#HowtoGuide Archives

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.

The Insider’s Guide to Repairing Your App’s Bad Reputation

Posted on 05/02/202014/06/2021 by Tushar

In a time when the internet is filled with bits of advice telling entrepreneurs to opt for a mobile-first approach, can you really afford the source of your future business empire to have a bad reputation online?

The challenges that a mobile app startup face is already a lot to ignore and left unseen. And when you add the issue of bad app reputation in the mix, the whole app journey becomes a lot more haywire, instantly.

Answering how to protect your brand’s reputation in the dog eat dog world can be an act lot easier said than done. In a time when there is a constant race to win and then rule the already crowded space, it can get really difficult for you to maintain that nothing bad is said about your offering. Especially when a lot rides on it – Uninstall Rates, Abandonment, Decline in Downloads, etc. (Talking about downloads, know how to get million downloads on your app)

Every single day past the day when you launch your application act as a landmine. While you can be overly careful to never step on them, chances are that when you do, it would take a lot to recover from the damage.

In this article, we are going to give you the secrets of how you can manage your brand’s reputation, both on the app and in terms of your empire online.

Refraining from spilling out the secrets from any single POV, we are going to look at three different stages – Prevention. Manage. Secure – of mobile app reputation management.

Without further delay, let us get to it, straight-away.

Set up Listening Tools

Much before you even approach the submit app button, you should set up the subscriptions for app monitoring tools – the first step to How to Monitor Your App’s Reputation.

The idea of these software is that they fetch everything that is being mentioned about your application online and at the same time, they update you of new reviews on the Play Store or App Store.

There are a number of application reputation management platforms you can opt for in the quest to be one step ahead of combating negative reviews about your brand – Rankur, Brandeye, Social Mention, amongst others.

Set a Team to Reply in Real-Time

Before your app hits the market, you need a team in place who would be responsible for answering all the app reviews in real time in the play store and app store. For one of the biggest way of how apps influence brand reputation is by not replying to the users.

Doing this will ensure that no bad mention goes unaddressed. Because an unaddressed review is in many ways equal to being a catalyst to a tarnished reputation.

Bring Troubleshooting Tips to Website

One of the root causes of genuine bad reviews and mentions of any brand is users not getting a solution to their problem. So, when you give them a platform full of troubleshooting solutions that they can apply and get a redressal, the chances of them passing a bad review will automatically be nullified.

So, we recommend is that you hire online experienced online mobile app reputation manager and brainstorm all the different scenarios that the users can face which can frustrate them and then work on troubleshooting guide to solve it for them in one place.

Being prepared for the somewhat inevitable time of negative feedback and mentions can be one of the most sound decisions that you can take in the app journey.

And now that we have looked at the precautionary tales, let us now get into the ways you can combat bad reviews on your app in real-time – whether they are in the stores or on the social media. Here are the tips for app reputation management when you are in the second stage.

Reply in Real Time

This pointer here, to reply in real time, has to be the mantra of your mobile app reputation management. You will have to ensure that a team is always ready to reply on the negative feedback with a solution or an apologetic message.

No matter what technicality the problem’s solution calls for, your mobile reputation management strategy should ensure that the first level of message always goes through in real-time. None of your users should ever feel abandoned, for it would only leave room for more frustration and thus the bad word of mouth marketing.

Do Not Be Defensive

A very important thing to understand when tackling bad reviews is that the users who are making them are frustrated. Now, no matter how small you believe the problem is and how invalid the users’ responses are to it, make sure your reply is always on a defensive note. No matter what word the users make use of, your reply always have to be on the softer side.

Keep the Reply Very Short

The number one formula in every guide to increase the prestige of mobile apps is to never use the comment section of the stores or any social media platforms as your way to reply paragraph-sized solutions or justifications to the complaining user.

Try to keep your comment very short and precise, for example, you can take 3 lines as your standard response size.

Take the Commentator on a Private Channel

Refrain from justifying or clarifying the miscommunication on a social platform which is open for everyone to see. After all, if you pass a negative message online as a brand, the user out of ego will only take it forward and beyond, in place of understanding the situation.

So, simply mention your email id in the comment and ask the users to contact there – thus taking them away from the platform where there is space for the good reviews to grow.

Reply When the Issue is Resolved

Make it a mandatory process to reply to your customers when the issue is resolved in a timely manner. Even if it takes a week on end, make sure you come back to the comment and drop in a line saying that the issue is resolved now and that you are sorry that it caused inconvenience in the first place and that you value the association that they have with your brand.

Now that we have looked at the ways to combat and get your negative reputation in control while it is happening, it is now time for the last segment – Repair Damage. The part we look at mobile app reputation management solutions for after the plans are retouched and users are now content.

Experience Before Ratings

One of the most annoying things which only aggravates the frustration of a bad experience offering mobile app is when the app asks for reviews at every possible occasion.

While it is important to ask for reviews, it can backfire when you have not timed it right. So, let the users arrive at a particular app stage before you pop up the message to leave a rating.

Also, instead of directing them straight to the store, first give them the option to share what they are feeling in the app – this way you will be able to create a gap between negative feedbacks and the stores.

Influencer Marketing

If there is anything that marketing has taught us, it is the fact that when you attach a reliable face to a product, the trust sentiment automatically flows between the face and the product.

Following the same formula, it would help if you introduce an influencer into your mobile app promotion strategy.

After all is said and done, the one compressed secret to managing and reimaging your app’s image in the market and to achieve the fruits of your online app reputation management labor is to be present at all times in a non-defensive mode.

Are you facing a time of bad app reputation? Let us help you get to the root of it.

Get Your App Featured in Play Store (Step-by-Step Guide)

Posted on 20/01/202012/06/2021 by Tushar

According to the Google Play Store statistics, there are the interest that the famous mobile app store is getting is bigger than ever.

The fact that the number of Android device users are present in the manifold in almost every corner of the world only increases the liking for the store among the business world, irrespective of what industry you look at.

While the ultimate aim of all the businesses/entrepreneurs who opt for Android application development revolves around greater reach which ripples down to high download rate and as a result high revenue charts, the one position everyone wishes to reach is ‘Featured App’ or ‘Editor’s Choice’.

Besides the usual feeling of pride that comes after google play store featuring your app, there are a number of benefits of getting featured on the Play Store. Benefits revolve around giving a bigger boost to featured apps with greater download, greater reach, and ultimately, greater profits, once you have completed the long process of Android app development.

In this article, we will tell you the ways of how to get your app noticed on Google Play and ways you can ensure your app gets featured on the Play Store. Ways that have been confided in us by Google itself.

Steps to Get Your App Featured in Play Store

Why Does Google have a Featured List?
What are the Different Options For You to Get Visible on the Play Store?
Steps To Get Your App Featured in the Google Play Store
User Interaction and Visual Design
Functionality
Work on Latest Technologies
Measuring Vitals of your Android App
Localization
Reach Out to the Google Developer Agencies
Factors to Avoid When Looking to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

But, before we move on to the steps you should take to get featured on Google Play, let us first tell you the reason Google confided in us the secret, in the first place.

In the start of 2017, our team at Anteelo was sent an invitation by Google to join its Developer Agency program.

Under the program, we are given the access to get all the latest updates in the Android industry straight from the horse’s mouth before it is ever made life for public knowledge. In addition to this up-to-date information on new software and product launches, we also get the complete support of the Google in-house developer agency who conduct sessions to help our team get on-board with the latest technologies and standards in the design and development world.

Now beside the tech and knowledge support, Google, from time and again, has been confiding in us the steps that we need to follow in our design and development to ensure that the brand we have partnered with gets the most in terms of revenue and growth.

Before we move on to telling you the ways an app can get featured in the Play Store, let us first look into the reason why Google even has a list of Featured apps for Android in the first place and the different ways your brand can gain visibility.

Why Does Google have a Featured List?

With millions of apps present in the Play Store, it can be difficult for the users to identify which app is the best out of the apps released on play store and from the developers’ side, it can become demotivating for an Android developer to first create a Google Play Store app for Android users and then watch it get lost in the crowd – something that gets resolved through Google’s several initiatives like Developer’s Badge, Editor’s pick etc.

What are the Different Options For You to Get Your App Noticed on Google Play?

When it comes to getting the word out for your Android app’s superiority in terms of performance, there are a number of options that are given to you by Google, besides getting featured on Google Play.

New

To determine new apps that google play features and are less than 30 days old, Top New lists use the date of first availability; this includes the first time an app was published, or the first time an app was made available in a location.

Note: The time period when an app is exclusively in Alpha or Beta (without a Production APK) has no effect on its first availability date or its ability to be on a “Top New” list.

Top New Free: Most popular free apps less than 30 days old
Top New Paid: Most popular paid apps less than 30 days old

Selected by Google Play team

Featured: Selected new apps
Staff Picks: Rotating set of staff-selected apps
Editors’ Choice: Some of the best Android apps of all-time on Google Play
Top Developer: Some of the best developers on Google Play

With all said and done, let us now look into the ways on how to get your app noticed on Google Play and then get it featured on the Play Store and maybe even come in the list of Editor’s Choice. These ways are a sure fire way to get an answer to the question― how to get your app featured on google play?

*Disclaimer*: For the sake of this article, we will assume that you are already updated with using the right ASO practices to increase your app visibility in the store.

While, it is a given that Google Play Store optimization in terms of following Google Play App description guidelines, are a very important step that you need to follow when it comes to getting your app popular in the store, it is not sufficient. Here are the other steps you will have to follow to get your app featured on the play store.

Steps To Get Your App Featured in the Google Play Store

Here are the different google play featuring requirements that we, the leading Android app development company, follow to ensure that Google Play is featuring your app and that makes it to the google play editor’s choice list.

User Interaction and Visual Design

Google suggests that all Android apps should follow strict Material Design guidelines in their mobile app User Interface, in order to get featured on Google. Following the standards set by Material Design guidelines, not just leads to an interactive experience for app users but also raises the probability of app getting chosen in the Featured Article section of the Play Store.

In the end, having your app designed in a way that user experience is kept at the top is not just a way to get million downloads on your app but also has the potential to makes yours a Featured Play Store app.

With respect to Material Design, Android has shared a list of particulars for brands to follow.

In Terms of Standard Design:

Apps should not redefine the obvious function of system icon, e.g, Back Button or Home icon.
App should not replace the system icon with a completely different icon.
If the app offers a customized version of the standard system’s icon, the icon should 100% resemble the icon of the system and perform the typical standards system behaviour.
The app should not misuse the Android UI pattern in a way that the resultant action is misleading.

In Terms of Navigation:

The App should support the system Back button and not make use of custom back buttons.
All the dialogs should be made dismissable with the back button.
Pressing the home button should take the user back to the home screen, no matter at what stage they are in the application

In terms of Notification:

Multiple notifications should be stacked as the single notification
Notification should be persistent only if they are related to the ongoing user task.
The notification should not have an advertisement or any content which is not related to the main functionality of the mobile app.

Anteelo UI AND VISUAL DESIGN CHECKLIST TO GETTING AN APP FEATURED

TANGIBLE SURFACE

Use of shadows to communicate which surface are in front
Use of surface and shadows in a structured and consistent way
Avoid too much layering or surfaces nesting
Scrollable Content should scroll to either the screen edges or behind some other surface.
Surface should have single-colour, simple background

PRINT LIKE AESTHETICS

The apps should use a primary and accent colour which should be contrasting to each other.
Icons, texts, images are to be coloured ‘ink’. They should not have shadows or gradients.
Colours taken from the image can be used as the adjacent Ul element colour.
App icons should follow system icon guideline and material design icon set.
Elements such as thumbnail, app bar titles, etc should be aligned to 3 keylines.

AUTHENTIC MOTION

Ul and content element should animate into place
Ripple effect to show where you touched the screen
UI elements should reveal with a circular reveal animation
Animations should be under 300 ms

ADAPTIVE DESIGN

The app should use best responsive design practices
key action should be shown with a floating action button on the screen
App should use standard Android app bar
App bar should be 2-3 time higher than standard height
App bar can scroll off screen when user scrolls down.
Tabs should follow material design based styling and interaction
Tabs should have a swipe gesture for movement between them

NAVIGATION DRAWER

The leftmost icon of app bar should be navigation drawer indicator
App drawer should be no wider than 320dp on phone and 400dp on tablet

Functionality

Google usually insists that the app made for Play Store should be developed with the help of Android Studio.

In Terms of Permission

The app should request only the very minimum set of permissions that are needed to support the core functionality of the mobile app.
Apps cannot request permission to access sensitive, private user information or service which can cost users money, until and unless they are related to some core app capability.

In Terms of App Installation

The apps should function normally when it is installed on the SD Card.
Most of the large apps should support SD Card installation.

In Terms of Audio

Audio should not play when the screen is off until it is a core functionality
Audio should not play under a locked screen
Audio should not play on the home screen or above some other app
Audio must resume when the app is brought to the main screen.

In terms of UI

Apps must support both portrait and landscape orientation (if possible)
Irrespective of what orientation your app is following, the features, actions, and functional parity should be preserved.
Apps should use the whole screen in both orientations and should not letterbox for changes in orientation.
Apps must handle the rapid transition between orientations.

In Terms of App State

Apps must not put any service in running when the app is operational in the background.

Work on Latest Technologies

The chances of your app getting featured on the Play Store increases, even more, when the apps are based on the leading Google technologies.

To increase the probability, we, at Anteelo always try to find out the scope for adding these technologies to your app, wherever viable. Let us look at what these technologies are –

Action on Google

With Google recently launching Google Homes in India and several other regions, developing an app and making it in sync with Google Assistant is what increases the chances of your app getting visible whenever a user ask the assistant for a similar service that your app brand offers.

Firebase

While the debate between Real-time vs Cloud Firestore is an ongoing one, when you develop an app using Firebase, users get to sign in the app through a system that they trust and use. The app saves users’ data in a secure cloud environment and offer personalized experience across a number of devices.

Implementation of Firebase brings in the factor of innovation and trust in the app, which ultimately increases the chance of getting your app selected as a Feature app.

Flutter

The Google flagship for Cross-Platform App Development, Flutter has been getting special attention from the developer community for being easy to use and packed with features that are standing points ahead of React Native.

With the aim of making the tool become synonymous to Cross-Platform App Development, Google editorial team is giving special focus to apps that are based on Flutter.

Measuring Vitals of your Android App

It is no surprise that stability and performance are linked directly to good Google Play Ratings. So the more issues you fix, the better goes your app rating on Play Store and the more users you are able to retain, which ultimately leads to a stage where your app gets featured on the Play Store.

Anteelo LAST MINUTE MOBILE APP RELEASE CHECKLIST

Adding App Analytics in Android app
Proguard in Android app
Low APK Size
Crash Reporting Library
Turn off debugging and logging
Check app version name and code
Test app on different OS version and screen size

Localization

Localizing your app UI and UX in a way that it is not made just for the native English speakers and readers, also plays a contributing role when it comes to getting the app featured in the Play Store.

Google has always shown a sweet spot for brands that don’t restrict their audience to any one particular geographical location, so for an app that supports its multi-linguality preference, tends to get a higher spot than the others as well.

Anteelo CHECKLIST FOR ANDROID APP LOCALIZATION

Identify countries where there is a market opportunity and where you can provide user support
use single set of flexible layouts having alternative layouts where needed. Support right-to-left text, use system-provided formats for times, dates, numbers, and money.
Optimize app for low and no bandwidth connectivity and low price range phones
Translate app, store listing and other resources
Test the localized app
Run open test in markets you are focusing on
Create forum or user group to support international users
Run store listing experiment to see what works best.

Reach Out to the Google Developer Agencies

While you cannot nominate your own app for getting featured in the Play Store, Google developer agencies like us can help your app get featured.

Let us tell you how.

Google Developer Agencies have access to the internal Google development and design team, who help them develop apps that is since inception up to the standards of getting featured in the Play Store. Also, the scope of us using our connection with the Google editorial team to push your app for nomination is of a high possibility.

So, here were the factors that Google has confided in us, which can directly lead to your app getting featured in the Google Play Store. While these were the things that you should do, there are steps that you should avoid at all costs to make sure that your app falls in the Featured section.

Factors to Avoid When Looking to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

Do not use a payment provider other than Google
Do not make your app download other applications
Do not bribe your users with rewards in return for a high application rating.

Pointers to Consider and Avoid to Get Your App Featured in the Play Store

VISIBILITY OPTIONS THAT GOOGLE OFFERS TO ITS ANDROID APP DEVELOPERS’ COMMUNITY

New

Top New Free
Top New Paid

Selected by Google Play Team

Featured
Staff Picks
Editor’s Choice
Top Developer

BENEFITS OF GETTING APP FEATURED IN THE PLAY STORE

High Download Rates
Increase in Positive User Reviews and Feedbacks
Greater App user Retention Higher Revenue

DO’S AND DON’TS OF GETTING APP FEATURED IN THE PLAY STORE

Do’s

Proper Visual Design and User Interaction
App Functionality to Meet the Standards of Billion Devices
Work on the Latest Technologies
Test Your App to Make it Bugs and Complaint-Free
Localize Your App to Make the World Adopt it

Don’ts

Do not use a payment provider other than Google
Do not make your app download other applications
Do not bribe your users with rewards in return for a high application rating.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q. What is Editors Choice in Google Play?

Editors’ Choice refers to the apps and games that introduce users to the best innovative, creative, and designer apps on Android. Google also released an improved Editors’ Choice section that features app and game reviews accumulated and organized by the editorial team of Play Store. If your app gets featured on editors choice google play, there is a high chance for your app to gain million downloads.

Q. How to get your app featured on google play?

Well, Google really helps developers with its Google Play app description guidelines. With that, we have 6 tips up our sleeves to help you get your app on Google Play.

Follow launch checklist
Preach simplicity rather than over-stacking app with features
Develop attractive UI/UX design
Employ Google Product Initiatives
Acquire Press coverage
Analyze larger market forces.

Q. How to get your app noticed?

Everyone devises different tactics to make their app popular. For you, we have accumulated 7 tips that will ensure more active users for your app. They are:

Practice App Store Optimization
Promote your app on your website and other platforms
Devise email marketing campaigns
Optimally use Social Media
Make online and in-app ads
Create an effective Public relation strategy
Give your time to offline campaigns

How to Resurrect Failed App Project: A Complete Guide

Posted on 07/02/201919/06/2021 by Tushar

Okay, so it’s a high alert situation. Your app development project has failed and you have no clue what to do next. You have invested all of your efforts, time and funds into the project and now, you are left with just a few questions in your head, like How to fix failed app development project? How to turn the situation in your favor? How to ensure that you never encounter this situation again?

I can sense what’s going on your mind. Being in the mobile app development industry, I have come across various Entrepreneurs and App Developers like you. I have gone on a time travel with them when they were planning to throw a champagne party but realized that their project hadn’t performed well in the market.

Based on the insights gained from their experiences and the mobile app project management skills we have, here I’ll share different ways to look recover a failed app development project in this article.

So, keep your notebook or note-making apps ready!

But wait, instead of directly jumping into the falling app development project recovery process, let’s look into the reasons behind this.

Reasons Why Mobile App Projects Fail

While it is difficult to predict the real culprit of the project failure, here are some of the reasons for app development project failure that are prevalent in the market:-

1. Missing Competitor Analysis and Discovery Phase

Many businesses are so fascinated by the success of applications like OYO, Uber, TikTok, and Instagram that they feel the urge to enter the mobile market at the earliest. They begin with the development process just the moment an app idea hits their mind – without determining if it’s a unique idea or not, and if the market needs an app like that. This results in loss of funds, effort, time, and opportunities to make your app a big hit in the market.

2. Unclear Requirements

Many a times, the team begins with the project development process without gaining a comprehensive knowledge of the idea behind. As a result of this, they come up with a mobility solution which is entirely different from the one that fits in the market, meet the stipulated goals, and make the target user base happy. This makes their app project go flop in the market.

3. Unrealistic Schedules

To ensure that their application hit the market at the earliest, many developers set the deadlines for every mobile app development phase without giving a thought to the time and effort required. As a result, they struggle to complete the tasks associated with each phase at the stipulated time and keep on postponing the project in the next phase, eventually resulting in piling up of the tasks and later, failure.

4. Lack of Resources

To create a mobile app, various resources and tools are required, including automated testing tools, analytics software, prototyping tools, etc. If these resources are not made available at the right time, it can delay the whole development process, affect the quality of the application developed, lessen its impression on the mobile market, and therefore, result in project failure.

5. Dependency Delays

In various app development agencies, different teams use the same resources or rely on each other for fulfilling their needs. In such a scenario, if a team fails to finish its tasks on time or provide the other team with the right assistance, the plans of other teams get automatically affected – which, on the long run, result in to app project failure.

Let me explain this with an example. Suppose you have hired a small app development agency where a single designer handles all the UI/UX design requirements. You want to get your app’s screens designed, but the team shares that he is occupied with some other app project. In such a situation, you are left with no option other than waiting for him to get free and make changes in your whole process accordingly.

6. Drift in Prime Focus

Shift from the prime intention behind development process is also one of the reasons for app project failure. This is so because every element of the app project has been crafted such that it fits to your prime vision and deliver some value to the target audience. When you make a transition in the prime goal, most of the elements lose their importance and the demographics of the target audience also changes, which eventually affect the success level of your mobile app.

7. App Design Without MindMapping and Wireframing

Many businesses and developers overlook the importance of investing in mind mapping and wireframing. They do not follow the right app design process; they create the app screens directly and then jump to the coding part. This prevents them from looking into the hidden opportunities and challenges, and thus face the failure.

8. Absence of MVP Concept

Though it has been proven that following the digestible guide to Minimum Viable Products (MVP) can help you with meeting the needs of the progressively changing market and testing your app idea, many businesses overlook this phase. This eventually results in failing of the project and making it necessary for one to watch out for how to get a failing app development project back on track.

9. Lack of Coding with Proper Structures

Most of the time the codes that have been written for creating an application performs its job well, but is too complex and cumbersome to read, understand and upgrade. This makes it challenges to update an app or simply optimize the code – resulting into app crash and even failure on a long run.

10. Unidentified Risks

When talking about mobile application development, there are various challenges that remain behind the curtain in the beginning of the development process. If you do not have an experienced team with you, it will become difficult for you to tackle the situation and mitigate all those challenges, resulting in app failure.

11. Uninvolved Project Head

Since a project head is the one who allocates tasks to the right team members, look into the challenges they are facing, come up with relevant solutions, and foster harmony among the team, absence of a project manager also ruin the success ratio of your app project.

With this attended to, we have now become familiar with some of the popular reasons which makes a mobile app project fail in the market. So, without any further ado, let’s look into different steps followed by top mobile app development companies like Anteelo for recovering a failed app development project.

Steps to Revive Your Failed App Project

1. Invest in Discovery Phase

There’s no denying to the fact that Discovery phase can help your application survive in the market. This phase can provide you with the right insights about the market, customer behavior, technologies and tools trending in the arena, and much more. This information can help you with validating your app idea as well as making a relevant development plan. So, look forward to investing efforts into this phase.

2. Perform Competitive Analysis

While the discovery phase will help you to know what’s popular in the market and validate your idea, competitive analysis process will provide you with detailed information about the features and technologies that you must add into your tech stack and the business model to opt. So, look into how to perform competitive analysis for your mobile app idea.

3. Revisit Your App Goal

When it comes to how to fix failed app projects, revisiting your app goal and comparing it with the failed mobility solution is also an effective way to make a fresh start. This is because most of the time unclarity of app idea or change in the prime focus has turned the app idea flop.

So, do not skip this step.

4. Gather Your Resources

The next step to turn your failed app project into a successful investment is to gather all of your resources and funds. By doing so, you will be able to evaluate how much funds and resources you need more to meet the needs of the recovery process and how to collect them, which will eventually help in lessening the risk of further app project failure.

5. Look into Code Reusability Possibilities

In this step, you will consult with the hired project manager and look into what extent of code can be reused for recovering your failed software and how much time can be saved. This will provide you with a new answer to how long does it take to build a mobile app and thus, proceed more effectively.

6. Make a New Plan

Whether it’s about how to overcome app development failure or revive a failed project, making a new plan based upon the insights gained from the above steps will definitely help you. It will provide you with a new approach to mitigate the challenges and build the application for driving higher ROI.

So, invest your time and effort into the process.

7. Set the Priorities

Now when you have curated a new development plan based upon the reasons behind the project failure, the next step is to assign priority to each element of the process. When you set a priority for each task, it becomes far easier to overcome further loss and recover your project effectively.

So, sit your development team and look forward to planning the priorities.

8. Address Issues in Real-Time

Another step that falls in the category of distressed app development project recovery is to addressing the issues in real-time.

When you encourage your dedicated project management team to test the application at regular intervals, it becomes easier to come across the unidentified risks and opportunities, which further increases the chances of success in the recovery environment.

Likewise, when you do not keep the audit process for the day of delivery and keep on sharing your feedback and suggestions on the recovery process, it becomes far easier to fix your failed app project.

So, keep this in mind.

9. Change Leadership

Though it is not directly in your hand – being a client – you can still suggest your hired application development team to change the leader of the team dedicated to your project. This will help in dealing with the challenges associated with the development process as well as that arisen internally in real-time and ensure that all the tasks are done on-time and in harmony.

10. Maintain Proper Communication

Last but not the least, prefer to have a streamlined communication throughout the development process. This will keep you and your hired project development team on the same page and prevent the chances of misunderstanding. Besides, it will enhance the chances of improving the app model by exchanging feedback and suggestions in real-time. So, do not overlook this factor.

With this, we have covered the reasons for app development project failure and how to recover your project from them. While this implies that it is the finest time to invest your effort and time into the process, there is one more thing you must look into – i.e., to determine if it is apt to recover your project or not.

This is because in various cases, the need of the project has changed so drastically since the day its development started that even if you recover your failed project, you will again have to upgrade it as per the current market trends, business plans, and customer needs. Or better say, give a complete transformation to the project which will demand efforts equivalent to that invested in development from scratch. In such scenarios, it is better to leave the failed project as it is and begin with the application development process from scratch itself.

So, taking the same thought forward, let’s wrap up this article by looking into how to decide when one should hire a project manager and recover their project and when they should simply leave it and make a fresh start.

When to Recover Your Project and When to Begin from Scratch

When it comes to distinguishing when to recovery your app project and when to build a new one, here are some of the questions that you can turn towards for clarity:-

Has the need of the project changed and to what extent?
Has the project priority changed? If so, is it required to hold the project for some time or abolish the idea?
Do you have enough funds to continue the app project? If not, how are you going to arrange funds and in what time interval?

Guide on Using Predictive Analytics for Mobile Apps

Posted on 18/01/201917/06/2021 by Tushar

Imagine yourself as Stephen Strange a.k.a as Doctor Strange for a minute. Suppose it to be your alternate ego, different from your primary Mobile App entrepreneur personality. Imagine being given the power to know what is going to happen even before it does. The power to know the bad things – when your users would abandon the app, what would drive them to leave your mobile app for some other app and the power to know the opportunity that is waiting to be explored – which device and operating system version will they visit your app from and even how many times in a day would they visit your app. Sounds like a modern-day mobile app business-centric scene from Marvel Franchise, doesn’t it? But what if we tell you that you have the ability to estimate what is going to happen next in your app and how your users will react, all before it does? Believe it or not, estimating your app users’ moves before they make them is possible. Imagine what this knowledge would get you – Lower Churn Rate, Skyrocketing User Engagement, and a Revenue Scale flying off the roof. The superpower that will get you all these and so many other benefits – the one we are going to looking into in much detail today – is Predictive Analytics.

Being one of the four most insight offering Analytics forms – Descriptive Analytics, Diagnostic Analytics, Predictive Analytics, and Prescriptive Analysis – Predictive Analytics is one that gets you the information on how users are going to act within the app.

The ultimate aim of incorporating Predictive Analytics in a mobile app is simple: Know what is going to happen and prevent/boost the action.

Let us look at what Predictive Analytics is before we move on to the mobile app development stages in which it can be incorporated, the benefits it would bring \+-

hs,ingto the mobile app-centered businesses, and some use cases on how the analytics can be added to different industries.

Predictive Analytics Definition

The Predictive Analytics Definition goes somewhere like this – The Analytics form tells what is going to happen. The estimation form analyzes data and statistics to create a pattern which then helps in doing the guesswork on what is going to happen next.

With predictive analytics definition now attended to, it is now time to look at the impact of the insightful analytics technique in the two phases of Mobile App Journey – Mobile App Development and Post Mobile App Launch.

Starting with mobile app development first.

How Does Predictive Analytics Expedite Mobile Application Development

Mobile app developers generate a huge amount of data specific to mobile app testing and quality check, running of a build, and a number of other daily tasks; these data mainly dictates short and long-term project success. Mainly, mobile app developers who have integrated Predictive Analytics in their development process gather data and then create a predictive analytics framework to find out patterns that are hidden in the many unstructured and structured data sets.

The end result: The mobile app developers get an algorithm using which they can forecast problems that the development cycle might face.

While this is the high level explanation of how Predictive Analytics in Mobile App Development Process works, let us now give you a practical insight by showing how we use Predictive Analytics in our mobile app development cycle to make the whole process a lot faster and quality ensured.

How Anteelo Uses Predictive Analytics For Mobile App Development

1. Predictive Planning

Mobile app developers and project managers very often underestimate the time, resources, and money it would require to deliver code. They might run into same delivery issues time after time, especially when they work on similar projects.

We use predictive analytics to identify the repetitive mistakes that result in buggy codes. We also factor the number of code lines delivered by the developers and time that it took them to write them earlier. It gives us the information to predict whether or not we would be able to meet the scheduled delivery date.

2. Predictive Analytics DevOps

The merger of mobile app development and operations – DevOps is known to expedite the mobile app delivery time. When the production environment data flows back to the developers, predictive analytics can help identify which coding approach is causing bad user experience in the market.

We analyze the data specific to the usage and failure pattern of the mobile app to then predict which features or user movement are going to make the app crash, then we fix the issue in future releases.

3. Predictive Testing

Instead of testing every combination of the user actions and interfaces with other systems, we use predictive analytics to find the path that users commonly take and identify the stage where the app is crashing. We also, at times, use algorithms to measure commonalities between all user execution flow and identify and focus on overlap which indicates common execution paths.

Now that we have looked at how Predictive Analytics in Mobile App Development works, it is time to look at the benefits that the analytic framework has to offer to the mobile app centered businesses and entrepreneurs.

How to Use Predictive Analytics for Bettering Your Mobile App Experience

There are a number of ways businesses can leverage predictive analytics for bettering the overall experience their mobile app leaves.

From giving them better insights on the research front, in terms of which geographical region should they promote their app more in to identifying the devices they should get the apps designed according to, there are a number of ways Predictive Analytics come in handy for the future centered mobile app businesses.

1. For Greater User Retention

Predictive Analytics helps in bettering the user retention number to a huge extent. By giving the app admin a clear statistical based picture of the problem areas of the mobile app, giving them the time to get it corrected before it becomes a persistent issue making app users abandon the app.

By giving the businesses an exact picture of how users are interacting with their app and the ways they wish to interact with the app, Predictive Analytics help entrepreneurs correct issues and amplify the features that are attracting the users.

2. For Personalized Marketing

Personalized Marketing is the biggest sign of how companies use analytics to lure customers to use their app.

Ever wonder how Spotify gives you recommended song playlist or how Amazon shows you Customer who bought this also bought list? It is all a result of predictive analytics. By implementing it in your mobile app, you will be able to give your users a more personalized listing and messages, thus making the whole experience a lot more customized for the end users.

3. For Identifying which Screen’s Content Need to be Changed

Predictive Analytics help identify which element of the app is turning down the users or which screen are they using before leaving the app, this information helps mobile app entrepreneurs immensely as they get face to face with the problem area. And now, instead of changing the whole application, they are only concentrated on improving a particular segment/ section.

4. For Identifying the Time to Make Device Switch

When employed right, Predictive Analytics in mobile apps gives entrepreneurs insight into which device and in fact which operating system their users are getting active on to use the app. This information is a goldmine for the tech team as they can then get the app designed according to the specificity of that specific application.

5. For Making Their Notification Game Better

Predictive Analytics helps businesses identify which notification message is causing what reaction and if there is a difference between varying time and content. This information helps marketers plan their notification push in a way that it gets a maximum positive outcome.

By categorizing the mobile app users in segments like those who are interacting most with the app, those who are most likely to abandon the app, and those who have simply made your mobile app the case of install and forget, Predictive Analytics help mobile app marketers with a platform where they know how to segregate their push notifications and between what people.

With this, we have now looked at the contributing role that Predictive Analytics plays in the mobile app development industry, both from the end of the mobile app development agency and the mobile app centered business, it is now time to look at some use cases with respect to how you can add the analytics form in your mobile app, across industries.

Predictive Analytics Use Cases in the Real World

While there are a number of Predictive Analytics examples around us, let us look at those areas that are more prone to give instant high returns when incorporated with Predictive Analytics.

1. Predictive Analytics in Healthcare

The reason this is one of the prominent Healthcare Trends in 2019 in beyond is that it has expanded itself from its once prominent role of being a personalized healthcare enabler.

Earlier used only to help send a personalized recommendation to the patients in terms of health and care considerations that they would have to make, it is now being incorporated in the healthcare industry for three crucial requirements – For risk estimation, Geo-mapping, and for planning out the what-if scenarios in terms of both surgery and patient inflow in the hospital.

The prospect that Predictive Analytics in Healthcare comes with is one that promises mass transformation of a complete industry.

2. Predictive Analytics in eCommerce

When we talk about Predictive Analytics examples, it is important to have a discussion without the mention of the eCommerce industry. The analytics not just help users by giving them listings related to ‘Customers who bought this also bought’ but also in showing them ads of offers that have arrived on the products that they were looking to buy earlier or have in their shopping cart.

The benefit of keeping the users hooked to the website by giving them offers and discounts on the products that they actually wish to purchase and at the same time helping them decide what to buy next are the two factors that have drawn eCommerce giants like Amazon, eBay etc. integrate Predictive Analytics in their website and mobile apps.

3. Predictive Analytics in On-demand

In the on-demand economy specific to transport and commutation, predictive analytics come in very handy in terms of estimating the areas that are going to ask for maximum fleet demand, the price that users are most likely to pay for a tip, the stage at which they are cancelling the ride, etc.

Apart from this, it also helps in estimating the accident scenario in terms of drivers who are most likely to rash drives, the geographical area that is most prone to accident, etc.

The on-demand fleet economy has a lot to take advantage of from the predictive analytics algorithms. The industry-wide realization has led to brands like Uber and Didi Chuxing apply Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning in the business model.

4. Predictive Analytics in Enterprises

The what would happen next information that Predictive Analytics offers to the company’s business team comes in as a golden opportunity for enterprises who are struggling in their CRM domain and also in the HR area.

Predictive Analytics can give insight into the stage at which a customer is most likely to take their business elsewhere and the performance-based analysis of employees, giving the HRs an insight into whether or not the employee should be kept associated.

By researching on the skills that are most demanded by the industry, predictive analytics and enterprise mobility can together up the employees’ skills to a huge extent.

Now that we have seen all – Impact of Predictive Analytics in Mobile App economy (an impact that both mobile app development company and the mobile app businesses face) along with the real world use cases, it is now time to bring the guide to an end by giving you an insight into the Predictive Analytics tools that offer the most calculated inferences.

Predictive Analytics Tools

While a quick search on the internet will get you a great list of predictive analytics tools, here are the ones that we rely on to help our partnered entrepreneurs get a better hang on where their app business is headed –

This brings to an official end to our 10 Minutes guide to Predictive Analytics in Mobile Apps. If you need more information on how to integrate predictive analytics into your mobile app and reap the benefits of low churn rate and minimize the app abandonment instances, get in touch with our team of Predictive Analysis Experts, today!