Mobile Programming

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

How Businesses are Evolving by Incorporating Mobility Solutions


Mobile technology has facilitated several tasks that were earlier done manually and required great human input. All such tasks are now pursued through various smart devices that yield faster, better outputs. Smartphones had eased processes like emailing, instant messaging, gaming and social media. With the growth of tablets and wearables, the expansion of artificial intelligence and information technology is bound to augment to greater heights. Initially launched for consumer sector, these device have had huge impacts on the corporate environment, as more and more users brought forward the concept of BYOD ( Bring your own devices).



Various different devices were deployed for personal as well as professional means. This simplified the business workflows as the employees were not needed to be at the workplace all the time to correspond to business credentials. They could respond to business related emails from their homes or elsewhere. This also led the development of enterprise mobility solutions that were created to manage the organisational data and sync it with the requisite users.

As BYOD gained traction, various flaws were observed from time to time. The enterprises had no control over the data being mediated, hence data leak became a contiguous problem. A cleaner strategy was therefore required to control the transmission of data flow from one user to another and also to keep a vigilant scan on the users accessing as well as manipulating the business information.

Also the users have shifted focus from delving into office environment to moving to free places like coffee shops for better communication of thoughts with clients and other business related workflows. So even though this has led to free flow of information between clients and employees but still stricter policies are required to mitigate data leak breaches. This brought forth the ideology of COPE ( Corporate Owned Personally Enabled ). The devices are given by the enterprise to the users which they can further incorporate for personal functions also. Many convulsions initially revolved around personal data being misused by the organisations. But various policies and technologies for safeguarding corporate data, secure intranet, file shares, email and PIM have been released that is having zero impact on personal data privacy. Many containers have been created that keep corporate data distanced from the personal data and disallow flow of information from one application to another.

Many business corporations are extremely against the approach of BYOD and state it as a non profitable trend that must be disavowed at the earliest. If the enterprises pay the user for the operator rates and plans then the business suffer a lot financially. Rather it is a viable approach to provide the smartphones and the plans as per company needs to the users. Also it is illegal to wipe out information from devices the company does not own. So in case a device is stolen, the company can easily wipe out all its confidential information from the device. This is again in favor of the businesses allowing them to pose control on the data that holds relevancy to their complete business architecture.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Android and iOS are Now Targeting Overall Automation of Mobility


There is no denying the fact that smart devices have taken the mobility world with a storm creating a cosmos of connected devices across the globe. With this idea, many launches are being made in the area of home automation to render the monitoring of the devices at home to the users’ smartphones. This is also why the cloud services have been increasingly used in the past few years. Various custom mobility solutions have been created in order to take care of users’ needs and deliver more personalised usage of internet as well as applications to the users. Google and Apple are both making landmarks in the same area of home automation.


Apple made significant launches of Health Book App, Home kit, IOS 8, OS X 10.10 etc. in the recently held WWDC 2014. The Cupertino based company made announcements in regards to iPhones and home monitoring systems via WiFi. In the recently concluded I/O Conference held at the Moscone Centre at San Francisco, Google made important launches with respect to home automation and Internet of Things. The idea behind introducing Android L, Android Wear based smart watches, Android Auto and Android TV is to offer better communication between the user and his environment. This shall also improve the user interaction with his immediate surroundings and the devices that are incorporated in order to perform certain functionality.

Various important innovations in the Android Wear smartwatch and Android Auto were launched in the recently concluded I/O conference. Google maps and voice commands can be easily synced with the car through the use of Android Auto. Also the incoming messages on the Android smartphone can be replied via the same platform. By the launch of Android TV, Google has made its plans definite about automating homes. The channels can be flipped over with the use of the hand- held devices even when the user is not in the same room. There will be a further collaboration of the cloud services with music system, refrigerators, thermostats, washing machines etc. in order to fully control the user’s home environment.

Mobile apps developers have been taking severe pains in order to offer best solutions to render thorough user experience of the smart devices to the people. All such innovations are initially launched for the consumer sector. They further shift focus towards the enterprise sector, when consumers have well synced their work flows as per the working of the smart devices. Smart devices are also being augmented to cater to the growing needs and demands of the users. There are millions of apps for performing one function and the most usable one find its way through the users. While the devices are growing exponentially, the need to connect the data and devices together cannot be negated. An humble beginning to automate the homes through Android@Home ( Google Framework for automating homes) have been on the go since past few years. After gaining reasonable success in the same direction, Google would surely move on to successfully creating a web of data, devices and resources to improve the living and lifestyle of the users.

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Differentiating Factor Between Enterprise and Consumer Applications

Due to significant advances and new trends in technology, mobile phone sales have escalated in the past decade. The impact of mobile devices gave appropriate outlook towards the future and stated aspects on the effort of technology. Thus, the use of consumer mobile app and enterprise mobile app is increasing with the increase in mobile devices. Organizations are highly focused in catering mobile apps for everything thereby facing cut throat competition. There have been several apps from online radio to online banking and in the lowest configuration phones social networking application form the basic mobile app. As a result with significant advances in technology and innovative trends, mobile applications have escalated since last few years.

Enterprise Apps Development is on the edge with an extensive range of mobility solutions coming into picture and it is in the same league as IoT, Cloud and Big data. While deciding significant approach for mobility initiatives, enterprises tend to get confused. The advent of technology has engulfed organizations who want to take the next surge in order to achieve higher productivity. There have been individuals who want to invest in technology and others who would want to cater functionality which may or may not be consistent to your organization. It has been observed that MNCs and freelancers are releasing consumer mobile apps across the globe and enterprise applications in the IT world are rising at a rapid pace.

Consumer Mobile Apps: There has been a massive growth in mobile market, and so the customers on large scale is connecting with the business or mobile shopping Apps. Thus these are also known as business to consumer apps. These applications are gaining popularity among users for services and entertainment with a slew of Smartphone available in the market. There are various activities as online shopping, paying utility bills, checking mails and many more that are mostly accessed by the users on consumer mobile apps. The other popular activities that can be easily admitted are Ebooks and eLearning. On the go feature enable users to book movie and travel tickets online and an individual can even plan for vacations while traveling by using your mobile apps. It has been observed that these are functional mobile applications that mainly emphasize on increased productivity and is low in terms of quality.Thus there is an expanding claim of quality Apps that can improvise your way of living.

Enterprise Mobile App: These are business to business portals on handheld devices which enable enterprises to grow horizontally. Organizations have now interpret that rather than going for particular mobile device management, it is intellectual to follow mobile application management by advocating app development on various smart devices. Organizations must be aware of the growth of other organizations and thus it could be an authoritative level mobile app that may bring employees together on one path. The organizations get to know about up-to-date sales data and stock position with an enterprise apps. It is highly profitable to sales executive and purchase manager when they are out. These apps can be a mobile version of SAP and are tailor made for each enterprise.These apps do not require attraction factor but still it is expected that the nature of business vary accordingly with that of colour.

Consumer Apps Vs Enterprise Apps: Consumer mobile apps are elevated by the consumers in order to purchase something or to get some service done. Whereas enterprise mobile apps are designed for businesses so that they may contact other additional; businesses. There is no denying fact that interface design is not contemplated for allurement in enterprise applications.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Enterprises are getting Accustomed to Mobility and Cloud


The growth of mobility and cloud is the hottest wave in the world of technology. By the time BYOD policies have taken hold, there is no need left for securing Smartphones and tablets. But with the advent of technologies, mobility at a greater extent is about delivering a rich ecosystem of mobile apps to employees as well as customers. Both the technologies are expected to transform the overall business process by strengthening employee productivity, catering new experiences and streamlining processes. The entire world of an individual or a business revolves around the people holding a smart device. Few researchers declared cloud and mobility as the future of enterprise solutions.
Renowned companies have announced a series of new services, products and partnerships that are most probably going to launch within few months. These new services would enable developers, IT professionals and technology users, remove the barriers to entry for cloud adoption. Thus, it signifies that tech giants are speeding up their efforts in order to cater featured services in cloud computing and file sharing sector. The future of IT sector is changing on a daily basis.

Making use of private cloud connection: Tech giants are giving first priority to the cloud by establishing private cloud connections between cloud computing services and on-premise environments. This would give more reasons to grasp the cloud with improvements in speed, security and reliability. Network providers will make for a faster, direct and secure cloud computing services.

Simplifying cloud storage: Cloud storage can be simplified by enabling a single file share from multiple implicit machines. This devaluation in process will even act beneficiary in saving time as well as money for the clients. In order to move apps to the cloud, organizations are providing a dedicated cloud based file sharing server to serve businesses.

Improved Security for the Cloud -: Network security is the very first issue that most of the organizations face. Due to security concerns only, many businesses are cautious to move their crucial cloud applications from their own data centers and into the public cloud. Organizations with their revamped technological offerings has accused their secure network security across cloud environments and on premise. The security measures is the most interrogated aspect of making a conversion to the cloud, so enterprises must be aware of it.

Protecting Data from Loss and Disaster:This would assure the recovery of virtual machines in a worthwhile manner. Organizations are trying hard to work on their data loss functions by enabling deep linking mobile apps development services. This recovery of data loss would allow to prevent the sharing of delicate content within and outside enterprises. These types of restorations are becoming prevalent in big organizations.

Thus, there is no denying fact that the future of businesses lies in Mobility and cloud computing. So it is being expected that a large number of businesses may consider mobility and cloud as their top most priority and may adapt to it according to the changing business needs.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

The Battle of the Giants : iOS vs Android

The battle between Tech Giants have been growing through years for a better part of a decade. iOS and Android platforms have both evolved considerably with a slew of Smartphones and other handheld devices coming to the centerstage. We can not deny the fact that there is an equal increase in number of developers as mobile applications have become the soul of smartphones. Change is the only constant and therefore innovation has become the key to attain rapid improvement in performance. This conflict between two major platforms will never come to an end. Analysts recommend few advantages of different operating systems in order to give a slight overview to mobile programmers.
Advantages of Apple App store:
  • Deploying an application via the Apple app store will give them a better visibility than any other marketplace. There is no denying the fact that iOS App development would get more traction than their counterparts. Apple provides various categories to developers like App of the week category, Popular App category and so on that cater better chance of promoting the application across multiple channel store.
  • The developers attain 70 percent of profits when they choose to deploy on iOS. The returns are high because of the reasonable registration fee, thereby making it feasible for them to gain more profit. The returns would become considerably higher to a large extent if their application or in app products got popular with the masses.
  • The positive point behind publishing an app on iOS is that the review team gives a clear idea to the developers behind the rejection of their application. Drawn out approval process seems annoying but this increasingly proliferate their skills of mobile application development.
Disadvantages:
  • Maximum Approval time taken by iOS review team.
  • Apps visibility in order to generate maximum profit
  • Each and every category must be saturated

Advantages of Google play store:
  • In case of Google Play, app submission process is less annoying in comparison to iOS. According to many reports, android developers enjoy more freedom than their counterparts.
  • They can even focus on developing a customer base after an application has been made live. The app would offer certain adequate value to the end user and this will thereby help them to boost their business.
  • The registration processing cost to Google play developer console is only $25, which is inexpensive and affordable for them to submit their application to this marketplace.
Disadvantages:
  • Highly fragmented Android platform
  • Maximum number of free apps on Google play store
The debate among tech giants is progressing day by day due to onset of technologies and this will never come to an end. Thus both the platforms come with their shares of advantages and disadvantages. From a developers perspective iOS will always be a beneficial platform as it offers engaging tools for promote applications. Moreover it has been designed to be user centric, which is why users spend more time on it than android. The secure ecosystem provided by iOS sugar coats the overall package and makes the overall deployment process highly seamless.

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Various Realms of IOT among Core Business Workflow


Technology has evolved over the last few years with growing complexity and changing dynamics. Businesses are adapting to changing business needs and the overall focus has been turned towards the Internet of Things. The burgeoning amelioration in internet technologies will transform the way by enabling us to connect with physical objects. Thus, it would give the ability to sense the world around us by kind of useful remote monitoring or control of those things. Internet of Things is a combination of extensive computing and ambient intelligence among devices interacting with each other over physical media, channels and protocols.

It is a web that gives a unique internet protocol address to every object and device instead of PCs. After the decade of slow progress in the future world will be influenced by IoT and there will be ecosystem where all the object will be controlled through a touch on a PDA or click of a mouse. Everyday objects used in day to day lives will be more identifiable and controllable through the internet.

Internet of things is proliferating among most of the companies and according to the statistics observed, 94 percent of the companies are using Internet of Things in their businesses. Enterprises have also taken cognizance of IoT making it easy for them to integrate enterprise mobility solutions via use of connected devices. As a result two in five members always keep on discussing about the current state of IoT once in a month.

  • There is an explosive growth in investment of IoT and there are 3 percent of companies who have doubled year on year investment.
  • As per the speculation runs high, executives say that 95 percent of companies are expecting to use IoT in the coming years.
  • 63 percent of executives believe that the companies reluctant to integrate IoT will surely deteriorate behind the competition.
  • Approx 58 percent wants government to endorse development and endorsement of IoT whereas 45 percent believe that adapting to IoT while make their company more environment friendly.

According to the survey conducted by business economists in the year 2013, responders were asked to signify the scope of IoT in their external products and services among their companies. The primary focus of the report was to measure the stage at which IoT is being used on regional, global and industry level. This will thereby give an idea of how rapidly, businesses are adapting to changing needs and how enterprises are progressing with IoT. In North America, overall score of 3.89 for products and services places businesses in research stage. While businesses score 4.00 for operations and processes which places transition between “in research stage” stage and “in planning stage”. The firms in US are not expected to lag behind when it comes to putting IoT to business use, thereby developing underlying technology.

There is even a greater difference between in the use of IoT between industries than between regions. The health, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sector are using IoT internally with a score of 4.49, followed by consumer goods and retail, IT and technology as well as financial services. But in case of developing IoT based products and services with an index score of 4.33 leads the way followed by healthcare, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. In the surveys at least one among five respondents says that their organization is already enabled with IoT based product or services in the market.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The Multiple Dimensions of Big data


There are always two sides to any coin and same goes for any technology that comes to the mainstream. A lot has been said about the changing dynamics of information sharing as mobility is taking center stage and evolving to create a new ecosystem of connected devices. All of this innovation is surely slated to change the way end user looks at technology. There is no denying the fact that big data would be the focus point as far as IOT is concerned. As more and more devices get connected to the internet there would be a tsunami of information that would be unleashed.

Currently most of the data being pushed is still in scattered form, making it difficult for analysts to deduce vital trends. This has created a wide debate regarding the frightening perils as well as advantages of big data in the consumer space. One cannot ignore the advantages of big data in various sectors like pharma and healthcare. Even now there are a slew of cases where big data has helped to make vital head ground and provide seamless integration with legacy processes. Still there have been some critics of big data who are of the view that as more and more data is gathered there would be privacy concern that will emerge.

Even hollywood has been at its best to put some scare into the minds of end users with science fictions where supercomputers take over human race by understanding their traits. But the fact of the matter is that we already have been gathering data for many years which has resulted in highly efficient style of living. The only difference with big data is that it would lead to custom mobility solutions which can be used among enterprises as well as consumer space. Data being accumulated today has been streamlined to a greater extent with developers incorporating analytics to churn out better products and services.

Imagine a retail shop where you shop frequently would be able to offer you with great services once it gather ample knowledge about you needs and fashion taste. Even you physicians would be able to better predict your future health based on your everyday diet and schedule. As mobility is taking center stage much of this is getting possible. Users are now using their mobile devices more frequently which is helping backend service providers understand their requirements.

It is an age of mobile apps programming where developers need to reinvent their approach towards mobility. It is not just about mobile app but user engagement via IOT and big data. As the security infrastructure increases over time, developers as well as end users would ease of the privacy concerns which in turn would unleash the prospect of vertical growth. As most of these scenarios come to existence, technology would enter each and every part of our lives. The only questions that remains is how fast that change would come. the answer lies in the mass adoption among user base and better tools that could seamlessly analyse the data being generated.