#AppUpdate Archives

How To Market A Brand with A Mobile App

Posted on 25/05/202103/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

Gone are the days when advertising was considered the most prominent marketing channel to promote a brand. With rapid transformations in the digital landscape, having a strong mobile presence has become a necessity for businesses to thrive.

Mobile apps have emerged as an effective marketing solution. A mobile app not only helps automate business but also provides better customer service. With apps, brands do not have to struggle to establish themselves- they can foster a deep connection with netizens of all demographics and age groups, promote brand awareness and garner the right market visibility.

Studies show that more than 50% of customers who regularly use a branded app are more likely to buy from the company.

It is relatively easy to target a mass audience base with other marketing channels but targeting each individual based on their unique preferences is the need of the hour, and it has become all the more possible through mobile apps.

A branded app is a powerful approach to facilitate brand promotions in a persuasive way. By using a mobile app as a brand marketing channel, you can reap huge benefits. It keeps users engaged and you can enjoy higher conversion rates.

Why should Brands go online?

According to a report, smartphones account for 70% of the mobile time out of which 90% of smartphone time is spent on applications. Most people today have access to their phones wherever they go, which implies that you can reach your target audience almost anytime, anywhere through a mobile app. This doesn’t necessarily apphttps://appinventiv.com/blog/mobile-app-as-brand-marketing-channel/ly to other marketing channels, some of which are limited by the restricted availability of the devices that they depend on.

Brands have realised the potential of what a mobile application can do and that goes beyond simply selling a product or service. This discovery has opened up new marketing avenues. It provides businesses the opportunity to engage with their audience in new and creative ways and turn them into loyal customers.

Studies show that desktop internet usage is dropping and mobile internet usage is rising significantly. Although mobile websites get more visitors, visitors tend to spend

Mobile app industry is flourishing. It is estimated that by 2021, there will be roughly 7 billion mobile users worldwide. (Source) With the advent of disruptive technologies such as AI, AR VR companies are finding new ways to market their products. Artificial Intelligence allows mobile apps to store user data in order to recognise and preempt their preferences, needs and choices.

Mobile apps are a powerful marketing channel for brands. It helps companies connect with the audience, convey brand messages, keep users engaged and create customer loyalty in a crowded marketplace.

Today brands are using mobile apps to improve offline experiences for their customers and boost sales. According to a recent survey, 75 percent of customers engage more with loyalty programs that provide rewards in a mobile-friendly way.

So, if you are still not going mobile for marketing, it’s time you consider the many benefits a branded app has to offer.

Benefits of Mobile platforms as Marketing tools

There are a number of ways how mobile apps help businesses. They humanise companies, lead to better interactions between brands and customers, and increase loyalty and sales.

1. Enhancing Brand awareness and visibility

Businesses are often on the lookout for an effective platform through which they can market their brand. Apps enhance brand awareness and visibility and can strategically increase the customer base.

Once an application gets installed on a mobile device, users will come across the brand logo frequently, thereby enhancing visibility and awareness. The more often a user interacts with a brand’s app, the sooner they tend to buy their products and avail their services.

If you want to get users talking about your unique app, you must ensure that your app provides all the features that your target audience is looking for.

The app should be interactive and keep users coming for more. Afterall, it all boils down to effective frequency- the more people are introduced to an app and the more they interact with it, the more chances that they will actually buy.

2. Forming a connection with your Customers

Engagement is extremely crucial and a mobile app helps you form a deeper connection with your customers and prospects.

With declining attention spans, it has become significantly important to curate compelling personalised content and keep your users coming back for more.

An effective way to engage your users is to frequently offer them fresh Personalised Content. Users are interested in content that is relatable and piques their interest. In this rapidly changing environment, user preferences keep on changing and to establish yourself in the market you need to keep up with them.

Regardless of the type of application, a brand must invest in personalized in-app content. One way to ensure that happens is to create and study customer personas to better understand what type of content works best for your audience.

Another effective strategy is Push Notifications. Push notifications have the power to capture user attention and make them check out what’s new in your app. They encourage customers to use your app. The key with push notifications is to make them compelling. A push notification must be of some value to the end user no matter if it’s a copy, a promotion or some perk. Don’t overdo the notifications or it may irritate the users.

3. Collecting Data about Customers

A good marketing strategy revolves around analysing customer behaviour. If your app solves a pain point for the user, they are likely to share their data with you.

You can use mobile app as a brand marketing channel to monitor users, their personal shopping behaviors, engagement levels, browsing habits, locations, mobile app usage, favorite hours and much more.

This way you can collect valuable user insights, analyse through the data, understand the needs of the customer and improve your product quickly.

You can collect user data in the following ways:

Onboarding: You can have a basic questionnaire during registration which includes pertinent information about age, preferences, habits and more.
By offering Bonuses: It is an ideal approach to swap discounts, bonuses or special offers as a reward for completing small questionnaires.
In- app Behaviour: Marketers can always keep track of the marketing process in a closed loop by monitoring and analysing user’s in-app behaviour. For brands it has become relatively easy to collect user data based on purchases and reviews of the product.

This way you can evaluate the data and change your brand development strategy based on user feedback.

The Starbucks mobile app widely uses this opportunity and monitors in-app user behaviour. As of April 2019, Starbucks claims 16.8 million active loyalty program members. It all became possible by analysing user data, looking for new avenues and rolling out strategic data-driven initiatives to target users.

It is essential to have a review/ feedback section. Allow your users to tell you what exactly they want from your app. Iterating and improving the product the way your target audience wants it reaps excellent rewards.

4. Increasing Customer Loyalty

Rewarding frequent customers is a great marketing strategy. Getting customer loyalty has become a challenge for a number of brands. A mobile app is the right tool to increase your customer loyalty.

When you reward frequent customers, it encourages them to buy more and they are more likely to share your brand with their fellow friends. This strategy can be easily implemented using push notifications or via in-app messages. Loyalty rewards help in establishing a strong connection and turns users into loyal customers.

5. Scaling up your target Audience

The Internet is not just breaking boundaries but making things that were impossible a decade ago happen in real-time. Mobile apps enhance the user base, not just in their country of origin but also across the world.

Through geo-targeted push notifications, localisation and location based brands can send specific messages to their target user audience. Location based call to action via region or location mapping feel more personalised to the user, grow the target audience and can drive more sales.

6. Increasing Sales Ratio

Applications enhance customer experience by making the buying process simpler, convenient and intuitive, thereby resulting in the increase in sales ratio.

But an app doesn’t have to necessarily offer purchases to boost sales, it can do so by offering loyalty programs and additional services.

Domino’s faced a serious sales issue back in the mid-2000s. With the wave of digitalisation, Domino’s decided to go mobile. Besides making significant improvements in the quality of their product, Domino’s created a branded mobile app that was extremely responsive and rendered a delightful experience.

It resulted in the app’s contribution to half of the company’s online sales in 2015.

When Domino’s started facing issues with retaining their customers and witnessed a rise in the bounce rate, they came to us. We worked on their UX, refined their UX Strategy and brought a steep rise in their conversion rate by 23% and significantly increased their session time.

7. Social Network Marketing through apps

Mobile connectivity has become essentially important and the ability to synchronise it with social networks provides businesses a higher chance to disperse the content and make it go viral. Mobile apps allow users to easily share the brand’s content across all social networks.

For instance, PUMA’s empowering Propah Lady campaign created a ripple effect on the social media and gained a huge amount of followers and brand customers.

Common Mistakes to avoid when making a mobile app for Brands

The advantages of a mobile app for business are endless. Sure, you can create a unique app and get users to download it but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the user will return to your app.

According to Statista, 25 percent apps downloaded by mobile app users worldwide are only accessed once after download.

So, how do you ensure that users keep coming back to your app for more?

The underlying reason why most users abandon a branded app is either poor UX or it focuses more on novelty value and lacks functionality. So, here are some common mistakes that you should avoid when creating an app and to establish it as an effective brand marketing channel.

1. The app doesn’t provide any value to the user

Every app operates on a pain point and it is designed to solve a specific user problem. This holds true for branded apps as well. If your app is a means to place advertisements on your customers’ mobiles, you are doing it wrong.

A branded app should solve user problems in one manner or another. It is only when you create a useful product that provides some value on an ongoing basis, that users will keep coming back to the app. The ideal approach is to know your target audience, study their needs and determine what they expect from your app.

2. The app lacks special offers

The idea behind a branded app is to create awareness and enhance customer loyalty. If a branded app doesn’t offer discounts, special offers and other app usage benefits, customers will most likely abandon the application.

3. The app is difficult to use

The simplest way to identify a good app is how convenient and intuitive it is for the customers. If the app is complicated to use regardless of the functionality it offers, it won’t appeal to a mass audience.

4. The app lacks updates

It is essential to keep up with the rapid shifts in technology and implement the same into your app. If you change your marketing strategy, website design or provide better branding, you must ensure that you have enough resources to make the same updates on your app.

5. The app doesn’t move beyond the desktop experience

If you consider an app as a smaller version of the website with the same features, you aren’t leveraging the app as a right marketing channel. A branded app is more than a novelty value and must provide important features and information.

6. The app doesn’t provide a personalised touch

Today a wide variety of content is available on the Internet and with ever decreasing attention spans, it has become significantly important to provide a personalised touch with your application.

Through a branded app you can target each individual based on their unique preferences and get closer to your customers. By sending personalised push notifications you can retain your users and turn them into loyal customers.

How to establish a Mobile App Marketing Strategy?

Having an app marketing plan is extremely crucial when creating a branded mobile app. So, dig deep and understand what your business needs. There are many types of mobile apps but the crucial factors that come into play when creating a branded app are as follows:

Acquisition: You must ensure that when a user onboards and shares their personal information on your app, they come across a variety of useful mobile features that add some value to their life.

Engagement: Your app should be able to capture user attention, engage customers with the brand and keep them coming for more.

Conversion: Besides engaging customers, your app should focus on driving users to conversion.

Next thing that you need to figure out is the product pricing strategy. Product pricing strategy or mobile app monetization plays an instrumental role in getting your app the initial traction and visibility in the app store. The app pricing model determines the success of your product in terms of the number of downloads and user retention in the long run. It is essential to take into account the cost and value, run a competitor audit, gauge the estimated demand and analyse the cost of user acquisition before opting for a pricing model.

Considerable App Marketing Strategies That Drive App Downloads

Here’s our Insight on how to choose the right pricing strategy for your mobile app project

Making a branded app is one thing but you also need to understand that the mobile app ecosystem is a challenging environment.

It is a given that regardless of how well crafted your application is, it will not get its spot under the sun until it is marketed right and there is a buzz around it much before it hits the stores and users’ devices.

So, how to promote your brand with mobile apps?

Well, here’s a definitive mobile app promotion guide that will help your market your brand

A Brand Marketing Channel for the world’s largest Furniture retailer IKEA

The lack of mobile app as a brand marketing channel is often felt by startups and established enterprises.

For IKEA, we developed an impeccable solution that helps walk-in customers go through the products catalogue. With a simple and comprehensible user interface, the application displays the products straight from the inventory, eliminating the chances of disharmony between the customer demand and the product supply.

Moreover, it offers customers access to product discounts and offers all in one place.

We solved the problem that IKEA was facing, and with our effective solution customers got a catalogue that displayed all the store offers and discounts in one place and retailers got the contact information of hundreds of store customers for sending them marketing collaterals.

Conclusion

A mobile app is considered a brand’s own marketing platform. It establishes a direct marketing channel and allows marketers to reach a wide range of users around the world. If you are still not leveraging mobile apps as your brands marketing channel, you are certainly lagging behind. It is time you explore the new marketing avenues and jump on the wagon.

What Does It Take To Create A Billion-Dollar Application?

Posted on 18/05/202103/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

The world of smartphones is pretty exciting with constant changes in their landscape. With the arrival of a new device every week, the scope of these life-changing devices seems to be never-ending. Along with the evolving changes in smartphones, we’re also bombarded with several applications. Whether you want to book a taxi or purchase a rug, there’s a mobile application available for every purpose.

If you’re a budding entrepreneur with an innovative and developing app idea and are looking to make billions, you’ve surely found a sweet spot. Let’s take a look at the detailed guide to build a billion-dollar application.

How to Build a Billion Dollar App?

1. Building a team and raising funds

If you have a revolutionary idea to build next million dollar app that you believe will be loved by millions of people, the first thing you should do is test your great idea for an app by stating it on a paper and getting feedback from the public. Figure out a problem, a solution, and translate it into an application.

Whether you use paper or photoshop, make sure your billion dollar business idea can be easily communicated and explained to others. Once you’ve made a great design, make a prototype out of it. As soon as your app gets into users’ hands, you can start getting feedback.

To start building a team, all you need to do is find people who share the same vision as you and have the required skills to make your dream achievable. Recruitment will be a game-changing task, and you must do everything to get skilled and enjoyable people on board.

Ask your friends, family, and even your enemies to download and use your app – and provide brutally honest feedback. Analyze your targeted audience and brainstorm different routes to reach them and use your application.

2. Capturing the product market

As of now, you should have a prototype ready and used by people. If you have a simple business model such as gaming, you may consider releasing the first version of your app startup idea on the app stores. Otherwise, for a complicated model, you need investment for further development.

At this point, the only thing you should care about is achieving a solid product-market fit and making sure people love your app up to an extent where they’re willing to pay for it. Keep developing a reliable user acquisition strategy.

You also need to determine the cost of acquiring a user and how you can make it profitable. The billion dollar app idea that started as a basic model will evolve quickly now, and you need to keep validating it by testing, measuring, and analyzing with users.

Although it may be hard to make an app that people love and pay for, you must keep patience and perseverance. Once you’ve gone through this stage of hardship, the valuation of your app should be on an average near $10 million.

3. Generating revenue streams

Now when you’ve achieved product-market fit and have an app ready that users love, your aim should be to keep growing and achieving traction by improving all the aspects of your app and figuring out how to monetize it and generate revenue.

If you have a gaming, eCommerce, or marketplace business model, you’ve already convinced users to pay for your app. All you need to do now is improve the lifetime value of your app by holding and retaining users along with keen increments in your margins.

In addition to providing a satisfying user experience, you also need to work your way to optimize the price points and lower the cost of customer acquisition. Keep adding new features and revenue streams to your app without compromising on usability.

By this time, you should also land your first investor, and finally join the big bulls. This also means you should have at least a million dollars or more in your bank account, depending on your negotiation skills and traction.

4. Scaling like crazy

After signing your first investor, you continue gaining great reviews about your app and have a clear process to address user feedback. Your team also continues to grow at an enormous rate, and you may even hit a hundred people or even more.

Moreover, your user base should also be growing steadily and the user-retention strategy should be in place. As you reach this stage, you’ll notice that user acquisition has become predictable and systematic, along with the drowning cost of acquiring new users.

Your company is also becoming increasingly profitable and revenues are growing at an exponential rate. This calls for the need to constantly look for product innovations and introduce more revenue streams in your business.

Talking about the valuation of your app, everything seems to be different and you’ll no longer be treated as a startup. You’re now an established company with a very complex valuation based on your financial performance and uniqueness.

5. The big billions

While you keep making constant progressions in the app and follow the momentum, you also need to have a clearly defined vision for your product with practical and systematic steps to realize it. The core mantra is to keep your users happy and satisfied with your app.

The business model at this point also requires to be tuned constantly, and even small fractional improvements can yield big profits. The valuations will still be complex and you must keep a keen eye on your profits, growth, and products.

How Much Does It Cost To Build An App?

Prior to leaping directly into the cost, first of all else, you need to choose the niche of the application and its features. The prerequisite of the overall population or the demand of the user ought to be profoundly understood, and a thorough thought should be given to respond to various inquiries.

Features and functionality

Knowing the cost of development is an ideal opportunity to find what features impact the intricacy of the entire application. Execution of certain features can be a lengthy process, while others are moderately short and simple. Based upon the complexity of solutions, mobile app developers need to utilize third-party API or code from the scratch. Less complex solutions, thus, require standard instruments and connect with native features.

Product design

Making a special UI design is a complicated process that produces extra cost to your task. The less expensive variation suggests utilizing OS-provided things and building screens of standard components. The quantity of screen is likewise a deciding variable. Thus, cost strategies and models need to be decided before implementing any decision.

Number of platforms

It is obvious that you need to make a decision on which platform to begin from. Making a decision for the platform is the most significant and difference making character for creating mobile applications. These platforms take over various programming languages, have diverse SDKs and use distinctive development tools. Thus, the cost varies differently if one has to develop on iOS or Android.

Backend infrastructure

When it comes to mobile app development, backend is normally an OS that provides developers with APIs to have a data trade between an application and a database. To follow user activity and access the performance of your consumer application, it is outfitted with examination. Depending on the quantity of parameters you will track and how detailed and specific the tracking will be, expenses vary.

App administration

The organization board is unquestionably an extremely helpful tool for dealing with application content, customers, and statistics. There are alternatives to adopt existing admin panel formats for your necessities, yet tracking down a good one is an issue. So it makes sense to create a satisfactory board to meet your business prerequisites.

Location and structure of team

The location of your application development team is a crucial factor affecting the product’s last cost. The expense of making an application in the US will contrast from the expense of mobile app development services in Europe or other different areas. If you want, you can opt for companies in your area like mobile app development company in USA if you live in the US or any other area where you reside. But you have to be careful while choosing a company or developer to get quality results.

Summing Up

Today, billions of people across the world are using smartphones and their applications daily. Moreover, in a few years, the figures will simply multiply themselves, and that’s because technology has never been so accessible and powerful before. People are making the most to develop a billion dollar app and get the best idea to satisfy customers.

Andriod’s in-app update API

Posted on 14/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

We all use a lot of apps on our devices these days. One for shopping, one for banking, others for ordering food, booking tickets, buying groceries and what not. But the moment the app shows “a new update is pending” notification, we mostly ignore it. As a result, we miss downloading the latest and important feature which can further improve the experience of the app. That’s the story from a user’s end.But on the developer’s side, the story is a bit different. We want all our users to stay updated with the latest version of the app. We imagine users clicking on the “update now” button and start using the new feature almost instantly. But the harsh truth is that only a few users keep their apps updated with new versions.The reason is because most of the times, users don’t bother about opening play store to update their apps. In other words, they don’t have the interest or the time to open and update the app until the app stops doing certain tasks which they want to accomplish.

Google has come up with the solution to this problem. It offers an in-app update feature to update the app without interacting/opening the play store. With this feature, a user can download the latest features while using the app. So let’s dive in to see how we can use this feature.

The in-app update is available in Android Play Core library, that shows prompt to the user for an in-app update. There are two different ways in which we can prompt our users that an update is available.

Flexible Flow

If the core functionality of the app doesn’t get affected by the released features then you can use the Flexible Update flow. It allows user to download the update in the background. Once downloading is done, user will be asked to restart the app. Doing so will update the app during the restart process. The benefit of using this Flexible flow is that a user can use the app until the download process is finished. So there is no block time while using the app. User can still use the features as the downloading process is being done in the background.

Immediate Flow

If the core functionality of the app is highly dependent on the released features then you can use the Immediate Update flow. In this feature, a dialog will be prompted to ask the user for downloading and installing updates. The user can’t use the app until the downloading, installing and restarting the app.

Checking if an update is available or not –

For a good user experience, we should always ask the user to update the app only if updates are available. We can check if an update is available or not from the backend.

For that you can use the AppUpdateManager, which will give the AppUpdateInfo object that contains the information about if we need to show the update dialog or not. The updateAvailability method returns these values for the update state :

UNKNOWN

UPDATE_AVAILABLE

UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS

DEVELOPER_TRIGGERED_UPDATE_IN_PROGRESS

Start an update –

Once you have checked for the updates and in case of updates are available then you can use

startUpdateFlowForResults() to update the app.

We will get the following request codes in onActivityResult.

RESULT_CANCELED : This will indicate that user has denied/canceled for the update.

RESULT_OK : This will indicate that user has accepted the update.

RESULT_IN_APP_UPDATE_FAILED : This will indicate that there is some problems occurred during the update.

So now we know how to use in-app update feature to update the app. It’s a good practice to use the Flexible Flow to update the app when there are very few updates and it doesn’t affect the core functionality of your app. However, you have to make a decision on which flow to use as per your requirements and the kind of app you are making. I hope I was clear and concise in my blog and I hope now you have an understanding of how in-app update API work in Android.

How Do I Get My App Into The Google Play Store?

Posted on 02/05/202104/06/2021 by Anteelo Master

No one can doubt the popularity and dominance of the Google Play Store in the domain of mobile applications and software.

The domain gets all the more solidified by the Play Store statistics that there are approximately 2.8 million apps on Play Store and that almost 3739 apps get released on it daily.

Numbers like these solidify how Play Store is an excellent option to upload your application on.

Now, if you are wondering “How to submit an app to Google Play Store” then end your quest here. We have covered end-to-end all about the process to upload an app to Google Play Store.

To put it out there, there are certain things that need to be done before the actual process of app submission begins. This is what we are going to attend to before answering the question of “How to get an app on the play store”, we will look at the pre-steps to publishing an application.

Without any further ado, let’s dive in.

Prerequisite of Submitting App To Play Store

Since this is your first time submitting your application to a gigantic platform, there are certain prerequisites that you must take care of in order to successfully upload an app to Google Play Store. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

1. Test Your Application

It is needless to mention how crucial testing your application is. No matter how many incredible features you have packed into your app, if it does not perform upto the expectations of the user, it will be ditched like a hot potato. In which case, it is imperative for you to painstakingly test your app as many times as possible and be 100 percent certain that it is going to perform remarkably, before you look ahead to upload apps on Play store.

You can always use emulators for this purpose, however, using an Android-powered device will make the testing process more effective. It will give the experience of using your app on a real device, as would users, and enable you to analyze any bugs or discrepancies.

2. Concise App Size

In terms of applications, the size of the app matters a lot. Users do not feel inclined to download an app that takes too much space in their device storage. Moreover, Google only permits the app size to up to 50MB.

Although, if your app exceeds this limit, then you can use Android APK’s Expansion file, to successfully upload the app to Play Store. This will break your app into parts and each can be up to 2GB, giving an additional 4GB space to your app. This added data is saved in Google Cloud and is retrieved whenever the app is installed.

3. Get App Licensed

Though this is an optional choice, it wouldn’t hurt you to get your app licensed before you upload your app to Google Play Store. Licensing your application will prove most beneficial for you if it is paid in nature. By adding the End User License Agreement, you will gain full control over your application which may help in the future, should any discrepancies arise.

Create your APK file with Bundle ID and Version Number
You need to prepare an APK file in which you can assign a version number to your application which will help you in the future when you need to upload a new update for your app. This number is mentioned in the code and would increase as the updates for the application are introduced.
Bundle ID, also called App ID, is used to make an application unique, making it a crucial part of the prerequisites for submitting your application. This is applicable for all the applications for Android 5.0 and above.

4. Sign App With Security Certificate

Here, you need to create a private key using Release Keystore. This is a security certificate signed as an APK which you will need every time you publish an app to the Play Store. This is also known as JSK file including credentials such as Keystore password.

5. Prepare App Store Listing

App listing is a powerful element that helps your application in gaining downloads. Not every one devotes their time on app listing but if you do this before android app submission, you will definitely see some mind-blowing results.

In the app listing, you provide some information to users about what type of application it is and what are its features. One of the best practices of app listing is using high-quality screenshots. Play Store requirements allow developers to use a maximum of 8 images and a minimum of 2.

Here are the best practices and what you should include in your app listing-

- Title
- Short Description
- Full Description
- Screenshots of your app (JPEG or 24-bit PNG)(Min-320px,Max-3840px)
- Hi-resolution icon (512 x 512)((with alpha) 32-bit PNG)
- Feature Graphic (1024 w x 500 h)(JPG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha))
- Type of application
- Category of your app
- Rating of the content
- Email of Developer or Company
- Url for Privacy Policy

6. Go Through Guidelines

When it comes to App Store vs Play Store guidelines, it is safe to say that Google’s guidelines are more flexible, which works in favor of developers.

However, you have to be careful when you add an app to the Play Store and you would have to make sure you follow all the guidelines given by Google, lest your app will be kicked out of the platform. Now, this is something you would want to avoid at all costs, right?

Step-by-Step Process to Upload App To Google Play Store

Now that the obvious is out of the way, let’s move on to the steps regarding how to upload an app on Play Store. Make sure you follow each in the exact chronological order to avoid any mistakes in the process.

1. Google Play Developer Console

In order to upload a mobile app to Google Play Store, a developer dashboard is imperative. Developer console is kind of a backend controlling center, from where developers submit an app to Play Store. There is a one-time fee of $25 by which a developer can open an account, loaded with functions and control features. After paying this one-time fee, you can upload apps to Google Play Store for free.

You need to fill out all the credentials asked while creating the account, such as your name, country and more. Once you submit your account it will take upto 48 hours to get approved.

2. Link Developer Account with Google Wallet Merchant Account

If the app getting uploaded to Play Store supports in-app purchases, then you will need a merchant account. To create one you can sign in to your Google Console account and click on ‘Reports’ followed by ‘Financial Reports’ option. After this, you may select ‘Set up a merchant account now’ option and simply fill out your details.

The merchant account will automatically get linked to your Google Console account and will allow you to manage and examine app sales.

3. Create Application

This is yet another step towards how to publish an app to the play store.

Once you are logged into your developer or publisher account, here are a few steps you need to take:

In the menu, go to the ‘All applications’ tab
You will see an option ‘Create Application’ – select it
From the drop-down menu, choose the application’s default language
Enter your application’s title (it can be changed later)
Now, click on “Create”

4. App Store Listing

It is at this point, your preparations will come handy.

In this step around how to upload an app to the play store, you are required to fill out all the information and details you have already prepared with caution before. The table below shows what information you need to fill in the app listing-

Make sure to use appropriate keywords in your app description to increase the chances of your app showing up in searches. Along with this, make sure to use all the data we have talked about in the prerequisite section for app listing.

5. Upload App Bundles or APK To Google Play

Now, you are required to use the files such as App bundle or APK and signed app release and upload them into your application. This is how you do it: Navigate to the ‘Release Management’ and then ‘App Release’ tab in the menu. After this, you will be asked to choose any one type of release from four options- internal test, close test, production release, and an open test.

Once, you have made a decision regarding which type of release you want, you may select ‘Create Release’.

At this point, you will be redirected to the New release to the production page. Here, you are again required to make another decision- to opt for Google Play app signing on the app or not. If you choose the latter, then simply click on the ‘OPT-OUT’ option.

Now, select ‘Browse files’ and then look into how to upload apk to google play store while naming and describing your release through on-screen instructions. You can also click on ‘Review’ to confirm the information. When everything is taken care of, press ‘Save’.

6. Time For Content Rating

The next step regarding how to publish apps on the Play Store is to rate your app. This is crucial for it is listed as ‘Unrated’, it might get removed altogether from the store, so it is imperative to rate the application.

For Content Rating, you must again navigate to the menu on the left side of the screen and then select the same. By clicking on ‘Continue’ you can move forward and then type your email address in the respective field and then ‘Confirm’ it.

Now, you may fill the questionnaire for your app rating. Follow this by selecting the ‘Save Questionnaire’ and then choose the ‘Calculate Rating’ option to see your app rating on the Play Store. The last thing to finalize your app’s content rating is to click on ‘Apply’.

7. Fix App Pricing and Distribution

Now, you have to be clear about what countries your app is going to be available in. The point to note here is that Google doesn’t support publishing an app for all regions. The app will be published in selected countries instead of world-wide.

Moreover, assigning a price to your app is crucial. If you want your app to be free, make sure that this decision is permanent, as Google does not allow you to convert free apps into paid ones. Although, the price of the app can be altered.

To do all this, go to the Pricing and Distribution tab in the menu, and then make a choice whether your app is going to be Free or Paid. You may now select the countries you want your app to be released. Additionally, if your application is suited for children under the age of 13, you may select the option of ‘Yes’ for Primary Child-Detected. If otherwise is the case, simply select ‘No’. Similarly, select the options for allowing ads into your application.

8. Finally, Publish the Application

Once you are confirmed about everything being correct, take the last step of this guide on how to upload an app on Play Store, i.e, add the application to the platform. You need to go back to the ‘App Releases’ tab and then select ‘Manage Production’ followed by ‘Edit Release’. After this, click on ‘Review’ and then choose ‘Start rollout to production’ option. To bring this process to an end select the ‘Confirm’ option and Voila! You have successfully uploaded the app to the Google Play Store for free.

All there is left to do now is to just wait for your application to get approved. It generally took about two hours for your application to get reviewed. But with Google Play’s updated privacy policy, it will now take hours and even days for the same, encouraging mobile app development companies to create even more flawless applications that get selected instantly. So, hold your excitement in the place and just wait.

How To Get Your App Featured On Play Store?

Your job to make sure the app gains popularity and thousands of downloads doesn’t end here. After successful execution of the steps regarding how to upload an app to Google Play Store, it is now time to get it featured on Play Store.

There are certain practices such as user interaction and visual design services, working on the latest technologies, localization, etc. that helps your app to get featured. Getting featured on Google Play can benefit your app to an extent that it increases the attention of users on your app by multi-folds.

What To Do After Play Store App Submission?

With the question of “How to publish an app on Play Store” answered, you might think “What is there to do next?”. Well, we have got you covered with this as well. Here are some practices you can do to ensure your application enjoys global exposure.

1. Promote App On Social Media

Social Media is a great medium to skyrocket the popularity of your application. The fact that 42% of the world’s population uses social media is enough to justify the statement. There are some platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, and a lot more that are constantly in use. So, promoting your app on these platforms promises more traffic and eventually more downloads.

2. Initiate Press-Release

Press-release is another way through which you can promote your brand. With this, your brand will come into limelight and many publications will cover your app release which will eventually allow your app to reach a wider user base and develop an authentic connection.

A press release that covers the words, attributes and insights of the mobile app developers and application itself has proved to be an incredible app marketing strategy. It is a great example to show users that what they expect is good.

3. Focus On App Maintenance And Update

You cannot just publish your application of the app store and let it be. You need to efficiently maintain your application and introduce frequent updates, attending to the issues and bugs faced by users. Maintaining something is a constant task rather than a one-time thing. So, make sure you keep your app updated with the latest tech-stack and fix whatever needs fixing.

4. Practice ASO

App Store Optimization is a celebrated practice among all the top Android app development companies. Famously known as ASO, it primarily focuses on the activities which target aspects that can generate more attention and visibility of your application of the app store. These practices are focused on increasing the conversion rate of impressions into downloads on the application.

Mobile Application Design Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on 22/04/202131/05/2021 by Anteelo Master

Mobile phones have contributed immensely to the progression of technological advancements. They’re no longer simple communication devices; they’re serving a pivotal role in business, entertainment, communication, and routine tasks of daily life. All this is possible because of mobile application. In the current era, we can easily find an app for every purpose – business, medical assistance, booking a ticket, paying online, games, education, cooking, shopping, or anything. You name it, and they have it. These apps help users from managing daily tasks to planning significant events; they also help promote business and ease communication between sellers and consumers.

The real problem

The real problem here is that users often don’t know what exactly they want. They are not aware of the concept of good application design, except the ones having slight knowledge of designing. One would never hear users praising the excellent design of an application; however, a poorly designed or poorly performing app would stick out like a sore thumb. So for a designer and a developer, the goal is to come up with an “unnoticeable design.”

On that note, let’s take a look at some of the most common mobile app design mistakes. That designers make, which causes an app to become negatively noticed by users.

Top mobile app design mistakes

1. A Poor First Impression

The first look and appeal of an app are critical to attracting a potential user. A user makes a perception about the features and working of an application with his first experience of using it. If something seems confusing or dull, the user might not even give it a second try. Thus, the App Development Company must create an engaging first impression with a user-friendly UI.

Displaying relevant information on the first screen is very important. All the necessary icons like login, logout, the home page, help section, contact information, or any other important features should have their icons on the very first screen. Whatever the app is related to, its key functionalities should be reachable without any complexity.

Other than that, one prime factor that contributes to an excellent first impression is an app’s loading time. If it takes too much time to open the app or load any key feature, users get bored and lose interest. Thirdly, the colour scheme of an app should also align with its purpose. For example, an app used for professional purposes should not have a funky colour scheme, and entertainment-related apps should not be dull or boring. Colours should be bright and solid, or the users might get bored and have a terrible first experience.

2. Poor Information Architecture (IA)

Most designers don’t spend enough time to design a proper information infrastructure for their app. That means the app should have easy access to information; this involves analyzing the most used or required features by users and making them visible in front. This concept is called “Prioritizing based on popularity.”

If you are developing an app with an already existing idea, it would be easier for you to identify the user’s priority by doing a little research. But if you are developing an app for a new business idea, you might not be aware of what users like most. So a designer should be capable of identifying this through his wisdom and experience, or they can release a prototype of the app and collect feedback from users. After that, they can implement the changes in their next release or update.

3. Lack of Design Consistency

Having a consistent design is a significant factor in designing an app’s UI. That means the font type should be the same within the whole app, the layout should be subtle, all icons should be placed correctly, and changing screens should change the visuals. Also, the text should be readable throughout the application.

Maintaining consistency throughout the app is the real trick for a designer. If needed, a little bit of inconsistency can be entertained if appropriately done; for example, highlighting some text or image, placing a great animation or advertisement. But these changes should align with the context of the app. Having a consistent design prevents users from getting confused and help in enhancing their experience.

4. Ambiguous CTA Positioning

“Call To Action” buttons are placed on websites and apps to help and prompt users to take the next step. The positioning of CTAs on webpages not only affects lead capture for businesses but also directly impacts the user experience. To take full advantage of these buttons, designers must ensure that they correctly place them on the screen, and all their aspects are clearly defined. The action of these buttons is mostly mentioned through text placed strategically on them. Care should be taken to make the CTA text as clear and understandable for the user as possible.

5. Too Many Features

Having too many features within a single app is also not a suggested practice. It could make your app slow and congested, and it affects the overall performance of your app. It causes:

Complexity
A slow loading UI

Both of these issues could cause you the loss of potential users instantly. So it is best to have fewer features and serve them correctly. If having too many features is the requirement of your business, you can primarily offer a version with basic and primary functionality to gain the trust of users, and later, you can include new features in future updates.

6. Absence of Default Values

Default values can save noteworthy client exertion in dull assignments, for example, filling in a similar form multiple times. Recognizing key values for form fields can build profitability and decrease annoyance. Your analytics can assist you with the comprehension if there is a most frequently picked choice for a particular field.

Specifically, dropdown menus profit by a relevant default. Numerous applications give “Choose One” as the default decision, compelling each client to communicate with the dropdown and select a value. On the contrary, if you preselect one value (the most used one), probably a few clients won’t need to associate with that dropdown at all.

7. Excessive use of Modals

Numerous applications utilize modal windows to execute communications with information — altering a current thing, including another item, erasing, or in any event, perusing extra insights regarding an item. Modals show up over the current page and the background content is normally darkened (under the presumption that diminishing will decrease interruptions and assist clients with concentrating on the current task). Sadly, this design lessens the options for clients by concealing data that they may wish to allude to while filling the form. (Note that, regardless of whether the concealed window doesn’t contain data required for the editing, clients frequently endeavour to use the work they’ve done beforehand, by copying and pasting past sources of info.)

8. Irrelevant Information

Long series of letters and digits, for example, consequently produced IDs in a database are as often used to exceptionally distinguish an item in an application. These strings are totally insignificant to clients, yet they are frequently shown as the primary section of a table, compelling individuals to check past that first segment to discover the data that they care about. While these good for nothing lists are significant towards the backend, they aren’t supposed to be shown to the users. Particularly in high–data density screens, give some comprehensible data as the primary stay point and push the IDs to a less visible position.

Why do users uninstall mobile apps?

According to statistics, more than 91 billion apps were downloaded from Android and iOS app stores in 2017. It counts 13 apps per person on the entire planet. These stats have only increased since then, and users are getting dependent on these automated solutions. But it does not end here; research also shows that on average, users delete and app within 90 days of its download. Most apps are not opened more than two or three times within 30 days of downloading and are deleted without serving their purpose. The reason behind this is not the user. Users don’t download apps with the intention of not using them. Other factors frustrate them, and they get rid of apps. These factors mostly include poor performance and intricate app design. When an app doesn’t meet the user’s expectations, they switch to another one. And that’s because all that matters is comfort and ease for them.

That is why, while developing an application, it is essential to pay ample attention to its UI design. The goal should be to keep it as simple as possible, the colours should be soft and pleasant to the eyes, and the performance should be up to the mark. That would make an app popular among its users.

CONCLUSION

Despite the fact that the field of mobile application designing has progressed significantly from its initial arrangement, 2020 is expected to see an extraordinary increase in the number of both great and terrible applications. Indeed, even the apps which make it in 2020, there’s no assurance they will cut in 2021. It’s all about steady change. Designers need to continue updating their knowledge about user patterns and the user-psychology that drives these practices. The most important thing to be taken care of while designing an app is to think from a user’s perspective. Don’t choose or reject a colour, font, or design because you like or dislike it. Instead, research and go for what is trending. You can experiment by adding new things to your app to avoid mobile app design mistakes, but changing the whole designing rules is not recommended. It confuses users as they might have got along with the traditional practices, and your experiment could prove to be a big disaster. What works for others will undoubtedly work for you too.

Insight on Why and How Often Should You Update Your App?

Posted on 05/09/202011/06/2021 by Tushar

Various startup founders and established brands come to us for mobile app consultation. They frame several questions regarding what features and technologies to introduce to their app idea, what checklist to consider for optimizing the application, how to promote their app, etc. But, there are only a few who ask how often they should update their app.

Why? Because most of them are unaware of the fact that mobile app development lifecycle does not end at launching the application or bringing eyeballs to their platform. They are still alien to the fact that updating an app can improve their app visibility and add more profits to their app plan.

For the same reason, I have decided to write this article as a mini guide – disclosing why, when and how to update your mobile app so that you could reap better outcomes in the mobile industry and enjoy the popularity like that of Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and SnapChat. Later, we will look at how much does it cost to update an app.

So, without making ado, let’s begin with the first section of the article, i.e, why to update your app.

Why to Update a Mobile App?

The answer to this question lies in the fact that the second you enter the Mobile App Market, you become a part of a whirlwind of select factors that are constantly moving and getting bigger than the day before.

There are so many things that change when your app enters the market, such as:-

New Devices are Released
New Android and iOS versions come up
Programming Languages changed
The users’ demands changed
Security Standards are continuously updated

A change in these factors brings a major difference in your app visibility in the marketplace, making it necessary for you to look into the app update process.

Along with, various other factors come into play to incite the feeling that it’s the right time to update your mobile app, such as:-

1. Bug Fix

No matter how carefully you developed your app, a bug free application is a myth. There will be times when you will find a customer review saying ‘my app is acting weird’ or ‘it’s consuming a lot of battery juice’. It’s a normal occurrence, which would require an effort into the process of bug fixing and maintenance app update.

2. Introduction of New Features

The consumer base in your industry will start demanding newer, faster, and different value offering. To be in the competition, you will have to adhere to them before your competitors do.

This situation again prompt you to look into the right strategy to plan your app updates.

3. Launch of New Configuration Devices

The introduction of new mobile devices also come under the category of reasons for app updates. This is because when a new device enters the market, it comes up with some significant change in the look and feel of the device. This makes it difficult for your application to fit well and be equally in sync with all the versions, as we have seen in our earlier blog, titled: The X Factor: What is the New iPhone X doing to Your Current App Design. And thus, create the necessity to update your application accordingly.

4. Change in Business Strategy

Many times, the mobile app developers realize that they are not getting as much as traction from the target audience as recorded earlier. This makes them ponder upon the business strategy they are following and therefore, look forward to the process to make app updates.

5. Change in App Store Guidelines

Another factor that creates the necessity to invest your time and effort into app update cycle is the change in app store guidelines.

The Apple App Store and Google Play Store keep on changing their app submission guidelines from time to time. These changes, many times, bring a drastic impact on the future of your mobile application. For example, as per the Google Play Store’s updated policy, any app operating on Android 7.0 or less won’t be able to sustain in the market and enjoy its perks. This implies the app developers have to update these applications to make them ‘Android 8.0’ ready and thus, remain in the market.

Now that you know why it becomes imperative to update an app on the stores, let’s now how often should you update your app and the technicalities of it.

How to Update your App – The Technicalities

When talking about app update, the steps to follow varies with the platform considered. So, here in this section, we will dig out how to update an Android app and how to update an iOS application individually – beginning with the former one.

How to Update an App on Android

When you have designed the mobile application as per the changes, you need to follow these steps for rolling out the update on Google Play Store:-

1. Increment the Version

When you upload an app in play store, you are assigned a version number. So, the best practice for app updates in the case of Android is to change this version number in the ‘App Info’ section of the Andromo setting. Once you have updated the version there, create the app again and download its new APK file.

2. Upload the new APK

Once the new version is ready with you, sign in to the Google Play Developer Console and select your application from the list, then select APK tab there. Once there, click on ‘Upload new APK to Production’ button. You can then either save the file or send it over for publishing; reaching to the next step of the process to make app updates.

3. Update the App Description

Once you have published the new version, you need to inform the users of the change. For this, you can put in what changed data in the ‘Recent Changes’ tab of your description section.

Once you have updated the new version, it takes around 24 hours to make it visible to the users.

How to Update an App on iPhone

To update your iOS mobile application, you need to look into these steps:-

Log in to iTunes Connect
Click on My Apps
Next, click on ‘+Version’ on the left panel
In New Version box, put in the new version number and click on ‘Create’
Once you have put in all the information about the Version in the iTunes App, it’s time to upload the build.
Use either Xcode or Application Loader to upload the new version of the app
Once uploaded, the new version will now get prepared to submission. If you have gone through it, press ‘Submit for Review’.

Once uploaded, it takes maximum 30 days for the update to show to the users.

With this attended to, let’s turn towards the last section of the article, i.e. how often should you update your app.

How Often Should You Update Your App?

As depicted from the above figure, every mobile application development company has a different answer to what is the best time to update your app. While some keep on updating apps in fixed schedule, other turn towards the process only when they are introducing a new feature or targeting a market. There is no concrete answer to this question.

Now while this gives a hint of when you can update your app, this also adds to the risk. As per the top mobile app development agency, the app update process comes with a ripple effect which is not always in your favor. There are situations when rolling out an update can bring more bugs and issues in your application or reset the existing review and rating – compelling you to restart the journey from the first day of app launch.

Knowing this infamous ripple effect, it is wise to take a deeper look into the market and check how do other companies plan for an app update.

So, let’s see:

Appbot analyzed the releases of 200 apps on the App Store and divided them in Paid, Free, and Grossing categories to get their Update picture.

Here’s what they found out.

The majority of Top Free Apps were updated at least once in the time span of 18 days and there were at least 25 updates in 75% of the free apps in both the stores, combined.

While this was for the free apps, the paid ones showed a different picture.

The paid apps on an average took 89 days break between two app updates and there were just 1 to 2 app updates in a year.

So how often should you update your app? What is the best time to update your app? What happens when you update an app? Why app needs to be updated?

It’s safe to say that you should update your app as often as possible. Here, ‘As often as possible’ means when you have the resources, when there is a new technology in the industry, and when your competition has introduced a feature that the world is loving.Now that we have discussed the implications of when to plan your app updates in great details and you have gotten an idea of how frequently we are supposed to make updates in the current application, let’s move on to the Costing part of the app maintenance.

How much does it cost of updating an app?

Just like what we have seen in the case of calculating the cost to make an app from scratch, the cost of frontend maintenance and its backend update also depend on various factors, including :-

1. Hosting Costs

The backend of your app would probably be on some third party cloud server such as Microsoft Azure or AWS hosting site. Your hosting cost alone can reach over hundreds or thousands of dollars every month. The hosting cost estimate is also directly proportional to the involvement of human resources invested in creation and maintenance of the backend.

2. Crash Analytics and Monitoring

In order to plan your app updates and execute them timely, you will need a monitoring tool to analyze the app usage patterns. While most of the crash analytics and monitoring are available free of cost, you will need to invest in people who would be responsible for extracting data for gaining business insights.

3. Play Store Optimization and App Store Optimization

After you make app updates, you will need to update the app description in the stores, for which you might need to look into a comprehensive guide on Play Store Optimization or have guidance from someone who knows how to find the right keywords, design new screenshots and videos, and write the new content.

With this, we have covered everything that will help you to know when and how often should you update your app so as to take the best advantages of the process without burning a hole in your pocket.

Hope you find this helpful with your app updates needs.

Mobile App Development mistakes to avoid

Posted on 12/05/202016/06/2021 by Tushar

Every time there is a post written about the optimistic numbers of successful mobile apps in the whole wide world that inspire one developer with divinity, there are at least five other developers and business owners cursing that same post for their failed app ideas. If you are one of those developers or their clients and project owners then you have found the right post to help you identify the mobile app development mistakes to avoid and what is it that you need to make right in your apps.We understand that it hurts to see your brainchild die in a brutally competitive market of mobile apps. There’s an app for EVERYTHING and no matter how much you do for your app to survive, something always seems to go wrong. Mobile app development mistakes make you pay ten times over for your efforts.

Well, you’re not alone, we’ve been there too but, a good thing, we learned from our mistakes and we’re here to tell you what those were.

After losing our blood, sweat, tears and a lot of money by making our share of mistakes, we have identified the scariest mistakes and how not to make them.

And if you don’t want to fail with your app idea or want to know the reasons for failure for your last app start-up idea, you can begin to correct yourself and your team.

After all, there are over 5 million total apps in major app stores but only a little over 32K apps make over the mark of 1M downloads. For covering this steep difference in the numbers of total apps and the number of successful applications, it is crucial to not make the mistakes mentioned below.

1. Not Identifying the need

This is a big one. Not doing a need analysis before starting the development is like serving Ham to vegans – Nobody is going to eat it.

You have a great app idea and you go and put your money into it without doing market research is not the best way to go. Whenever there is a big investment required, it is favorable to take things slow.

It is necessary to test the market and conduct surveys about what features do the users need in the app if they need it. That would validate your idea and give you confidence about a considerable user base.

There is always a roadmap to successful app development, and it is cardinal to follow that route for making an app that users like.

Surveying your target audience if they’re ready for an app or not is better for customer acquisition and more importantly, user retention.

2. Picking up a mobile app development company/Freelance app developer without enough research

Just like there are several categories of mobile apps – Financial app, educational apps, eCommerce, On-demand, etc; there are categories of mobile app developers also.

And similarly, all the mobile app development companies are also different.

Firstly, before deciding upon a mobile app development team, you need to fix the budget, the platforms, the complexity, the domain of your app.

Then, secondly, you should research and find out about the app development companies who fit the criteria of your mobile app.

Then finally, you should make a list of questions to ask the mobile app development companies before reaching a decision.

Some of these questions can:-

Can I see your portfolio?
Can I get some of your client references?
What is your app development approach?

These kinds of questions can give you a detailed insight into the company itself, the kind of projects they can handle, what is the size of one project they’re capable of taking, etc.

Later, you can easily cross out the companies which do not fulfill the criteria for your app’s development.

3. Underestimating the total cost

You cannot have a dream one day about a rocket ship and start building it the next day. Especially when you know it is going to eat up a lot of money.

What is needed before the building process is the detailed scope of all the resources it would take to build that rocket ship.

And resources not just consist of money but development hours, material, space, overheads, a special marketing or operations team, etc. Each one of these things directly translates into capital investment and all of it needs to be taken into consideration before the commencement of the app development project.

Even before starting upon with an MVP for one platform, it is crucial to consider training, hiring, and overheads costs if you want to avoid a big mobile app development mistake. Remember, it is paramount to know how much does app development cost?

Only then you can correctly define what your MVP will look like.

4. Not considering making an MVP

Making an MVP can be the last step where you can save your app from being a disaster.

An MVP or Minimum Viable Product presents you with a chance to test your product in real market conditions and with daily users to evaluate your app’s performance.

An MVP is the stage when your app consists of only the necessary features thereby, allowing you to launch the app in the market before going through with the entire development process at an advanced level.

Realising an MVP as a preliminary product reduces the actual product/app’s time and cost. You can speed the development process to release the basic version of your application, get feedback from the market, make the required changes to your app’s model and improvise the final product.

5. Building a poor UI

One of the biggest mistakes to avoid when developing an app is to not paying close attention to the UI of your app. UI or User interface is the face of your app which is responsible for the very first impression.

Since there are numerous apps available on the online app stores, users are highly impatient while making a decision about keeping an app in their mobile devices.

In other words, a good UI can become the user retention key to your mobile app which cannot be ignored.

The mobile design process is a crucial step to building an app that the users will love to use. Following are some of the points to take care of while designing the app UI:

Never start designing without an App flowchart
Always pay attention to the Resolution – Avoid design for low resolutions
Avoid making an animation for into because users are impatient and an unskippable into will make them uninstall the app
Take extra care for the animations used to indicate loading time. Use things that will keep the users engaged.
One of the advanced features to add to the UI is the Gesture-based interface.

6. Adding too many features

One of the biggest mobile app development mistakes to rectify is thinking that adding a number of features will make the users appreciate your app more.

In fact, the epithet “feature-rich” has become a positive quality for many app developers and businesses and it is used more than often by app marketers. Needless to say, it is one of the most common mistakes that app developers make.

Although, if we go by the user feedbacks, having too many features in an app makes it cumbersome and bulky in size without adding much value to the overall user experience.

Contrastingly, having fewer and targeted features makes a mobile app purposeful and easy to understand.

Additionally, having too many features makes the app slower and adds to the load time. And not to mention the time, efforts and resources that go into making those extra features.

The best thing to have is the main feature and other supporting features that make the purpose of the app complete.

For instance, in the case of an on-demand food delivery app, the necessary features would be,

Browsing through restaurants and menus
Adding food to the Cart
Location detection for addresses
Payment
Order tracking
Help and support

These features will perfectly help the user in tackling any problem that they face with food delivery.

7. Adding too many mobile platforms initially

It goes without saying that among the biggest mistakes to avoid when developing an app, resisting the temptation for building the app for all the possible platforms is a huge one.

Adding too many features and adding too many platforms work in the same way – they prove to be highly counter-productive for your vision As they skyrocket your initial costs of app development.

The best way to go is, doing market research, then deciding upon one platform out of Android, iOS or Windows, launching the app on that platform and recording customer feedback.

Once you are absolutely sure about the success of your app on one platform, then you can plan the development for the next platform. It is very important to decide upon a single platform for your app in the beginning.

Otherwise, you should plan the app development strategies well in advance if you want to release the app on multiple platforms at once.

8. Not doing enough testing of the app

Being a user, having an app with a glitch-free performance means everything. Especially, in the initial days of the app release, it is very important to have an app that retains users by its flawless performance.

Apart from simple testing of an app, it is crucial to test it over a range of devices to ensure a good first impression. In fact, it is better to know beforehand what are the testing strategies your app development company follows.

Also, it is important to remember the when it comes to testing of an app, it should be done by a third-party or professional app-testing team. Only then, you will be able to release a perfect version of your app.

9. Not taking feedback

From the starting of this article, we have established the importance of feedback multiple times. But still, mobile app developers let this one slip.

In the end, this app is being developed for the general users. Therefore, it is highly important that they get a say in what would want to see in the app that they want to use. Otherwise, they simply would not use it.

“Multiple iterations” of user feedback is the only way out of this scary situation. The important changes to be made in the app should be based on what the users want.

10. The Unplanned market launch of the App

One of the most common mistakes in mobile app development is made during the Market launch of an application.

It starts with generalizing your entire market and not narrowing down the target audience while planning the app release. Remember – Everybody cannot be your target market.

Following are the important steps to follow before launching your mobile in the app stores:

Validate your MVP before investing in a launch. You will get an idea about the changes to be made and the redundancies to be removed from the app before launching.
Use professional help for App store optimization
Never neglect a good UX or User experience
Pay extra attention to a well-devised onboarding process because it is very important from the user perspective to gain the first impression of your mobile app

These steps are crucial to dip your toes to test the waters before diving in. Once you know your market, you can alter your mobile application as per the need of the hour.

The common mistakes in mobile app development and the lessons at the end of them can be used to study and build up a new standard process.

Right from need Identification and customer validation to testing and launch the app on the right platform after a thorough customer survey and feedback is the key to securing your hard-earned resources.

Three different sides of White Label App Development

Posted on 25/03/202015/06/2021 by Tushar

Since you are here, this means that you have already entered the mobile app development world. First off, Welcome. Secondly, you now have two options – Either Develop an App from the Scratch, aka Custom App Development or Use a Readymade Platform aka White Label Apps Development.

The idea of a ready to use and deploy framework, while sounds enticing and easy on pocket, it doesn’t come sans issues. And more often than not, the issues that come attached with White Label Solutions are too big to ignore.

In this article, we will be looking into the concept of What Label Apps and validate how they are not as business friendly as they seem.

Here we go –

What is a White Label App?

White Label App, in its most general sense is an app that is developed by Company A and then sold to Company B, C, and D to add on their branding elements and use.

The idea of white label app development is to have a product that can be used as it is by multiple companies with minimal level of customization flexibility.

White label software development is an element of fashion among the Startups, who are looking for a shortcut to enter the mobile domain at a minimum cost of investment.

White Label App Examples

As you know what white label apps are. Thus, before reading the examples, you should be aware that the manufacturer, or developer of the app organizes the sales process without any marketing costs and vendors or merchandisers come up with their own product brands or services without a need to produce them. A genuine model is the Great Value staple goods in Walmart stores that are made by third-party organizations only for this corporate chain stores.

In the realm of programming, developing products, and so on implies high intricacy, high dangers, and high expenditures, combined with exceptionally hazy outcomes. That is the reason the white label model looks great in different circumstances here. For instance, a product advancement organization has built up a niche analytical system. A research white label app development agency, working inside that specialty, may win from buying the framework, branding it and offering its customers helpful reports, made in the framework.

LevelUp

LevelUp started as a versatile mobile payment/loyalty program mobile application. From the start the application was intended for individuals to use as a type of payment at small quick serve cafés, however it has now moved into the website and application improvement space. LevelUp has designed the mobile application and online payment gateway for cafés and restaurants like sweetgreen, Pret A Manger, and Zaxby’s. The majority of these restaurants don’t have the ability to construct and create their own website or mobile application, so utilizing a white-label item is a great choice.

Stream LXP

Stream LXP, earlier known as Curatr LXP, is a completely customizable eLearning SaaS platform. Created by the group at HT2 Labs, a Learning Pool organization, Stream LXP is a social learning program that permits license holders to mark the platform with their novel look and feel, just as transfer organization explicit learning content. It can likewise be authorized and afterward exchanged to an outsider. In this way, not exclusively can the whole stage be upgraded to accommodate your image’s look and feel, the genuine substance that is utilized in the stage, can be curated from your own assets.

How are White Label Mobile Apps Developed

There are two ways for white label app development. The white label web applications can be developed where:

1. The white label mobile app builders reuse the backend code but alter the frontend code to make it look different.

2. The second is, where an app is developed with a fixed set of features and sold to A, B, and C companies with the freedom to add or edit features. This is mostly used by companies which have a Software-as-a-Service model.

How Different are White Label Solutions from Custom Apps?

Let’s have a look on White Label App Development vs. Custom App Development. There are a number of different factors that draw the demarcation line between a custom app and white label mobile app platform.

Here are the pointers of white label mobile apps vs custom app development, explained in detail –

1. Level of Customization

When you, as a business, invest in a white label services and solutions app, you enter into it knowing that it was not specifically designed and developed for you. It was developed in accordance with features of a mobile app that is in the operating in the app stores.

Since you are buying a readymade solution, the chances of you adding in elements that are a reflection of your brand is very minimal, unless you look into the best optimal mobile app development checklist, possible pitfalls and challenges to deal with, and other such factors as we covered in our mobile app development guide.

On the other hand, when you invest in Custom App, the chances of getting an app that is developed exactly as per your requirement are much higher. Because you are getting an app developed from scratch when you are investing in a custom app development, you get an app that has the set of features that you wanted represented as you wanted.

2. Design Uniqueness

The number one reason behind Apple rejecting White Label solution was that the apps coming in from one vendor looked the same. There was hardly any difference in terms of design and flow, except that of 20% brand elements.

Absence of the freedom of having own design is the number one element that White Label Solution lacks in, which is also the major cause of store rejections.

With White Label, you always have to compromise with the design that the vendor has set for you, with less to no sign of your individual idea.

3. Cost & Resource Factor

Since you are buying a ready-made solution, the one that is not made specifically for you, the cost of White Label mobile app is much less than Custom App development.

Also, since the development efforts are also on a per suite of project basis instead of per project, you even get to save some cost on the resources front.

4. Scalability

When you invest in a White label app services, you invest in an app that has been made for a specific platform or device. When you decide to take the app further to another device or some other OS version, you will either have to wait for the vendor to make it scalable or you will have to get in touch with some mobile app development company to develop an app similar to the white label app for your preferred list of devices or operating system versions.

5. Maintenance and Sustainability

Since White mark applications are designed reusing the current application code, there are less danger of bugs and mistakes in the codes. Additionally, the code is already tried and tested in the application business, which again gives a sign that the application development code is sustainable.

However, when investigating Custom mobile application improvement, there is a higher risk of bugs and defects in the application code. The employed Custom mobile app development service suppliers have to test each component of your application at whenever point another element is added/or a current one is modified to record the results and hence, guarantee better results.

6. Security

In the case of White label business apps, you modify a ready-made mobile app. Because of this, there is less scope of identifying bugs and errors, and modifying your app code accordingly.

On account of White label application development, you alter a ready-made mobile application. Thus, due to this, there is less scope of distinguishing bugs and mistakes, and altering your application code likewise.

But this isn’t the case on Custom application development. Here, you build up a mobile application without any preparation, from scratch and hence have full power over what code to write, how to test and change it, and so forth. Or then again better say, you have better opportunities to improve the performance and security of your application, which acts as a motivation behind why one should go for a custom mobile application development.

What Service Do We Offer at Anteelo?

At Anteelo, we focus our Mobile App Development Services suite on Custom App Development.

We believe in developing apps from scratch. Straight from ideation to deployment, everything is done by us after understanding the exact business requirement that varies from project to project.

We understand that there are some legitimate white label app development benefits such as – Low white label app development cost, shorter time to market, and less maintenance efforts. But we place app quality and brand voice on a greater pedestal, which makes us choose Custom App Development as our suite of service.

There are a number of reasons that make us Custom Mobile App Development Evangelists –

1. Intact Brand Image

Even when your app belongs to the same category as that of hundreds of the other similar apps in the stores, what makes yours different from the rest is the fact that your app is a reflection of your idea. Something that reflects even when you offer the same set of features as the other apps in the domain.

When you invest in a white label service and solution, you lose out the chance to have an app that is an extension of your brand.

2. Real Time Update

When the control of the app development process is in your hand from the scratch, you don’t have to rely on a vendor to make changes in the app design and framework.

With custom app development, we give our clients the freedom to extend their app to other platforms or add and remove certain features according to what they think would best represent their idea.

3. The Power to Decide your Tech Stack

In the end, the biggest and most crucial advantage that you can get out of Custom App Development is that you get to decide the tech stack your mobile app would be based on. Knowing what tech stack to use is the recipe to a mobile app that is stable and scalable.

In white label development, you don’t really have the freedom to make the choice of the mobile app technologies that would best suit your business agenda.

Now that you have seen both sides, go with white label app solution only when there is a massive cost crunch otherwise, choose Custom App Development for long term stability.

What’s The Plan?

Both White label and custom solution have their advantages and disadvantages. Thus, it is vital to choose your development partner wisely as the quality of the code will depend on the reputation of that company. The importance of white label app development comes with choosing a good strategy to make things work and consider the best choice before the hammer goes down.

Are you prepared for this change? If you think you are ready to imbibe the changes in your app or ideas then you can refer to Anteelo, a trustworthy and reliable company dealing with app development company USA.