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Development cost of a Doctor Appointment App Like ZocDoc

Posted on 11/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Table of Content:

The Rise in Demand for Doctor Appointment Booking Apps
Recent Fundings list in the Field of Doctor Appointment App Development
Top Players of the Doctor Appointment App Category
Key Features to Include in your Medical App For Doctors Appointment
How to make your app for doctors appointment future ready?
How to Generate Money on Your Doctor Appointment App?
The Cost to Develop a Doctor Appointment App Like ZocDoc

The evolution track that the mobilized healthcare economy has placed the industry on has not just made health care more accessible and real-time but has also achieved the complication of bridging the gap between the patients and doctors.

One of the biggest contributory digitized factors behind this movement that has made healthcare more hassle-free and accessible than ever before is App for Doctor Appointment.

The way digital healthcare IT solutions industry is moving has now made it possible to handle functionalities like bookings, cancellations, re-booking, follow-ups, and reminders online, crossing all the fuss linked with manual appointment schedule systems.

The ease that online appointment booking apps offer has brought in an unprecedented demand for the healthcare category from all the different stakeholders of the healthcare domain, thus making it an important part of the healthcare mobile apps trends and one of the most followed upon healthcare app ideas.

The Rise in Demand for Doctor Appointment Booking Apps

The ease – of booking and monitoring – that the doctor appointment application offer has made them a prime category in the Healthcare & fitness mobile app development domain.

Here’s a short infographic to validate the demand from numbers, statistics that prove how your hospital need a mobile application for scheduling appointments –

The interest that the doctor appointment booking apps have garnered have led to heightened demand from the investor side of the healthcare IT solutions industry.There are a number of funding rounds that have happened in the field of a doctor appointment booking application. Let us look at some of the recent funding rounds in the area –

Recent Fundings list in the Field of Doctor Appointment App Development

HotDoc, in September 2018 raised $5 Million at the back of its active doctor appointment users who belong to million users count. The active investor, AirTree invested in the brand to support expansion into services like telehealth services and several payment functionalities within the application.
Solv, the same day health appointment app, in May 2018, raised $16.8 Million to expand beyond appointment booking space and give users the facility to pay their medical bills through the application itself. The investment round lead by the Slavet’s firm Greylock with an active participation from the Aspect Ventures has brought the total funding to over $21 Million.

Apart from these, a number of other apps like Kry and Any Time Doctor have also bagged high investments at the back of their plans to bridge the gap between the healthcare app for patients and doctors by making healthcare more accessible.

With the constant attention and heightened acceptance from all the stakeholders of the healthcare economy and the investors, there are a few doctor appointment booking apps that have established themselves as them as the market leaders.

Top Players of the Doctor Appointment App Category

While Practo and ZocDoc are the two doctor appointment booking apps that are ruling the healthcare app category, there are a number of other apps that are performing equally well in the industry.

There are a number of factors that have contributed to making these apps the best in doctor appointment class. But the one prevailing factor present in them all is the set of Features that are present in all the applications.

The features that have now become a must-have lot for healthcare brands seeking constant growth and demand from all the involved stakeholders.

Let us look at what those features are.

Key Features to Include in your Medical App For Doctors Appointment

Stakeholders’ Profiles

Building the Doctor and User Profile are the two primary parts of the Doctor on appointment specific healthcare app development. While the user profile will be drawn around the users’ name, age, gender, and basic medical data like height, weight, blood group, hereditary disease, etc. The doctor’s profile will have details like their area of specialization, the location of their clinic, the timings, names of hospitals they are associated with, and the visitation charges. What we would advise is to treat the user’s profile page as their personal health chart and the doctor’s profile page as a section where everything – their specialization, degree, their photo, clinic’s photos etc. is present.

Doctor and Clinic Search

The next must-have feature in the list is the Search option. Your patients’ side of the user group should be given an option to search for doctors and clinics on the basis of different parameters like the specialization, the clinic’s or doctor’s name, the wait time, visitation charges, etc. Opt for having a wide search filter menu for offering the best services to the users.

Geo-Location Based Search

Another addition in the list of MVP(Minimal Viable Product) features would be adding a geo-location based functionality to enable patients to look for doctors and clinics in their area of residence or work. You can make use of Google’s and Apple Map functionality to add in the location-based search feature in your doctor appointment booking mobile application.

The benefit of this would be that the usability factor of your healthcare app would increase by manifold and with it the session time of your medical app for doctors appointment.

Appointment Booking

The feature, as it goes without saying, is one of the most basic features of your app to find doctors. The appointment booking feature that you are adding should belong to a very simple interface, where the whole process of finding a doctor and confirming a time slab for booking the appointment is very easy and hassle-free.

You should give the patients the option to select a future date according to their availability while giving the doctors the functionality to accept or reject the appointment in real time as per their availability.

Doctor Review

Doctors’ rating and review is the one feature that will make the patient side of the users’ get engaged to your mobile app for finding doctors. For your healthcare app, you will have to ensure that you have a good lot of genuine rating and reviews for your partnered doctors.

The case with doctor appointment apps is that the patients only click on those doctors’ profile who have a good set of rating and reviews backing them. So, in case they find profiles with no ratings and reviews, chances are that they won’t interact with those doctors and ultimately with the app as a whole.

Apart from giving the patients side of the users the option to give ratings and reviews, you should also give the option to add media to enable them to add the condition of the clinic for other patients to view.

While these are the features that will form a part of the must-have or MVP features, there are a number of other features that can be added as apart of your application on a future date, once the MVP has proved of your app’s viability.

Telemedicine
Patient Check-In from the App
At home Medical Service
In-Built Payment
Reminder for Appointments

Now that you have looked into all the features that contribute into the making of a successful mobile app for finding doctors, it is time to look into the technologies that can be incorporated to give you a competitive edge among the hundreds of doctor appointment online apps mushrooming in the market.

How to make your app for doctors appointment future ready?

There are three technologies that can make your doctor appointment app more efficient and future-centric –

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Doctor appointment booking apps like ZocDoc is using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to a huge extent for making search more relevant.

What happens is that the general users don’t know the specialization names like Ophthalmologist or Oncologist but what they understand is Eye doctor or Cancer specialist or at times they make queries in more layman terms like doctors for blurred vision, etc.

In the case like this, when you integrate Machine learning in your app, you are able to match the patients to the right doctor with much ease.

Cloud Computing

As your medical app to find doctors starts expanding, you will start dealing with petabytes sized data, which you’ll then have to store, demarcate the data into categorized silos, and then transform the data into insights that would then be used to deliver better services.

The cloud computing industry has grown to a huge extent especially for the Healthcare industry stakeholders. With Google Healthcare Cloud API getting ready to hit the Beta stage, the Cloud computing industry is going to bring a number of advanced level benefits for your doctor on appointment app – Big Data, Machine Learning, and Heightened Security powered by Google’s own IAM system.

Blockchain

While the impact of Blockchain on the Healthcare ecosystem has proved itself to be more than a fallacy, the doctor appointment domain will not be sans the touch of decentralization too. The technology can have several adoptions in the popular healthcare app category.

Blockchain will help bring all the data in one decentralized system which will only be accessible by those who have the access to it, thus eliminating the instance of data or appointment detail leak. Also, the patients, from within your side of healthcare app for patients will be able to check their insurance claim details before booking a doctor’s appointment – something that will help them connect with only those doctors or clinic that are a part of their insurance umbrella.

With this, we have now seen all – The market for doctor appointment online apps, the features set that will mark its success and the technologies that will make your mobile app for finding doctors truly nextgen. The time has now come to look into the different modes of revenue generation to see how you can earn money on the healthcare app that is poised to transform the healthcare domain. After all, if the cost of making an app like Practo or ZocDoc is X, the revenue that you should earn on it should be X+1.

How to Generate Money on Your Doctor Appointment App?

There are quite a few options that you have when drawing a revenue model for your doctor appointment booking app.

The ones that seem to work most in favor of the popular appointment booking apps like Practo, ZocDoc, and Doctor on Demand, amongst others, are:

Subscription: You can give doctors and medical practitioners the option to take monthly or yearly subscriptions, which would give them access to x number of patients. Within your healthcare mobile application, you can either give them the option to contact an unlimited number of patients like what ZocDoc does or make a number of patients wise subscription model.You can also ask the patient side of your users to pay a monthly subscription amount for connecting with doctors on your platform.

Sponsorship: You can give the doctors and healthcare organizations the option to show their names on the top of your healthcare mobile application as part of your Sponsored programme. In the sponsored section, you can offer them greater videos or photos count than the regular users.In our experience, users are more open to paying extra if they are getting higher visibility than the others on the platform.

On-Demand Services: Although an advanced level revenue stream, you can attach a number of on-demand services through your doctor appointment booking mobile app. Services like at-home blood and urine collection, medicine delivery, etc. can be added to make your app an extended healthcare solution provider while finding yourself an additional source of revenue stream.

Now that we have looked at the features that would go into getting your doctor appointment booking app and the revenue streams through which you can earn money on your healthcare app, the time has come to look into How much does it cost to develop a doctor appointment app.

The Cost to Develop a Doctor Appointment App Like ZocDoc

If you plan on going with the MVP features that we mentioned before, for your doctor appointment app, the healthcare app developers might charge somewhere in the range of $40,000 to $50,000 but if you are looking to add more advanced features like video functionalities and Artificial Intelligence, it would grow up to $100,000 to $150,000 price range.

What we would recommend is that instead of investing money in the name of doctor appointment app development cost for making a highly advanced full-fledged doctor appointment booking app, start with an MVP, see how it is being accepted in the market and then expand to adding other healthcare app features. This would ensure that you are constantly adding some value to the users’ life instead of giving them everything up front and then being with the same set of medical app features forever.

While we are positive that you must have got all the answers that you are seeking for launching your doctor appointment app in the market and the cost to build a healthcare app, there are still a few questions that our clients ask answers of. Here’s what we tell them.

In case your question is not listed here, contact our team of Medical app developers to get a definite answer.

The FAQ on Doctor Appointment Booking App Development

1. Which platform to go with first

The answer to this would lie with your demographics. If your user group belongs to the western nations, go with iOS. If you are planning to expand your bases to all over the world, go with Android.

What we would recommend is investing in React Native powered Healthcare Mobile App Development and getting the app on both Android and iOS to make the most of both the platforms.

2. How will I manage doctor’s listing

As an app admin, you will be given a separate profile from where you will be able to add in the doctors’ listing along with their several other details. You will also be given the freedom to remove a doctor from the app or edit their information.

3. Should I develop a web app as well

While not at the beginning, it would help greatly to expand into the PWA domain, once you have steady traffic coming in. This would only take your app to a million other users at a very minimal price. All the while bringing down the cost to develop doctor appointment booking app.

4. How to add trust in the app

There are quite a few ways to make your app an element of trust.

Get accredited and add badges of reputed healthcare standard bodies in the app
Add multi-factor authentication system at all stages – Log in, Payment, Social Sharing etc.
Aim at adding real photos, videos, and reviews of the doctors you associate with.

Fintech impacts on Business

Posted on 10/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

The Finance world, while having established itself as a secure industry is also the one that frequently becomes the victim of a number of glaring issues like lack of transparency, a still less real-time ecosystem, and a case of slow digitized adoption.

All the prevalent bickering, questioning voices when meet with issues like the 2017’s attack of a Trojan horse virus Ramnit which affected the financial sector widely, accounting for around 53% of attacks, becomes a voice seeking complete transformation.

A transformation that 2019-2020 is expected to bring with it.

Attacks like this and several others, along with the need to bridge the gap between the general population and the real-time access of their money, has brought up a dire need of adding technological innovations into the traditional financial processes to improve its status quo and deliver better services to the end users.

A technological innovation known as Fintech.

Fintech or Financial technology is revamping the Financial as well as other business verticals by significant numbers. The pace at which FinTech is moving has ensured that the popularized segment will contribute to 25% of the revenues that the Financial sector would draw.

This has increased the necessity to develop a Fintech app and embrace the Fintech solutions into our business, about which we will discuss in this blog – starting with the importance of considering Fintech app development.

Why Invest in Fintech App Development in 2019-2020?

From Coinbase to Avant, Credit Karma, Mint, and Stripe, several fintech solutions have changed the way companies have been doing business so far. They have transformed the traditional business models and made it necessary for businesses to invest in Fintech mobile app development in 2020 and beyond, if they wish to avail benefits such as:-

1.Easier Payment Process

The foremost reason to develop a Fintech app in 2019-2020 for businesses is easier payment process. The Fintech solutions prevent the consumers and business owners from going through the cumbersome, time-consuming process of cash and credit/debit card based payment. The transactions can be easily made online using banking apps, digital wallets and even Cryptocurrencies (which are gradually resulting in the rise of Blockchain wallets in the market).

*Side Note* Fintech, by embracing Blockchain technology, is not just set to revamp the future of transaction, but has eliminated the intermediaries, added transparency and security to the process, and accelerated the whole mechanism, which has brought a sense of satisfaction among both the customers and business owners.

2.Evaluating Risks Effectively

Fintech solutions have taken the market by storm by making it easier to predict and overcome risks. It scans a vast amount of information from different sources and uses a wiser approach while lending loan or making any transaction, which is cutting down the risk of errors and frauds.

3.Faster Investment

Fintech has eliminated the need of hiring a human financial advisor by providing 24×7 consultation and advice through mobile apps. This has accelerated the process as well as provided us escape from biased suggestions. Besides, Fintech solutions have brought the banking and non-banking organizations on the same platform which has opened new doors for Entrepreneurs in terms of gaining loans and investments.

4.Lower Cost

As per the market insights, the primary challenge to entry into the financial business has been cost. By making the financial services available on devices that millions of people have, i.e. smartphones, Fintech has improved the PoS (Point of Sales) system and cut down the expenses of the businesses, along with gaining sophisticated analytics data to better engage their audience.

While these are some of the prime reasons making investment in Fintech a profitable deal, there are various factors that have placed Fintech at a prominent place in not just the present but also the future of a number of business segments.

Something that we are cover now.

What makes Fintech the Driving Force of Future Businesses?

Fintech is proving to be a disruptive force for the financial and other business verticals. It is helping them improve their business models and lessen the associated risks – be it payment, lending process, wealth management, or any other such finance-related activity.

The technology is adding higher value to the consumer experience and market strategies by incorporating cutting-edge techniques and tactics into the process, which is eventually drawing the time of disruption of the future of business world.

A few factors that are ensuring the prominent presence of FinTech in the world around us are:

1.Rise of Millenials

The foremost factor that made Fintech a disruptive force in the business world is the millennial generation. The millennials highly depend on social media platforms for gaining information or financial advice, which has been a challenge for the conventional financial institutions. They are more demanding and less loyal – asking for personalized services at the speed of light.

As per a report, 1 out of 3 millennials changes their bank in every three months in hope of getting desired experience, which is increasing the need for technological advancement in the Financial industry, i.e, the rise of Fintech solutions.

Fintech startups and established companies, as compared to the conventional financial institutions, are offering better services at data utilization and customizing the options as per the users’ needs and preferences using technologies like artificial intelligence for finance, which is making millennials far more satisfied and helping businesses gain higher revenue.

2.Payment Apps and Digital Wallets

The surplus use of P2P payment apps and digital wallets, has not just bought a rise in the query on how to develop a P2P app, but is also proving Fintech to be a disruptive force in the market. These payment apps and digital wallets are providing users with quick and secure access to their money and send/receive any amount at any time and pay their utility bills without running for their pocket or purse.

This convenience is gaining higher momentum in the market and encouraging the business to invest in Fintech app development, in an ode to join the list of most frequently used payment apps.

Now as you know what factors make Fintech a catalyst in the business world, let’s look into the impact of Fintech on different sector:-

Different Sectors Where Fintech is Bringing Considerable Changes:-

After revolutionizing the different process of banking sector, the Fintech technology has moved on to creating a considerable impact on other prominent businesses. But before we explore each business vertical individually, let’s look into what percentage of respondents in different industries think that Fintech will disrupt their domain, as shared in the image below:-

1.On-demand Economy

Fintech is transforming the On-demand economy in a multitude of ways – both for customers and drivers.

It is making the ride payment process one that is not suffering from any time lags by allowing users to connect their bank account with the ride-sharing apps, thus preventing any daly and time gap.

It is providing drivers with small business banking tools like expense management and automatic invoices which will ease the financial processes and upgrade their productivity.

The impact of FinTech in Ride-Sharing economy is so much so that in 2019, various insurance companies and Fintech startups will also invest heavily in the taxi-hailing industry, offering all the services to the users on the same platform. In addition to this, the top Blockchain-based Fintech apps like Coinbase will increase their interest in promoting making transactions and sharing e-gift cards in the On-demand mobile apps.

2.Healthcare

Fintech is spawning new opportunities in the healthcare industry, helping with mitigation of the current challenges and providing exemplary experience to both the patients and healthcare service providers.

On one side, the Financial technology is serving the industry with seamless payment solutions, while, on the other side, it is, in 2019-2020, poised to pave new ways for several lending and insurance purpose. Various medtech startups have added Fintech to their services in an ode to provide all the medical-related services under one roof, an example of which is Practo.

Also, a significant rise will be observed in the adoption of Blockchain technology in Healthcare industry, implying payment will be possible through virtual currencies (Cryptocurrencies) in addition to a higher level of data security through Smart Contracts.

3.Retail

The retail industry is enjoying a wave of revolution with Fintech app development, especially in the payment and customer experience facet. It is providing users with an omnichannel experience, making it possible for the customers to interact with the Retail stores via different platforms. It is also simplifying the payment and checkout process, helping the retailers to cater to a wider audience. Two relevant examples of the impact of Fintech app solutions on Retail business are Fingopay and Perpule.

It is not over yet. In 2019-2020, it is estimated that the technology will boost the marketing strategy by empowering retailers to know what order have the customers ordered, paid for and returned and thus, plan a loyalty program accordingly.

Besides this, digital payment apps and social messaging apps will coincide, implying 2020 and beyond will make it possible to perform retail centered payment from all the social media apps and message via payment apps. The retail platform, through the payment gateway integration process will aim at creating an omni-channel presence by making it possible for the users to checkout from everywhere – the app, website and social media.

4.Government Ruled Banks

Fintech is also reinforcing the government banks by offering them multiple digital services and platforms to connect with users and deliver transparent and impactful solutions. One way through which they would be achieving this, is through the introduction of Open banking.

Open banking- a collaborative model where banking data can be shared among two or more independent parties via APIs – enables the government organizations to enhance customer experience, generate better revenue, and build a sustainable service model for conventionally underserved markets via a decentralized approach which is far beyond lending and data sharing. This is empowering multiple fintech innovators as well as various one-off bank agreements, which was not possible with the traditional financial industry model.

5.Crowdfunding

Earlier, it was tough to gain visibility in the market and raise fund effectively due to lack of platforms, resources and historical data preventing startups and established brands from getting into the claws of the frauds. But, with the introduction of Fintech apps, the Crowdfunding process is becoming a lot more streamlined. The technology is bringing more effective and profitable approaches by fostering P2P payment, easing the process of follow up with the investors and assisting the fundraising process.

It is also encouraging established financial services institutions like banks and NBFC to turn towards online fundraising platforms to extend their reach and offer better services in the market as “alternative investment”. In this way, fintech technology is contributing to bridge the gap between public and private investment, which will open up new avenues to get funds from.

Though we have covered why and how Fintech application development is bringing a major impact on the business world, having a look at the future fintech trends can help you plan a better strategy. So taking the same thought forward, here are some of the Fintech app development trends to expect in the year 2020 and beyond:-

FinTech App Development Trends for 2020 & Beyond

There are a number of technologies and trends that will become more apparent in Fintech realm in 2019-2020 and foster innovation in different business verticals. Such as –

1.Blockchain will Become a Prominent Part of Fintech Strategy

Blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies, have already been considered to improve the Financial services across different sectors.

While the impact of Blockchain on Fintech has mainly been restricted to banking and other sectors for trading and supply chain management, by 2020, the technology will create more opportunities in the field of Payments Infrastructure, Digital Identity Management and Funds Transfer Infrastructure. It will be considered by 70% of financial companies for creating immutable record of their sensitive financial information and use them safely and securely.

In addition to this, the blockchain and fintech convergence will reduce the number of unbanked from 1.7 billion to less than 1 billion by the end of 2020.

2.AI will Enhance Financial Consumer Strategy

The fact that Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest disruptions in the business economy with almost every business vertical either embracing the technology or planning to add it into their process by the next 5 years (as shown in the image below), Fintech mobile app developers will show a profound interest in this technology.

Fintech organizations and development companies will add AI, Machine Learning and Predictive analytics to their tech stack to understand the customer behavior, choices and preferences, and deliver better customer experience along with automating a significant amount of work at their end.

3.New Payment Solutions will be Introduced

With the advent of mobile payment solutions, visitations to banks have reduced by significant value and it is further expected to drop by 36% by the year 2022. In the same time period, mobile payments will grow by 121% with over 90% of users expected to be turning towards digital wallets and contactless payment solutions.

Besides, a major disruption will be noticed in this context with the adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies because of their characteristics like faster transactions, ease of cross-border payment and enhancement in infrastructure. It will all ultimately result in an heightened investment in Blockchain Wallets – a decentralized concept that we have talked about in great lengths in our Blockchain Wallet guide.

4.CyberSecurity will Get More Attention

According to a PWC survey, 69% of financial services’ CEOs admitted to be more concerned about cyber-threats, when compared to those belonging to other sectors. They further shared that though they are employing various cutting-edge technologies, the security threats are continuing to exist due to involvement of third-party traders, complex technologies concepts, cross-border information exchange, etc. As a result, the cyber intruders are able to steal sensitive information and make millions of dollars, as we have seen in the case of Bangladesh’s central bank.

To combat such situations, the organizations will embrace different Fintech technologies – majorly Big Data and Biometric authentication. They will employ Big Data to analyze and predict the upcoming internal and external security issues and respond at the earliest. Besides, they will add biometric authentication to their processes to ensure that no unauthorized person could get access to their data, which will increase security, build trust and reduce the efforts and cost of securing their data via traditional means.

5.Digital-Only Banks will Gain Momentum

With the increasing mobile based banking and other financial solutions, there will be lower-to-no need of a traditional bank in the future. This will boost the concept of Digital-only banks, i.e, banks that have no brick-and-mortar outlets but provide the users with an access to all the banking resources and services virtually and swiftly.

6.Higher Investment Will be Made in Fintech

As shown in the graph below, the Fintech investments have risen from less than $1M in 2014 to more than $20M by the end of the year 2018, and these numbers are expected to increase in the coming years – making Fintech one of the revolutionary sectors in the coming 4-5 years.

Besides, there are more than 20 fintech unicorns right now, with 50% of them raised their growth exponentially in 2018 and five of them made debut in the list. Many more newcomers are expected to follow the same roadmap and deliver innovative financial products to consumers and enjoy better ROI, as shown in the image below.

Fintech, as we have covered in this article, has opened up a new world of opportunities for the business world – helping them deliver more innovative services, make better profits and that too on a fraction of money they have been investing earlier.

The segment has been bringing a major impact on the present and future of the business world, implying every business owner need to look forward to investing in Fintech app development to provide the users with higher value and generate higher revenue.

So, contact our team today to add the optimal fintech solutions to your business model.

How can react Native App Development help you Save Money?

Posted on 09/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Being so highly exposed to social media channels, it is not possible for us to turn a blind eye to just how many Start-ups are rounding up around the world every day. The numbers are in hundreds of millions and the only way these startups dodge the exit from the world is if they have an amazing mobile application that is exceptionally successful with the audience.

But according to simple math, there are only close to about 2.6 million apps on Google Play Store and, as mentioned above, the number of startups are in hundred-millions. So what is it that is not allowing these numbers to add up?

We know! Money. There is, of course, high demand for mobile apps among startups but the follow-up on the idea is low because of high mobile app development costs.

In such a scenario, there is an urgent need to bring in a cost-effective way of mobile app development that can accommodate more startups for everyone’s benefit.

One such cost-effective measures found to aid the ailing of the world is the guide to Cross-platform mobile app development.

What is Cross-Platform App Development?

Cross-platform App development is the development of mobile application or softwares for multiple platforms. That is by accommodating various platforms in one round of coding.

And what makes Cross-Platform app development a cost-efficient measure for mobile app development is that it is the only way for relatively faster development of the application at a substantially lower price.

But How does Cross-Platform App Development helps one in saving the cost?

A few years ago, whenever someone went to a mobile app development company with an idea for an app, the immediate follow-up question used to be – Which would be the first platform for launch – Android or iOS? And the cost of development for both the mobile app platforms would come out to be very high with double the annual maintenance charges.

But if we roll out today’s calendar, we would see a number of options to help us avoid those high costs of native mobile app development. The biggest change that came upon the world for this was the invention React native app development.

But how does this impact the React native app development cost?

Reusable code: Cross-platform app development, the code for the mobile application can be used for the desktop web views.
Easier team management: When all your development team members will be required to be the masters of only one language for both Android and iOS app development.
Easier Maintenance: Since there is only one code base, the majority of the problems can be solved on that commonly.
Cost-cutting: Since there is no need of building apps for individual mobile platforms, the cost of development reduces substantially.

But to learn more about the benefits of React native app development, we need to know which is the best platform for us to explore react native web apps and mobile apps.

The Evolution of React Native:

Ever since there has been programming in the world, people (Programmers and non-programmers) know that coding a programme is a tough job. And with the abundance of different programming platforms and languages, the job only becomes more complicated. In such scenarios, Developers prefer that they have to learn a single or only a few languages which can get them maximum outreach an exposure.

Often, the code of complex mobile applications needed to be “fixed” with the help of Native Coding, Which was making the process longer instead of faster.

Realising all of these points, in 2015, Facebook created React Native. React native was developed after the failure of multiple cross-platform app development technologies as they were all creating weird-looking interfaces which were not fully compatible with all the devices.

React native is an open source framework particularly which is used as it allows the mobile app developers to code in Javascript and deploys the app on both, Android and iOS platforms. It is very important to judge when to use Native or React Native apps, but the best thing about React native apps is that they are as good as Native apps.

Over the years, React Native has gained popularity for all the good reasons and it won’t suffice to end it there; so, let’s move forward to look at the properties of react native that make it the best choice of programming languages.

Properties of React Native:

If we count the advantages of React native, the cost efficiency will make it to the first spot every time. The cost-saving benefits of React native are the result of the other advantages that the platform posses for mobile app development. Although, to create a react native app means that the developer has to take account of multiple platforms to guarantee the best performance of the app, it still saves time and resources.

Let us take a look at the properties which make React native the best platform for mobile app development and how it benefits the mobile app developers.

Slashed Costs of app development

There is no denying the fact that building a cross-platform mobile application is comparatively much more cost-efficient than building native mobile apps or even web apps. This is because there is no need for programming for individual platforms. Besides, with the rising competition in the app development world, the focus has centred around the market of the application more than the development. And such a scenario, cross-platform applications are able to deliver high quality of mobile apps in a substantially lesser amount of time for more number of platforms which gives the marketers more time to strategise the launch and marketing of the app.

There are collective libraries of many app development frameworks available, like PhoneGap and Xamarin, which allows the React native mobile app developers to work and deliver much faster than native mobile app developers saving both, cost and time.

React Native is all about the UX and UI:

Those who have dealt with a non-optimised app can very well recite the pain of scrolling horizontally for seeing the full page of an app on their mobile devices. cross-platform applications built with the help of React Native eliminate this flaw and let the react native app builders make a fully optimised and compatible mobile application with numerous devices.

React Native cross-platform Apps are not only known for their ability to display data faster an adjust to the screen configurations promptly but also fixes the problems of fluctuating data streaming.

Apart from this, React native cross-platform apps can support a high definition of app graphics and contents because they’re very lightweight.

Easy integration:

cross-platform mobile apps, just like native apps, allow seamless integration and synchronization with other compatible apps. This is because the cross-platform apps also influence the internal programming of the mobile devices. This kind of working reduces the extra integration work for mobile app developers and the cross-platform apps still work well with the devices default applications such as GPS, Camera, etc.

Easier App Maintenance:

A cross-platform mobile application works just like a native mobile app and therefore they are well equipped to make use of all the device applications. The difference between the two is that a Native app is much harder to maintain, on both, the developers’ and the users’ sides. That is so because native applications require regular updates but cross-platform apps can easily avoid versioning and this makes the maintenance of the apps much more simplified. This flexibility provided by cross-platform apps gives the required scalability to the enterprise apps.

Offline Working:

cross-platform mobile applications work by storing the mobile device’s API, which saves the app data offline and hence results in a much faster-working app. It proves to be of great help at the times of adverse network conditions by providing uninterrupted access to data. This is even cited as one of the best performance capabilities of cross-platform apps and puts them a level above native mobile apps.

Scaling and Availability:

Being a cross-platform app, it can be made available at multiple online market platforms such as Google’s play store or Apple’s AppStore. This is the best way to expand your reach and maximise your customer base. Also, cross-platform applications are basically cross-platform apps, capable of working flawlessly with different Operating systems and platforms. And since the code for these apps can be easily reused, they become extremely simple to scale and develop.

As we are now through with the best advantages of React Native, Let us move on to the factors contributing to the overall costs of mobile app development.

Factors Contributing to the cost of development and How React Native minimises it:

From the Operating system to App Design elements, everything adds up to a certain cost in the overall app development process. Although the costs of development for the native apps and the cross-platform apps can be distinguished easily. Let us see how these factors affect these two kinds of mobile app development processes.

Operating system: The fundamental support required for updating older versions of operating systems is difficult and rather, time-consuming in the case of native mobile apps. However, in the case of cross-platform apps, versioning can be easily avoided which makes the maintenance of the app much easier and therefore, cost-effective.

Hardware: Along with supporting various Operating systems, the programming required to support the dimensions and orientation of various mobile devices. And making a native app compatible with different generations of a device can turn out to be highly expensive on the development front. For instance, the older iPhones had much smaller screens and the newer ones have larger screens but all the devices successfully accommodate and support the same mobile applications. This means that these native apps were specially optimised for the device type and hence added highly to the cost of development. Whereas, React native cross-platform apps work with all digital ecosystems and are pre-optimized to accommodate a maximum number of devices for the mobile apps. This, in turn, saves the time of development, thereby saving the overall cost.

Maintenance and support: the maintenance for native apps is quite complex because it takes the aftercare of two platforms at once, which includes regular updates, troubleshooting, patching etc. And thus, it takes almost twice as much time and resources to keep up with the maintenance of both Android and iOS device versions of the native app. And a cross-platform app can be easily maintained by a single app developer and thus the total app development costs are substantially slashed.

Application Design: It is unarguable that the cost of UI and UX design for an app is an added cost for a native app. Every app requires a flawless user-experience which account for nearly one-third of the total app development cost. Although, cross-platform apps made with react native are known for their uniformity across devices which accounts for great user experience.

Other factors, such as Data security costs and external APIs (Application Programming Interface), App hosting are the factors that work more or less in a similar way for native apps as well as for React native apps. However, the other factors mentioned above result in a significant reduction in the overall cost of mobile app development and still build high-quality apps which are no less than native apps.

The cost-saving benefits of using React native are long since proven that is why a number of businesses are bringing their applications over React native Platform. React native Apps in the market like, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype, Tesla, Uber, Walmart, Vogue are a few big names which are validating the benefits of React native app development.

Although cross-platform app development is easy and takes lesser time and resources which results in lesser development costs, there are always pitfalls associated with every technology.

Besides, the time and prices are always governed by the difficulty and complexity of the task at hand and this complexity decided the final cost of the project.

And though it is true that cross-platform apps cut short the time of development, it still takes time to create React native apps and optimise them for different devices of both iOS and Android platforms, which is a difficult and time-taking task. To hire a react native developer means hiring a developer who can successfully handle the creation of an app for every possible mobile device, which is a speciality in its kind and has a good cost.

In the end, there are a lot of contributing factors which play their part in deciding the final cost of development in the case of both, native, as well as, cross-platform mobile application. And for every app, it will be a different scenario and the last decision is yours to make if React Native is the right platform for your App. However, the general factors, as discussed in the article, are in favour of React native and show us the benefits for React native app development and React Native app development companies.

Native vs. Hybrid App Development: Which Is Better?

Posted on 08/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Apps are more than just technology. Apps have become a part of life and people are spending the majority of their days on apps now. Not to confuse these apps with game apps since non-gaming apps have seen a sudden rise in the market. Next year, 2020, the non-gaming apps are said to reach the global download rate of 284 billion.

Now tell us, can your business afford to lose such a huge market? Absolutely not! Going mobile has so many advantages and opens up multiple doors of opportunities for businesses. Apps are great for creating awareness and providing more value to your customers. This is why most businesses are opting for a mobile app solution.

Those who are going for app development for business must be knowing that there are many choices and decisions to make. During the entire app development process, there are a lot of choices that the app owner and the app developer make in order to get the best possible outcome.

One of these decisions is a choice between native and hybrid apps. The debate of native vs hybrid app has been going on for a while and honestly, there is no black and white answer to it.

So, let us start by understanding what is native app and hybrid app in simple terms.

Defining Native and Hybrid Apps

Native apps are particularly built for one platform. These apps are based on programming languages that support one platform at a time. The languages are Java or Kotlin for Android app development and Swift or Objective-C for iOS app development. These apps cannot be run on other platforms since they are developed for a specific platform. For instance, an app built for iOS platform cannot run on the Android devices and vice versa. However, this does have a benefit. Since the apps are built for one specific platform i.e. iOS or Android or Windows, the apps can use the full functionality of the devices. This means a smooth running app with lesser errors.

What is hybrid app? A hybrid mobile app is based on the web view which runs on a web application in a native browser. These are viewed in UIWebView for iOS and WebView in Android. These apps are developed using languages like CSS, HTML, JavaScript and then Cordova is used for wrapping them into native apps.

When compared, Native vs hybrid app, one is rich in performance and the other has a higher reach in the market. Despite the differences, both types of apps use languages that are considered to be the top programming languages in 2019. These apps have benefits as well as limitations which we will discuss in the upcoming segment of the blog.

Hybrid vs Native Apps Pros and Cons

Now that you are clear with what are native apps and hybrid apps, let’s see their pros and cons. Both the apps are good for different reasons but not for the same reasons. Each has its own pros and cons which will determine whether you should go for a hybrid

mobile app or a native mobile app.

Pros of Native apps

Native apps are fast and smooth since they are developed for one platform.
These apps have the best performance.
In terms of user input and output, the apps run much smoother.
Offline mode is available for most of the apps.
Access to the full functionality of the app devices.
The overall user experience is great as the UI is specific for the platforms.

Cons of Native apps

The cost of native mobile app development is high.
App development time is slow.
You will need expert development agencies since the programming languages are complicated.
This is not a good choice for simple apps.

Pros of Hybrid apps

A hybrid mobile app is developed in less time.
The cost of development is lower for Hybrid apps.
A Hybrid application can run on multiple platforms.
The app development for multiple platforms needs to be done only once.
The device’s APIs can be accessed.
The maintenance and support for these apps are easy.

Cons of Hybrid apps

Hybrid app development is a much slower process than native app development.
Hybrid apps cannot use the full functionality of mobile devices.
The web apps fail to be interactive and intuitive which is why native apps are better than hybrid in providing good user experience.
Need network at all times to run well.
Hybrid apps depend on a third-party wrapper.

So these were the native vs hybrid apps pros and cons. We can clearly see that both have a reasonable number of pros and cons. Web apps or hybrid apps lack high performance whereas native apps require constant updates from the users’ side. For proper comparison, we shall move to the next segment which is the difference between native and hybrid mobile apps.

What is the Difference Between Native App and Hybrid App?

The native vs hybrid app comparison is done for different criteria. Some differences between mobile native vs hybrid are quite clear as they can be noticed easily. However, there are also some major differences that take place during the app development process.

The first difference is the one that we have been talking about since the beginning of this blog. The native apps are built for one platform whereas the hybrid apps can be run on multiple platforms.

This brings us to the second difference between hybrid app and native app. The programming language used in both apps is different since there is a difference in supporting the platform. Hybrid apps are developed using CSS, HTML and JavaScript whereas Native apps are built using Java for Android and Swift for iOS.

The third difference between native app and hybrid app is the developer. When going for native app development then there is a need of an expert app developer. Since the app is focused on one platform, the importance of UI/UX design in the app is very high. Customers tend to leave the app if they are not satisfied with the UI of the app. On the other hand, hybrid apps are easy to build and takes less time. They do not require an expert for the development process.

In the native vs hybrid app, performance is a major difference. Native apps are smooth and provide better user experience than hybrid apps. For a better understanding of these differences, here is a table of comparison between native vs hybrid app.

One of the differences is the app development cost. Native vs hybrid app development cost differs. The hybrid app development cost ranges from low to medium whereas the native apps range from medium to high.

All these differences help a business decide whether they can use the advantages of a native app or a hybrid app. However, we cannot ignore the fact that both the app development choices have seen some successful apps. Some of the successful Native apps are Twitter, PayPal, LinkedIn, Google Maps, Telegram, PokemonGo, etc. Instagram, Yelp, Baskin Robbin, Basecamp, etc, are examples of Hybrid apps.

If even after this long comparison you haven’t figured out a side in native app vs hybrid app, then the next segment is for you.

Native vs Hybrid App Development: When to Choose Which?

After seeing the pros and cons of native and hybrid mobile applications and the difference between native and hybrid app, we can say each has a set of benefit that the other can’t replace. The hybrid app performance when compared to a native app is poor and lacks interaction. This is a strong point for anyone thinking of owning an app.

Before deciding between native app vs hybrid app, there are some factors that must be considered:

The speed of the app
The UI/UX of the app
The complexity of features in the app
The app development budget
The purpose of the app

Let us see point by point when to choose which option between native vs hybrid mobile app development.

Choose Native apps:

If you want an app that works online as well as offline.
When you want an app that is interactive and high performing.
If you can accept some low responsiveness in your app.
If your app needs to choose from a wide range of functionalities.
If your app needs to access the mobile devices’ features.

Choose Hybrid apps:

If you have an existing website and want an app for it.
If the app constantly needs to download information from the internet.
If you want to get an app in a short period of time at a less cost.
If the app is simple and does not have complicated calculations or designs.
If you are still testing your ideas in the market.
If the app should be able to use any hardware the device offers.

To conclude with, native apps are built with strong features and technical advancements whereas hybrid apps are cost-effective and less time-consuming. If you wish to know more about native and hybrid app difference or how to build hybrid apps or native apps, contact our app development team at Anteelo.

Key Features to Include in a Personal Trainer App

Posted on 07/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Today, everyone is talking about health and fitness. The whole world is trying to get into better shape and thus, going to the gym is a norm for almost everyone. However, in most of the cases, it is seen that people don’t have time for going to the gym. Due to this, the demand for personal trainer apps is growing by leaps and bounds. Sensing this demand, several companies are coming up with high-quality personal trainer app development services.

The best thing about this app is that you only need a wall, chair, and your body weight. It gives users the access to 72 different exercises and additional 22 workouts, allowing them to find the suitable program. If you are engaged in providing personal trainer app development services then have a look at all the main features of the 7 Minute Workout app and the way of implementing them.

In other words such agencies are engaged in offering world-class fitness apps at affordable rates and within determined timeframe. Talking about fitness apps, Official 7 Minute Workout by Johnson & Johnson. This app has managed to acquire more than 5 million downloads on the Google Play Market and over 2 million downloads on the Apple App Store.

Amazing features and their implementation

Voice control

With this feature, users can pause and resume training at their convenience. They have the chance of switching between exercises and controlling music. In order to make voice control possible in your personal trainer app, you can integrate Siri for iOS or Google Now for Android.

Smart workout

This feature forms the most appropriate training for users according to the level of preparation as well as their preferences. After the complete workout, users can determine the difficulty level of the exercise and can indicate which they prefer. This allows algorithm plan an effective workout. If you are planning to teach your app to form workouts, then you have two ways. In this regard, you can write an algorithm for building training by yourself. You can use marketplaces for algorithms.

Timer

This feature is perfect for calculating exercise time as well as rest intervals. To implement this feature for android, you can use CountDownTimer class, whereas for NSTimer for iOS. This way you can offer great personal trainer app development services.

Music

This app is perfect for listening songs during a training session. By using AVAudioPlayer class, you can implement this feature in your iOS app. If you want this feature in your android app, then use the multimedia framework.

Wearable edition

This 7 Minute Workout app has an edition for wearables. There is no denying that synchronizing an app with a wearable device is perfect for tracking the efficiency of exercises. In addition, the collection of data like heart rate and calories burned to name a few can be easily done.

Video player

It is good to provide guidance with video explanations. With Android multimedia framework in an Android app, your app can play audio and video files from standalone apps in the filesystem or over the network.

In conclusion, all the above-mentioned features are perfect for bringing a revolutionary change in the app development sector Hence, you have to make sure that you are incorporating all the aforesaid features in your app.

AI Technology in Mobile Banking Apps: Redesigning the User Experience

Posted on 01/10/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

From Siri in the phone to Netflix recommendations on Smart TV, the Artificial Intelligence technology is revolutionizing our lives. It has become the hottest technology of the present time. Every small to medium businesses- from food chains to personal fitness centers are employing this technology to reap higher benefits. And finance industry is not at all lagging behind. Finance companies are also hiring the top mobile app developers to invest in this technology and enjoy its perks. Before we begin to delve the benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Banking sector, let’s have a quick recap of what is it all about.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fusion of three state-of-the-art technology, namely Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Cognitive Computing. The main idea behind this technology is to mimic the human intelligence and provide better communication between the humans & machines.

Artificial Intelligence Technology & Banking Mobile Apps

In the war of gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace, it is quite tough to rely completely on humans. The humans have a limit to the speed with which they do any task. They can’t act with the speed of light to deliver an impressive experience to multiple users at the same time. However, human intelligence machine can do this. And this is the prime reason they are gaining such a huge traction in the market.

Following are some of the benefits finance and banking industry is enjoying with the help of AI:

Customer Support

The banking sector is adopting the AI technology to enhance its support system and offer better value to users. The AI-based customer service Chatbots are imitating the human interactions and providing them desirable information/result in no time. This feature is helping users with relevant information and in tasks like recovering passwords. This way, it is cutting down the workload of financial specialists, empowering them to focus on more crucial tasks.

“Artificial Intelligence allows us to offer an experience that doesn’t require our customers to go through several pages on our website; they can easily get the information through simple conversations. This is a great time-saving convenience for busy users who are already using Messenger.”

– Steve Ellis, Head of Wells Fargo’s Innovation Group

Fraud Detection Technology

Fraud detection is one of the key areas excelled by Finance world with the implementation of Artificial Intelligence. The AI equipped apps easily identify the fraudulent activities and alert the customers. It also helps payment providers and retailers in examining and securing financial activities in connection with their firms.

Financial Planning

The Artificial Intelligence plays a significant role in assisting the users to choose the right plan for them. Using the data from the past activities of the users and offers from banks such as credit card plans, investment policies, funds, etc., the AI-enabled mobile applications are offering the most optimal recommendations to the users.

This feature is the core factor behind the revenue growth in the major banks and so, is highly in demand by many other entrepreneurs. If you are also in the finance business, reach to the top mobile application development companies today!

Automated Transaction

The users love automation and the opportunity of running timeline crucial tasks. Because of the same, the AI-based applications are ruling the industry. At Anteelo, our adept mobile app developers have built various projects based on automated functionalities.

Personalized Remainder

Various finance companies are implementing the AI based personalized reminders into their mobile apps. Just like an alarm clock, these reminders remain active for a certain period of time to enable users to perform a particular task on time. This feature is helping the users in renewing their policies and other such financial transactions before the time passes.

Wrapping Up!

Artificial Intelligence is heavily influencing the market, especially the finance industry. The industry’s leading giants have already begun to enjoy its benefits, setting a new stage of the competition. If you are a finance or banking corporation, it’s high time to hire the best mobile app developers and get your own AI-integrated app. Otherwise, you might find difficult to remain on the apex of the market.

API Development: A Complete Guide

Posted on 28/09/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Assuming that you’ve heard the word ‘API’ for like zillion times while communicating with mobile app developers, today I’m going to cover everything about APIs in this article. So, put your seat belts and get ready to get into the world of APIs – the superheroes behind the functioning of the mobile apps.

Let’s begin with what are APIs?

1. API

API(Application Programming Interface) is a set of instructions, standards or requirements that enables a software or app employ features/services of another app, platform or device for better services. In short, it’s something that let apps communicate with each other.

For example, when we hit on the ‘Connect Facebook’ button on Candy Crush, it does not ask us to enter our Facebook account details. Rather, it accesses the data from the Facebook server and let us enjoy playing – all thanks to API.

An API is the base of all the apps that deal with data or enable communication between two products or services. It empowers a mobile application or platform to share its data with other apps/platforms and ease the user experience without involving the developers. On the top of it, APIs eliminate the need to build a similar program or platform from scratch; you can use the existing one of some other app/platform. Because of these factors, both app developers and business leaders focus on API development.

If you are also interested in API development or wish to gain a sound knowledge of the same, keep reading

Before we delve further, let’s just have a look at the basic terminologies that will make it easier to understand the concept.

2. Terminology

a) API Key: When an API request through a header or parameter to recognize the requester, the authorized code passed into the request is said to be an API Key.

b) Endpoint: When an API interacts with another system, one end of the communication channel is termed as Endpoint.

c) JSON: JavaScript Object Notion or JSON is said to be a data format used for APIs request parameters and response body.

d) GET: The RESTful API’s HTTP method of obtaining resources is called GET.

e) POST: It is the RESTful API’s HTTP method for building resources.

f) OAuth: It is basically an Open standard authorization framework that renders access from the user’s side without directly sharing the credentials.

g) REST: REST (Representational State Transfer) is a kind of programming architectural implementation meant to enhance the efficiency of communication between the two devices/systems. It is light-weighted and based on the idea of making a particular data available only when requested by sharing references to the data instead of the entire copy of the data itself. The systems enforced on this architecture are said to be ‘RESTful’ systems, and the most overwhelming example of RESTful systems is the World Wide Web.

h) SOAP: SOAP or Simple Object Access Protocol is a messaging protocol for sharing structured information in the execution of web services in computer networks. It works with XML information set and application layer protocols (like HTTP and SMTP) for message format and message negotiation & transmission, respectively.

i) Latency: Latency is defined as the total time taken by an API in the process from the request to the response.

j) Rate-Limiting: The term API Rate-limiting refers to the process of defining the rate at which an end user can access the APIs. In other words, it means restricting the number of requests a user can hit to an API per time.

k) API Throttling: The process of regulating the usage of APIs by users during a particular time period is called Throttling. This can be used for API limiting. For example, you set the limit of 1000 API requests per day. When the user hit the 1001 request, the server will send 429 messages as HTTP status to the end user along with the message, “Too many Requests”.

For more terminology and acronym, refer this site.

Now, as you know what are APIs, are armed with the terminologies and are familiar with the anatomy of the growing API market, let’s dig deeper into the technical part – beginning with how do APIs work?

3. Working of API

Suppose you opened some XYZ app/website to book a flight. You filled the form – you entered the departure and return date, city, flight, and other relevant details – and submitted. With a fraction of seconds, a list of flights appears on the screen along with the price, timings, seat availability, and other details. How this actually happens?

To provide such stringent data, the platform sent a request to the airline’s website to access their database and get relevant data via API. The website responded with the data which API delivered to the platform and the platform displayed it on the screen.

Here, the flight booking app/platform and airline’s website act as endpoints while API as the intermediate streamlining the data sharing process. When talking about communicating the endpoints, the API works in two ways, namely: REST and SOAP (see definition above).

Though both the methods bring effective results, mobile app development companies prefer REST over SOAP since SOAP APIs are heavy and platform-dependent.

To understand the API lifecycle and working process in detail, contact our experts today!

Now coming to the main part – How to develop an API? What tools and technologies to choose? What practices to adopt for an effective API development?

4. Tools for Developing an API (like a PRO..)

While there are a plethora of tools and technologies equipped into the process of creating an API, the popular tools and products for developing APIs for developers are:

a) Apigee: It is a Google’s API management provider that assists the developers and entrepreneurs to triumph at digital transformation by reestablishing towards an API approach.

b) APIMatic and API Transformer: They offer sophisticated automatic generation tools to build top-quality SDKs and code snippets from API specific formats and transform them into other specification formations, such as RAML, API Blueprint, etc.

c) API Science: This tool is primarily used for evaluating the performance of both internal APIs and external APIs.

d) API Serverless Architecture: These products assist mobile app developers in designing, building, publishing and hosting APIs with the help of a cloud-based server infrastructure.

e) API-Platform: This is one of the open-source PHP framework that is apt for web API development.

f) Auth0: It is an identity management solution used to authenticate and authorize APIs.

g) ClearBlade: It is an API management provider for embracing the IoT technology into your process.

h) GitHub: This open-source git repository hosting service let the developers manage code files, pull requests, version control, and commenting that are distributed across the group. It also let them save their code in private repositories.

i) Postman: It is basically an API toolchain that empowers the developers to run, test, document, and evaluate the performance of their API.

Although the world is full of APIs and APIs, there is still a major gap in utilizing the perks of API. While some APIs make integration to the app a breeze, other turns it into a nightmare. To help you out in ensuring that you build a former one, here are some of the factors related to APIs for developers to consider:

5. Must-Have Features of an Efficient API

a) Modification timestamps/Search by criteria: An API should let the users search data based on different criteria, like a date. This is because it’s the changes (update, edit and delete) that we consider just after the first initial data synchronization.

b) Paging: Many times, it happens that we do not want to see the complete data changed, but just a glimpse of it. In such a scenario, the API should be capable of determining how much data to display in one go and at what frequency. It should also inform the end user about the no. of pages of data remaining.

c) Sorting: To ensure that the end user receives all the pages of data one-by-one, the API should empower the users to sort data as per the time of modification or some other condition.

d) JSON Support/ REST: Though not compulsory, it is good to consider your API to be RESTful (or providing JSON support(REST)) for an effective API development. The REST APIs are stateless, light-weighted and let you retry the upload mobile app process if it fails. This is quite tough in case of SOAP. Besides, JSON’s syntax resembles that of most of the programming languages, which make it easy for a mobile app developer to parse it into any other language.

e) Authorization via OAuth: It is again necessary that your API authorizes via OAuth since it is faster than other methods – you just need to click on a button and it’s done.

In short, the processing time should be minimum, response time good and security level high. It is of paramount importance to put efforts into the best practices for securing your application, after all, it deals with a heap of data.

6. Best Practices for Building the Right API

a) Use Throttling: App Throttling is a great practice to consider for redirecting overflow of traffic, backup APIs and safeguarding it from DoS (Denial of Service) attacks.

b) Consider your API gateway as Enforcer: While setting up throttling rules, application of API keys or OAuth, the API gateway must be considered as the enforcement point. It should be taken as a cop that lets only right users get access to the data. It should empower you to encrypt the message or edit confidential information, and thereby, analyze and manage how your API is being used.

c) Allow overriding HTTP method: Since some proxies only support GET and POST methods, you need to let your RESTful API override the HTTP method. For doing so, employ the custom HTTP Header X-HTTP-Method-Override.

d) Evaluate the APIs and infrastructure: In the current time, real-time analysis is possible to get, but what if API server is suspected to have memory leaks, draining CPU or other such issues? To consider such situations, you can’t keep a developer at duty. However, you can perform this easily via using numerous tools available in the market, like AWS cloudwatch.

e) Documentation: Last but not the least, it is profitable to create an extensive documentation for an API that let other mobile app developers easily understand the whole process and utilize the information for offering better user experience. In other words, a good API documentation in the process of effective API development will lessen the project implementation time, project cost and boost the API efficiency.

Now as you have gained an in-depth knowledge of what are APIs and what factors to consider while developing one, are you interested in API development? If so, reach to our experts.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT API DEVELOPMENT

1. What is REST API and SOAP API?

REST (Representational State Transfer) API is a software architectural style that describes a complete set of constraints to be employed for building Web services. Whereas, SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol much complex by adding more standards than REST, such as security

2. How do I make a good RESTful API?

Making a good RESTful API is easier when you follow these practices:-

Use Throttling
Considering your API Gateway as Enforcer
Allowing overriding HTTP method
Making a proper documentation
Determine the APIs and infrastructure

3. What is API and types of API?

API (Application Programming Interface) is a collection of instructions, and requirements that let a software or mobile application utilize the features/services of other applications, platform or devices for exceptional services.

There are basically different types of API:-

Web service APIs
WebSocket APIs
Library-based APIs
Object remoting APIs
Class-based APIs
Hardware APIs, etc.

4. What is JSON API?

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is an encoding scheme created to eradicate the need for an ad-hoc code for each app to interact with servers in a particular manner.

Learn to coding with the help of the best App Developers in the world

Posted on 27/09/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Coding has placed itself as one of the most secure jobs in the current world. The demand is set on a high priority mode for a number of years to come.

This is the reason why more and more people who are even mildly interested in technology are preparing to become coders.

However, even among this stable demand in the job market and the passion to follow the path, a number of people are still thinking twice before getting into it, solely because of the misconception that it would need a degree and years of practice to become a coder and join some glorious app development company.

If you too are the one restricting yourself from realizing your code dream because of this misconception, we have listed down ways that you can learn how to code. A list that has been curated by our team of skilled coders.

Before we get into the ways you can learn how to code, let us look into some of the reasons that are motivating people to learn how to code.

1. What is prompting our generation to take up Coding courses

a. It will be around in the future

When one takes up a course, the idea is to not go with the one whose demand is short lived but go with one that is least replaceable. And, when we talk about the job trends, the one that is going to be around for the foreseeable future and beyond, it is Coding. The tech industry is only going to grow (with many more programming languages coming up) and the only way to grow with it is by joining the club and becoming technical.

b. Demand is much more than supply

The demand for coders is much higher than the number of coders in the industry – a scenario that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

Having much more demand than the supply comes with its own set of perks. You get to earn much higher than your years of experience and the chance of finding a job irrespective of the geographical boundaries is also much higher.

c. A lot of career options at the back of a strong foundation

If you work on your code foundations today, you will have in front of you a series of career options. Even if you are preparing yourself to be a flappy bird developer, with time you will be able to branch out in coding involved with a number of disruptive technologies like AR/VR, Blockchain, or even AI.

Now that we have seen the reasons that are motivating people across the globe to become coders, let us now look into the ways you can learn how to code, even without a programming language experience or a computer science degree. These are the ways that have been suggested by our team of developers who themselves have developed over 500 apps belonging to a range of different disruptive technologies like Chatbots, AI, and Blockchain, amongst others.

Let’s begin.

2. Ways You Can Learn How to Code Without a Computer Science Degree

Okay, a slight detour again.

Before we get into this journey of learning how to code let me help you finalize a programming language first, the one you should start with.

The basic programming language that I would suggest to start with is JavaScript. The language comes in very handy when you are developing an app – one that can be of any type, no matter how complex. The industry demand for JavaScript developers is extremely high. No matter what job portal you are looking into, you will find a listing for JS developers there.

Also, the JavaScript developer community is an ever growing one. New tools are always coming up in the JavaScript industry, giving you, a beginner, a chance to join the league of developers who come with years of experience in the domain and are yet to explore the new batch of tools.

Once you are adept with JavaScript, expand your learning to a more platform specific language. The present and the near future belongs to Kotlin for Android app developers and Swift and iphone app developers. So, choose a platform that you are even remotely passionate about and invest in its specific language.

Now that you must have gathered an idea of what programming language you would like to delve in further, let us now look into what we gathered here for – to learn how to code when you do not even know its basics.

3. Online Courses to Learn Coding From

Code.org – Their courses are majorly designed for the K-12 students, but anyone who is looking to start fresh in the coding industry can enroll in these courses.
Codecademy – It is a free resource for learning every major web programming language out there in the industry.
Khan Academy – They have a range of topics to meet the learning needs of coders irrespective of their learning level
Learn Swift – If iOS App Development is what you wish to do, the site is your Meccah. It has pages and pages of data that would help you learn Swift.

4. YouTube Channels That Will Help you Code

Learn.code Academy – Topics it Cover – Responsive Design, Sublime Text, Node.js, Backbone.js, Angular.js, Deployment Strategies, etc.
Thenewboston – Topics it Covers – C programming language, Android development, Python, MySQL, etc.
ProgrammingKnowledge – Topics it Covers – Java, C, Python, Android programming, JavaFX, Bootstrap, etc
Derek Banas – Topics it Covers – Java, PHP, Ruby, HTML, C++, Python, Android, Assembly language, etc.

5. Blogs you should Follow to Become Better Coders

SitePoint –The blog continuously keeps getting updated with new topics ranging from everything – HTML, CSS, Swift, React.JS, amongst a lot of others.
David Walsh – Managed by Mozilla’s senior developer, David Walsh, the website has a lot of information specific to developers, presented in how-tos, demos, and tutorials.
A List Apart – Have tons of articles for coders irrespective of their expertise level.
SoftwareHow – The blog is a go to the website for anything related to software tools. It comes with a huge collection of guides, tips, and software reviews.

The list would help you immensely at becoming better coders over time. The one thing that you should do though before you drop the idea of learning how to code is at least try one other method of learning, irrespective of what your current mode of learning is.

Incredible Chatbot Design Strategies to Turn Your Bot into an Interaction Ninja

Posted on 26/09/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

48% of global consumers accepted that they would rather connect with a company over chat than any other source of contact. 35% of the users would like to see more companies incorporating chatbots. As for the business side of the story, chatbots save around £6 billion per year and a simple chat option in the mobile app brings up the revenue by over 30%.

These are only a snippet of thousands of statistics that are all around the internet and lying on a million office reports hinting towards how chatbot app development has turned out to be the best business decision.

Done right, chatbots can single-handedly make your company approachable and open to business even when you sleep. Done wrong, it leaves users unsatisfied and complaining about how your brand is slow in the logic department.

What helps in making a chatbot effective, besides of course passing all your chatbot success worries to a chatbot app development company, is having a right strategy in place.

1. Have a Purpose

Knowing what purpose your chatbot would solve is the first step in designing a working, revenue-generating chatbot design strategy in 2018.

The last thing that you would want is to join the chatbot world just because every business is on it. While it is true that it benefits a range of different industries, it is also true that not all businesses need it, especially the ones that are working only around a particular geographical location i.e. in the same time zone.

But if yours is a business that would benefit immensely with Chatbots, think of the process that you would like to give your bot the autonomy of. The scale of the process that you are looking forward to leaving in the hands of chatbot will help decide which bot type you have to invest in (more on this later).

2. Conversation Flow

The flow in which your chatbot would converse is one of the most important things for your chatbot design guide to cover.

The ideal situation when it comes to deciding how the conversation should flow is that the bot should start with a general salutation followed by asking questions and then pitching the product when the user put in the respective action words like ‘Tell me More’ or ‘Give more information’.

The biggest mistake that businesses make is pitching in the product as soon as the user becomes active on the website or page when they should go with a more human-like conversation flow.

3. Bot Personality

The only way to make your bot more human-like is to give it a personality. Now when I say personality, I am not implying you to create an avatar and anime man. No, when I say personality, I mean giving it a tone, a difference in the US and UK English, slang, and age-appropriate responses.

Now, in the normal scenario, a business doesn’t have a specific exact type of customer base, so would you keep making bots aiming for each of them to meet specific criteria? The answer is obviously No. What you can do is ask your users’ background and change the initial conversation level of the bot.

4. Give Context From the Beginning

Make the purpose of your chatbot clear from the first two messages itself. Aim for a scenario where your user knows exactly what the bot would be helping them with and have no misinterpreted expectations and then a bad customer service instance.

The first two dialogue to and fro should be enough for your user to know what is to be expected from the chatbot. If you miss this step, the chances are that your bot dashboard will get filled with repeated questions and frustrations of not getting answers.

5. Share before Publicizing

So you have developed an amazing bot that converses with masses effortlessly, specializes in giving the users the exact information that they need, which even varies from context to context. What’s next?

And the answer does not make it live on your website or integrate into your mobile app right away. The answer is to first share it with your in-house teams to see if it’s actually able to answer different questions and different contexts.

By sharing it with the team and taking their feedback, you will be able to track exactly how people are reacting to it and what changes would make the conversation more meaningful.

6. Choose your Words Wisely

The most important element of strategic chatbot development according to chatbot design trend 2018 is choosing the words right. Your copywriting technique should be on point to not just entice the users to start the conversation but keep them hooked enough to convert into your site’s loyal customer or subscriber.

Know that your chatbot copy has the power to make your chatbot a conversion magnet and it should be treated just like that – as a mix of emotions and conversion statements.

So, here were the pointers that would help you draft a killer, high revenue generating chatbot design strategy in 2018. The one that would result in a chatbot that people love to converse with and pay to.

Now that you know what an ideal chatbot should operate like, it is time to look into the three types of chatbots that you should invest in developing once you have your chatbot design guide planned.

The Three Types of Chatbots

1. Menu Based Chatbots

These are one of the most common types of chatbot available in the market today. Using this chatbot, brands give multiple options to the users to select from. These are used mainly when the users are looking for a direct answer.

One of the biggest challenges that businesses face when it comes to menu based chatbots is that the process that users will have to follow to come to the point when they get the desired answer is quite long. They have to click through several buttons and options to come on one point.

2. Keyword Recognition Based Chatbots

These bots utilize the blend of AI and keywords to determine the appropriate response. They lack in performance when they are asked a lot of similar questions with similar sounding keywords, even when the context is different.

A new set of bots are now present in the market that is hybrid. They automatically switch to the menu based type when they are unable to answer users’ queries through AI.

3. Contextual Chatbots

The most advanced of the chatbot family, these bots remember the interaction and its outcome and keeps growing on it to give better result to the users over time. They work strictly on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to help users come to a decision.

As they are based on ML and AI technologies, they come with a self-learning ability, which helps in not just customer relationship management but also a positive sales conversion rate.

The ultimate decision of which chatbot type to invest in depends entirely on your business need. If yours is a simple Q&A type app where you aim at giving a quick in and out experience to your users, answering their questions to the point, menu-based chatbot app development is what you should go for. But, in case you have an assistant like mobile app idea, then you will lose your pockets a little and invest in Contextual chatbot development.

Reasons for Your Soaring Mobile Application Uninstall Rate

Posted on 25/09/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Businesses and Entrepreneurs such as you, sometimes spend as high as a million figure to get their application developed and deployed in the stores. The one hope they tie all their effort and money to is generating more than what they earned as revenue from their app.

But, in come reports that over 94% users uninstall mobile apps just after 30-40 days of app install and it hit the businesses hard – Realizing that their app has fallen in the well of those 94% apps.

There are three categories in which you can divide the reasons why users are uninstalling your mobile app –

The Fault in Your Mobile App Development Process
The lack of Ability in Keeping Users Unannoyed
Poor Ideation

We will be looking at all the three categories in detail in this article. After all, a clear indication of the problem will only help you with determining how to prevent your mobile app uninstall.

Let’s start with the first one. The Fault in Your Mobile App Development Process

Although, it sounds very obvious but the signs that the app is not developed right are not laid in plain sight. There are a number of issues that businesses ignore to double check when their app is in the development stage, which then goes on to adversely affect the user retention score.

Let us look into them individually so that you know the pointers that you have to pay attention to before you launch that app of yours.

Not Paying Enough Attention to Security

The number one reason that keeps users at bay when it comes to apps that ask for their number, email id or bank detail is the doubt of data breach. Now even if you have kept all the crucial security considerations in mind and practice while developing the app, make it a point that you showcase the badge of security protocol to your users in application homepage, so that they know that their information is secure.

Also, as an added security feature, ensure that the cloud service that you have signed up to save the user data is hack proof. Sit with your mobile app development company and discuss the ways you can make your app tamper proof.

Taking up Way too Much Space on Users’ Device

It is a given but highly ignored fact that your app is not the only application on a user’s device. At any given point of time, users have at least 2 similar app category applications in their smartphone or tablet.

In a scenario such as this, if your app is taking a considerable MB of space on users’ device, you are digging your grave, pretty fast. There are a number of ways to ensure that the app size is small for optimizing the images and videos or manually fixing the app size from the backend. Run your app through those practices before you launch it in the market.

The ‘Application Has Stopped Working’ Message Pops Up A LOT

Nothing annoys an impatient user more than an application that keeps on crashing or asking to run again.

It has been noted that users bear with app hanging or stopping abruptly only till two instances and not more. So, once you start receiving messages or reviews saying that the app hangs a lot, leave everything aside and get it resolved asap.

Look at your code structure and pay extra attention in the app testing to ensure that your app doesn’t hang, or even it does, because of hundreds of queries being generated at the same time, make sure it is an isolated event.

Apart from these three, as long as you have done your testing right and have ensured that the app works like it is supposed to along with making sure that its load time is on point, straight from the application development process, you will be good.

Let us now move on to the next stage, The lack of Ability in Keeping Users Unannoyed, which has less to do with your mobile application development process and more with your incapability to keeping users unannoyed.

Constant Pop-Up Notifications

Sending out notifications saying this and that to your users every hour is one turn off an event. We get it that you want your users to remain hooked to your app, but sending out notifications every hour is more a recipe for pushing them away than of keeping them engaged.

Your notification should be planned. It should come as an effect of user’s movement. Hit their device when they have abandoned your cart or when it’s time for their next lesson. Above everything else, know when to let go. If even after 7 days of zero interaction with the notification, your users are MIA, it is time to let go and stop sending them pop-ups.

Constantly Seeking Rating of the application

If your app is of the kind that constantly asks users to drop a rating in the store, you are headed down the uninstall road. There are hundreds of instances when users are asked to rate an application even when they have left the review days back.

Like notifications, app rating prompt should also be well timed. Ask them to drop in a review when they have achieved something within the app and not when they are either still learning their ways in the app or when they have logged into the app after the longest time.

When you master these two arts and as an added measure, get acquainted with the power of personalization, you will be able to stay in users’ devices for a longer period of time. It’s time to move on to the last element, which you can also call the first nail in your app’s coffin – App Ideation.

Poor Market Research

Chances are that you went into the app game too soon. The time that you should have spent into ensuring that your app idea is different from those in the stores, was spent into wireframing or something else entirely.

Maybe you did not even give enough time into judging whether your app is even solving a real problem or not. Whatever it is that you did in name of less to no market research, is only going to fall hard on you now.

So, here were all the reasons falling into three categories which you can avoid only if you are more cautious during the whole app development process. Now, there can be a number of reasons why users uninstall your app, sometimes as weird as – app was too addictive. The truth is, you cannot always control this. But what you can control is being careful in the whole development and testing process.