Can your product solve the same problem for a wide variety of people? Does it have the ability to adapt based on the user? Does it have the ability to evolve with the user and perhaps start solving additional problems for users over time?
• Clear triggers for use: your digital product in the Digital Product Development process should be built with clear triggers. Hence, you are clear on the frequency of use and can design the overall experience accordingly.What makes the user come to this product? What triggers bring the user to this product? What will bring them back? How often will they come back, based on these triggers? How do you associate your product with a specific problem to ensure recall? Clear answers to these questions at the outset will ensure that your digital product has the right relevance.
• Simple and easy to use: A successful app doesn’t require external help or guidance. The functionalities are simple and easy to use.
• Update regularly: Frequently updating your app shows you care about community feedback and are constantly looking to provide a better experience to your users. All these factors drive customer engagement and loyalty. An app that’s not been updated for weeks or months will likely become obsolete.

The correct answers to these questions are commonly discovered iteratively as your perspective evolves in Digital Product Development. This iterative, rapidly growing method of functioning–where you test hypotheses quickly and move forward in quick sprints–will be central to your entire product development life cycle and is a precursor to the DevOps engineering methodologies you will need to implement to achieve scale on all fronts.

The DevOps engineering practice enables you to identify wrong paths quickly. Through continuous testing, you could revise your development every two days against spending over six months in code development and then testing, only to identify glitches after months of effort.

2. Design and Experience

Having established the relevance of your digital product in the Digital Product Development process, it’s time to move forward and plan its design and experience aspects. Avoid complexity in your UX/UI by having the following points in place.

• Simplified sign-up process:  If your sign-up process is complex, you’ll lose users quickly–probably in under ten seconds! Simplify the process and make sure you are asking for a sign-up at the right juncture once the value proposition of your product or service has been conveyed clearly in Digital Product Development.
• Login with existing platforms: Make the digital product development process easy by allowing you to log in from multiple platforms like Facebook, Google, or LinkedIn in Digital Product Development.
• Launch screens: Replace the ‘loading screen’ with a well-branded image that says something about the app.
• Essential things in order: The essential features that serve the most must be correct and easy to discover and use.
• Navigation possibilities: Consider the extreme navigation possibilities as a user and consider all customer journey touchpoints while designing the wireframe. The above points are still basic hygiene. You may get the above specifics right and still mess up the overall experience. It’s essential that the design, besides being aesthetically pleasing, also focuses on serving specific user needs with minimum friction. You could follow the four steps below to use the ‘jobs to be done’ framework and stay on track.
• The job-to-be-done framework: What job does the customer want done through your product or service in Digital Product Development? The concept of JTBD revolves around this central question. It helps the developer understand that customers don’t buy products and services; they hire solutions to complete various jobs. A JTBD is not a product, service, or specific solution; it’s the higher purpose for which customers buy products, services, and solutions. Consider this: For instance, if you want to be a disruptor in the education sector, you should focus on delivering the main job an aspirant wants: learning with a validated certification. An online course is a disruptor that serves the purpose here. You must find new ways to fulfill the jobs customers need to get done. The JTBD remains constant over time; your product and service offerings and value proposition should change at strategic intervals.
  1. Define the product to be developed:  Determine the goal of the product and plan the resources in Digital Product Development. Understand all the customers’ needs in the targeted market and conceptualize the products, sub-systems, and feature sets that will address the unmet needs of the targeted customers.
  2. Design the product to perform the core functional job:  Provide your engineers and architects with a job map and the precise metrics around each feature that forms part of the product in Digital Product Development. This will ensure the risk of implementing a solution that fails to deliver the desirable outcome.
  3. Enable effective interaction with the product:  Your UI designers must understand the metrics that measure success when a customer interacts with your product in Digital Product Development. They must determine the interface objects, the actions enabled by those objects, the link between objects, triggering actions, and the desired outcomes.
• Managing Cognitive Load:  Any UX design has some cognitive load for the customer to explore the product in Digital Product Development. Considering the bounded capacity of the working memory, your UX designer should maintain the mental load of the product below the safe threshold. If you expose your customers to too much information in a chaotic way, they may miss out on the main features and quit using your product. Cognitive load may be attributed to any of the following:|
  1. Irrelevant actions: Every user is motivated to achieve their objective. Making them complete unnecessary steps and tasks is wasting their time.
  2. Too much content: Bombarding your users a lot of information at a time makes it difficult for them to comprehend and analyze, resulting in a loss of interest.
  3. Too many choices: Even though it sounds good to offer users various options, too many options can cause indecisiveness.
  4. Lack of clarity: The lack of a simple, concise, and straightforward interface adds to the complexity and wastes the customer’s time.
• Context Awareness:  Context awareness can dramatically improve the user experience in Digital Product Development. It’s about figuring out what users need and designing the best interface. A context-aware product is a product that can learn what a user would need in a particular situation and provide it to them. For example, a person with an operative loan account would want quick access to his loan statement rather than having to scroll down and find it listed with options that he doesn’t use as frequently. Features such as being able to continue from where the user left last time and learning and adapting to a user’s habits and usage patterns over time should come without needing to be mentioned.

The quality of the product creation process also impacts the user’s overall experience in scaling digital product development. With a high level of complexity involved in your process, you are adopting some of the best practices, such as DevOps, which fosters a culture of collaboration to combine all the efforts into a seamless process and get your product off to a great start. Besides, it helps you evaluate design and experience promptly. Here’s how you can merge UX in the DevOps Lifecycle.

1. Understand your users. Formalize a process for creating a customer journey and identify different personas. Using these journey maps, you can create scripts for synthetic monitoring that simulate user behavior. If any issue is found, development teams can promptly resolve it before end users discover it.

2. Measure what matters—having understood your users well, and how they journey through your app, you’ll know strictly which metrics to measure are linked with UX.

3. Monitor the UX. Like any other DevOps practice, monitoring should be continuous and proactive and trigger alerts to the DevOps teams if problems occur.

4. Collect Data. The DevOps capability allows you to trace transactions end to end. This means your DevOps team can collect the data required to set benchmarks and recognize trends over time.

We’ll now talk about the software development life cycle and how to break it into three stages. Maintaining a quality SDLC would enable you to generate quality output.

• • Development: In Digital Product Development, lay out the product’s structure and consider its functionalities, utility, and reliability. From the CX perspective, produce a design that buyers would like. Also, focus on the accessibility and pleasure of using the product. Suppose you want to scale your product organically in Digital Product Development.

    In that case, your core functionalities should be flawless, and the UX/UI should be designed with the customer journey points in mind. You could adopt practices such as source code management, automated static code analysis, and implementation of CI in Digital Product Development. These will help you make your development process quick and effective in Digital Product Development.

• Testing: In Digital Product Development, automation identifies and fixes bugs. Automated testing applies to developing segregated functionalities, POC, prototypes, and integrated products. Recommended testing areas and categories in Digital Product Development include unit, performance, web, and service testing.

  Adopting code coverage techniques further strengthens continuous testing in Digital Product Development. Vulnerability scans should be mandated while testing in Digital Product Development. Applying practices like Pen Testing on your application helps find security vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit. The primary goal of a pen test in Digital Product Development is to identify weak spots in your product and to measure its compliance with its security policy.

• Release & Deployment: The development teams must automate the merging and testing of code. Artifacts produced from CI systems should be inputs for release processes to run frequent deployments. Automated release processes consume these artifacts to release new versions and fixes to existing systems. If you use GitLab, on committing a code, the file gets pushed into an internal repository. The backend could be packaged as a zip file or a docker file—the front moderates .apk for the front end, which could be downloaded from your internal app store. Deploy and test in multiple environments to ascertain the quality of your product.
• Monitoring & Maintenance: In Digital Product Development, to ensure the optimum performance of your product, adopt a continuous improvement framework that performs metrics-based monitoring. This constant monitoring applies to deployment and post-deployment in Digital Product Development. For every service, aggregate logs in Digital Product Development. If anything goes wrong, you can check the dashboard for logs in Digital Product Development. You can also set alarms for specific cases that require attention due to a potential fault in Digital Product Development. Establish a centralized knowledge repository that keeps track of incidents for later referencing in Digital Product Development.

Tools used during SDLC

Tools commonly used over the software development life cycle.

3. Distribution and Reach

You’ve now reached the moment you’ve been building up to. Your product is now ready to be unveiled. We suggest you have the following checklist in place to have a successful launch, for being a little cautious in the beginning can give your product the positive start it needs. As a leading digital product development company, we understand the significance of a well-executed launch strategy.

• Launch an MVP and collect early feedback from a wide range of users
• Make changes based on the feedback collected from the prelaunch to make your product better
• Roll out the marketing and communications plan. You can’t scale to a million users without a promotional strategy.
• Promote your product through influencer marketing, staggered rollout, and every possible way that builds constructive hype.
• Use automated tools for information on important metrics that help assess the campaign.
• Keep the engagement active through social media by changing your conversion goals or distributing creative assets.
• Analyzing crucial key performance indicators related to your launch campaign to make your next product launch even more effective

What’s interesting to note here is that DevOps compliments your launch process by facilitating a seamless and reliable soft launch for every update.

4. Ability to Scale

To reach more and more users, you could continue marketing your product. But often, what’s not considered in this process is whether the infrastructure can support the increasing load. As your infrastructure crosses a specific load limit, the existing users experience poor performance, low response time, slower loading, and worst- app crashes. Ensuring that your digital product development company plans for scalability from the outset is crucial to avoid these issues and maintain a seamless user experience as your user base grows.

The pursuit of acquiring new users could cost you the loss of the existing ones if the infrastructure can’t scale up with your app. That’s only one type of scaling requirement. As you work around your product, you will come across various scaling needs and want to assess your ability to scale.

Scaling could refer to increasing or decreasing any parameter based on your needs. The most common needs that demand scaling include the following.

• User acquisition: you want to acquire new users and increase your user base, but is your existing infrastructure poised to support the load?
• New features: You launch with the most basic features but eventually add new features to retain users and compete in the market. How does it affect the functioning of other features and the overall performance?
• Uptime: With more active users accessing your application, you would want to maintain a high uptime by cutting down on maintenance downtime or downtime due to unforeseen circumstances. How do you configure to maintain a high uptime?
• Data analytics: With bulk data pouring in, which data do you need to store, what analytics tools are required, and how do you filter it out? The scaling up would require more storage, new technologies, and data mining.
• Bandwidth: Depending on your peak load and low load times, you could use your bandwidth to save resources. How conveniently can you make that change?

Your scaling-up needs could include many more parameters, such as sessions, engagement efforts, development roadmap, etc. Have a self-assessment ready to know the possible areas that may need attention should there be a requirement for scaling up or down.

5. Continuous Improvement: Implement a culture of continuous improvement throughout the digital product development lifecycle. Encourage teams within the digital product development company to regularly evaluate and optimize processes, technologies, and strategies to drive efficiency, innovation, and scalability. Embrace agile methodologies, DevOps practices, and automation tools to foster collaboration, accelerate time-to-market, and deliver customer value faster. Organizations can adapt to changing market dynamics by prioritizing continuous improvement, staying ahead of competitors, and effectively scaling their digital product development efforts.

Conclusion

Practicing DevOps in Digital Product Development Services has another advantage: it provides auto-scaling that allows your application always to have the compute capacity needed and eliminates the need to monitor server capacity manually in Digital Product Development. Auto-scaling could be done based on incoming requests, the number of jobs in the queue, and how long jobs have been in digital product development.

Creating a product in Digital Product Development Services that has the potential to scale to a million users could be enormous and complex, with challenges occurring at every stage of Digital Product Development. Partnering with a DevOps service provider is a great way to equip yourself to overcome those challenges in Digital Product Development. You’re already more than halfway to your aspiration by leveraging the abovementioned guidelines in Digital Product Development.

About [x]cube

[x]cube LABS, a division of PurpleTalk Inc., is a leader in digital innovation and strategy consulting. Established in 2008, we are born digital with deep expertise in all things digital – Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, wearables & IoT. We have delivered over 700 solutions across industries with the DevOps philosophy, won 25+ International awards, worked with 500+ clients & created value of over $2.0 bn for our clients. Being one of the earliest adopters, we have developed expertise in implementing DevOps. [x]cube is also one of the first 12 agencies globally approved by Google as a Certified Developer Partner.

The post Top 5 tips to successfully scale up your digital product development appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

User Acquisition is the art of building a brand

In today’s competitive world, millions of apps are published on app stores, each jostling for some space on your mobile screen. In fiercely competitive app stores, it is challenging to get your app visible and get users. So, you need a matchless user acquisition strategy to make your app a success. Here are 5 ways you can refine your mobile app user acquisition strategy and get the desired RoI from your app

1. Know your user

“The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.”–John Russell

It is important to know that there are millions of mobile users with varied needs & wants. Plan what type of users you want to target or who can be your users to bring revenue for your business. You have a final product ready – test your app, do a soft launch in order to run bug free app. Soft launch is very important to fit with your product in the market. This data will help you improve your ad’s text and graphic creative to acquire new users. Do a survey to know why they downloaded your app, you will find the reasons. Don’t stop at the first survey, keep this going for more insights. In order to run any business we need to acquire users. By users we mean quality users which will help you in increasing revenues. For that you need to know the right audience.

2. App Store Optimization (ASO)

Recently, at Google I/O, Ankit Jain reported that “For the average app, search actually makes up the vast majority of installs.” App Stores, be it the iOS or Google Play Store have become the current shopping windows. It’s a the first thing all users will look into and your app needs to look good to get the conversions. Your keyword pick should be effective, so that users are able to find your app. Keywords plays an important role here, however, it needs to be changed over time. Every day similar apps are out on the app store to compete with. At the same time you also will have to set a campaign to get app installs, which would influence app ranking from the amount of traffic that the app gets on a daily basis.

3. Shape up your channel and behavior

We use different channels to bring the traffic like Facebook, Twitter and ad networks. An effective app acquisition strategy is a combination of organic and paid campaigns which brings users for your app. It is also important to keep monitoring which network is bringing more traffic, based on which you can plan your future investment. These segments allow you to track details like action taken, campaign, and other attributes that will give you a deeper understanding of how your organic and paid tools are performing.

4. Track Every Action

“Sometimes the best discoveries are the result of simple observations”
–Dr. Seyed Reza Agha Seyed Hosseini

Analytics tools allow us to track more than just downloads, when a user downloads your app the story doesn’t end there. Tracking the user’s actions can be more efficient for your long term business plan. For example; a user can download your app and never open your app (not all downloads turns into users). In this case you are getting users, but no quality users which doesn’t end up serving your purpose. Once you get the user, you should focus on retaining them for a longer period of time. You also need to track how many users are checking your app, session length and other behavior.

Analytics tools will provide you with granular data and help you track user behavior minutely. You will know how the users are engaging with various features of your app, the time spent on it and the frequency of app usage, along with other key details.

5. Measure Lifetime value (LTV) of Users

Like I said, we just can’t acquire users for our app but we also need to look for quality users. LTV will let you measure ROI, as it tracks down how much a user is worth to your business. Do a soft launch, once you have strong data, your focal point should be on getting high LTV users. For example; you are running two campaigns from two different channels. From campaign 1 you are getting the number of installs, on the other hand from campaign 2 very few. You may think campaign 1 is only performing, however now it’s time to check the LTV. It may turn out campaign 2 users are more active and making more in-app purchases. This clearly means campaign 2 is giving high ROI. To measure LTV you need to consider-

Average Revenue Per User – How much a user is worth to you?

Retention – Level of engagement with your app?

Virality – How likely are they to bring in new users for your business?

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
–Theodore Roosevelt

Focus more on quality over quantity, because they are the one who will bring in revenue and be the voice of your app. Always experiment with new ideas or ways to reach new users. And keep the funnel flowing!

The post 5 Tips To Boost Your Mobile App User Acquisition Strategy appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Designing and launching an outstanding mobile app is only the first step in the journey to a successful mobile app. Nearly 22% of apps downloaded are never used more than once. Mobile app developers often find profits elusive despite bringing in a high degree of innovation to the table. The vast number of mobile apps coming up every month have led Gartner Inc. to predict that less than 0.01 percent of apps will be considered a financial success by mobile app developers by 2018.

Therefore it is of utmost importance that app developers measure the right metrics to optimize their apps.It is essential that users not only discover value in the first use of the app but also sustain their attention so that the app becomes a part of their life. Enterprise mobile app metrics can be divided into the following four broad categories

1. Performance Metrics

These metrics focus on the user experience of the app.

App Crashes: App crash rate is measured as the  average number of crashes per app loads.The typical crash rate is 1-2 % but can vary depending on the type of app, its maturity etc. App designers should target keeping the crash rate at minimum.

API Latency: API latency refers to the round-trip time taken between a user request to  an app response. Ideally the response time should be optimized to 1 second or less.

App Load Per Period: This metric is critical because it is related to the number of transactions over a certain period of time and essentially measures how your app handles sudden changes in load without degrading performance.

2. User/Usage Metrics

They give an insight into the user demographics.

Monthly Active Users/Daily Active Users: It is a broad metric that denotes the user base of the app and it’s trends.(whether it’s growing or shrinking)

OS And Devices Metrics: These metrics tell you how your key users use your apps – on what devices (smartphones, tablets, IoT devices) , what OS version etc.This helps app developers know where to focus their efforts.

3. Engagement Metrics

These metrics depict the level of user engagement your mobile app is driving.

Session Length: The time period between app open and close is known as session length. The more your users are engaged , the more time they will spend on your app and hence higher will be the session length.

Session Interval: The time between two user sessions which denotes the frequency at which your app is being accessed.

4. Business Metrics

These metrics give an insight into the revenue flowing in through the app or business generated through it.

Acquisition Cost: The cost of acquiring your customers through paid campaigns,organic searches on the app store or referrals and whether it balances the value generated by the users after experiencing the app.

Transaction Revenue : It indicates the value of transactions supported over the mobile app.It relates to m-commerce transactions such as travel,shopping etc.

Abandonment Rate : The rate at which transactions initiated through the mobile app are abandoned by the user. Abandoning a transaction could result out of several reasons such as app crash or if the user changed his mind etc.

It is important that these mobile app metrics are tracked and monitored on a real time basis, derive insights from data and then optimize the features of your app to ensure higher user lifetime value, retention, and an increased frequency of usage.

The post 4 Key Mobile App Metrics To Track Your Apps Success appeared first on [x]cube LABS.

Businesses are building mobile apps for their employees, customers and processes. Most of them are spending considerable resources in their mobile projects. But still many organizations are struggling justifying ROI of their mobile spending. Finding the right metrics to focus is critical to calculating the success and resultant ROI of your enterprise mobile app. Here are 5 key enterprise mobile app metrics that matter

1. Enterprise App adoption

How many of your customers or employees have downloaded the mobile app? Not just numbers but also percentage as numbers can sometime be deceptive. Is it in expected lines? It would be worth remembering that app downloads and installs in their own don’t define success of your app. But is a good starting point.

2. App usage and retention

This is the key after you have succeeded in getting a good number of downloads. How often and long do your employees are using your apps? How do different target groups are interacting with your app? What is the average time spent in your mobile app? How many users are active?

3. User experience

Is your app smoothly running? How long does it take to load? How good is your user onboarding process? How often your users are reporting of app crash? Most of the enterprise apps fail to succeed primarily because of poor user experience. Used to cool, sleek and personalized app experiences in personal lives, users today demand similar experience from enterprise apps.

4. Goal Achievement

What are your goals? The goals will vary for each app. For a HR internal app, it can be efficiency, faster approvals, time & cost savings  etc., whereas for a field servicing app, it can be labor time saved, productivity, cost savings etc. Are you achieving the set  goals?

5. Funnel Behavior

There are 4 stages to your mobile app funnel- onboarding, engagement, conversion and retention. Funnel behavior will be different for each app and would hugely depend on the nature of app- productivity, ecommerce, customer servicing etc. Tracking funnel behavior at each stage is important.

There are power analytics tools available that can give you detailed data on all key enterprise mobile app metrics mentioned above. Chasing the right metric will not only help you to define success and measure enterprise app ROI but will also provide actionable insights and input to further improve your app and optimize its success.

The post 5 Key Enterprise Mobile App Metrics That Matter appeared first on [x]cube LABS.