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Smartphone Apps

iPhone5, Old Wine in New Bottle?! – Opinion Poll

The much awaited iPhone5 has been announced with all fanfare. And it brings upgrades to every part of the phone – camera, screen, processor, build, and connectivity with LTE, Facebook integration, mobile maps with apple-designed cartography and the list goes on. I am sure you’ve read all about it in the last 48 hours and die hard ‘Applers’ are lining up outside the Apple Store in the days to come.

So while the much hyped device is now released, it would be interesting to step on the other side of the fence to figure if this fame is well deserved. Is it really a piece of innovation? Is it disruptive or just an incremental upgrade over 4s? Is the design absolutely out of the world and radically different? Or is it that Apple does not have anytime to do revolutionary design because they’re busy fighting lawsuits? Was this a ‘wow conference or a bummer?

What did Apple do that HTC or Samsung didn’t do with hardware? Among all the hoopla, I am not sure if a lot of people are asking this question. Would you be able to figure the difference between an iPhone4 and 5? Slightly lighter with front and back camera…what else? Why would you choose an iPhone5 over Galaxy S3?

Media is raving. Tom Cook is calling it the most beautiful piece of machine on planet earth. But would you call it mind boggling. It took many of the specs from 4s. Androids do as much or more. And, it is late to the LTE game. If Apple cannot compete on hardware then will it come down to the apps? Yes, the billion dollar industry, and will the phone that contributes most to this ecosystem will be the winner?

Enough said, and these are all questions on which I’d like to get your opinion.  My house us a iEverything but that does not deter me from asking Apple the tough questions. Also, the bigger question which comes to mind is, how would you define innovation in the smartphone world? Hardware can only add to that much. Pour in your comments.

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Mobile Analytics – Strategy First, App Later!

You might have heard this a few times now, “it is not just about creating an app and putting it up in the app store”. It is about having a certain marketing strategy around it to make sure it succeeds. It means identifying the right key performance indicators and finding the right tools to assess and correct based on consumer interaction. Are people finding and using your application? How engaged are they? How do you retain customers and a flurry of other questions. As the mobile adoption rates increase, and as it becomes a preferred way to access information, it will also become a very critical marketing channel.

Forrester believes that the biggest pain point for consumers today is measuring the mobile ROI which is a function of various factors. But it can be measured and there are several companies which have done it successfully. But to do that, there needs to be a definitive mobile strategy. One way to go would be to release the app and cross your fingers that it will succeed, and the second route is to have a plan around it to demonstrate ROI. Caution: number of downloads would not mean much, especially if most people don’t use the app after the initial download.

I was listening to an interesting web cast from WebTrends about how Telegraph quickly figured out what its customers wanted and tweaked its iPad strategy.  And it worked. They continued to increase the readership and make the user experience better and hence drive success in the app economy.

Here are a few things that WebTrends points us to when thinking about mobile analytics which we should keep in mind.

Influencing Adoption – total downloads, total number of app users, the active user rate – ratio of the number of app users to the total downloads, and new users – the number of users that first used the app during a period of time.

Engaging Users – the frequency of visits which is the ratio of the number of visits to the number of users over a period of time, depth of visit which is number of screens viewed on average compared to the number of visits, duration which is the amount of time spent on the application and bounce rate which is ratio of the number of user visits with a single view event to the total number of visits.

Engagement in High Value Activities to Become Customers – This is to measure what the customer is doing with the app. Capturing the user characteristics of the audience you’re trying to reach and the user activities provided to generate revenue and brand engagement for your business.

Retain Customers and Encourage Users – Increase stickiness by staying top of mind and up to date. Capitalize on other channels, don’t rely on customers finding you by chance. Get direct insight from customers on what they’re thinking about your app and it’s features.

You’ve learnt your lessons in the digital marketing world, now it’s time to implement those in mobile marketing.

 

 

 

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Sub: Bye Bye Crowdsourcers – Welcome MobiXpert!

Dear Mobile Tester,

How is your mobile testing experience?

Have you experimented with crowd sourcers lately to get your mobile app tested? Do you know if they protect your IP? How’s your app being tested – on real devices or on emulators?  And, do you know who’s on the other side of the wall – certified experts or 20 year old Tom who decides to join the crowdsourcing bandwagon because he’s getting bored? These are all questions you need to ask before deciding on a strategy to test your mobile app.

We’re thinking of your mobile testing experience – everyday!

Mobile testing is our bread and butter and you have to believe us when we say – WE KNOW THIS STUFF! And, we want you to benefit from our experience with more than a 100 customers across several verticals and geographies.  We can help make your testing experience seamless, fast, easy with zero downside.

The evolution of MobiXpert

And so, we created MobiXpert – a real mobile testing experience on real devices by real people. You can now get your app tested in a few easy clicks – choose the type of test, choose the devices, and submit your app for testing. MobiXpert will get back to you with the test results in 2-4 days. And of course, be rest assured that your IP is absolutely secure with us in our test labs.

Beating the Android Fragmentation!

I am sure you’re aware that Android is fragmenting the mobile marketplace with a zillion devices running different versions of the OS.  How do you figure if your app works on all these devices perfectly? Guess what, we shelf more than 3000 pre and post market Android devices to solve this very problem. And, we have tested more than 100,000 apps for the leading app stores very successfully. Now, we want to bring these benefits to you, as you prepare to launch your next enterprise app.

See it to believe it

This might seem like a salesy pitch, but you would have to see it to believe it. Go to mobixpert.infostretch.com and submit your app – you’ll know what I am talking about. For more information about this service, how it works, and how it compares against crowdsourcers, mobile platform providers and in-house QA teams, click here.

Happy Testing!

Sincerely,

The InfoStretch Team

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Part 2 – iOS6, Jelly Bean, Windows8 – Who is the Prettiest of Them All

Going Social

Integration with Facebook, much as they did with Twitter in iOS 5. , Its now easier to share photos, update statuses or other postings on Facebook. You will now be able to share photos and safari links on Facebook within the respective apps using the share button. The friends profile information has been integrated directly into the contact list and calendar, and also updated automatically.

Photo Streams allows you to create groups that are automatically notified when pictures are added, and these photos are automatically delivered to their iOS Devices. If you have an AppleTV, your pictures can even be transmitted to one that has access to your Photo Stream, so your Apple TV screen saver will always display the latest pictures, automatically.

For Developers:

The Social. Framework provides a simple interface for accessing the user’s social media accounts, This framework supplements the twitter framework that was introduced in iOS5 and adds support for Facebook and Sina’s Weibo service.

App can use this framework to post status updates and images to user’s account. .It works with account framework to provide single sign on functionality. UIKit framework also provides a new UIActivityViewController class for displaying the action that user performed like post content to social sites like Facebook or Twitter.

 

What are Jelly Bean and Windows8 doing?

 Windows 8 doesn’t just feature Facebook and LinkedIn contacts in its People contact book, it lets you anchor people on your Start screen, see status updates and share across multiple social networks from all over the OS. When it comes to photos, Microsoft has integrated Facebook and Flickr at the core, letting you see images stored on your accounts, other peoples’ accounts, and up on your own SkyDrive cloud storage account.

 Android always had a great Facebook sharing feature. Users can share and upload from pretty much anywhere in OS, or from most Android apps. Users can pull Facebook data for their contacts already stored on the devices or pull all Facebook friend into contacts. With Jelly Bean OS, Android beam apps now supports NFC-based picture and video sharing with other NFC-enabled devices as well as NFC-based connectivity with Bluetooth devices.

Guided Access – A kiosk mode

Guided Access is a new feature found in iOS 6, which allows you to enable a “kiosk mode” on your iOS devices. This can be handy for users who use the iPad or iPhones as retail assistance in stores, in restaurants, as menus, as examination paper in schools, or in an entrance exam.

You also have the ability to restrict access to certain portion of the screen, the whole screen, and/or disable the motion control with application

Passbook – a New eWallet

Passbook feature is an eCommerce solution, Its nothing but the barcode collection for boarding passes, store cards, coupon, movie tickets etc. The user just needs to scan the smart devices to check in for a flight or can have alert when coupons or vouchers are about to expire. Passbooks also sync to iCloud.

For Developers:

PassKit.framework is new framework that uses web services and a new file format to implement   downloadable passes. Passes are created by company’s web service and delivered to the user’s devices via email or custom app .The file format identifies relevant information about the services being offered so that the user knows what it is for.

 

 

A better Phone app, FaceTime Safari browser, Mailand Game Center.

 

In iOS 6, users can reply to incoming calls with messages (present or custom) or save reminder – timed or geo fenced. It also provides “Do Not Disturb” messages which toggles with fine -grain phone call exceptions, schedules or repeat calls.

FaceTime is now available over cellular network, Apple ID unified with phone number, enabling FaceTime or iMessage answering on iPad or Mac. Safari will now provide an offline reading list, photo uploads, full screen Video in landscape mode. iCloud tabs for safari on other iOS devices and macs which sync the browser data and make it up to date.

Mail application is now available with Flagged mailbox, VIPs- designated contacts cause notification, email flagged with stars in separate inbox. User can attach photos in-line, open password-protected office docs, per account signatures. Game center allows cross-platform turn-based and realtime gaming between iOS and Mac, also provides features to find friends from Facebook. It also syncs with OS X.

For Developers: 

Other Framework enhancement by Apple in iOS 6.

The EventKit framework now includes interfaces for creating and accessing reminders on the user’s device. The reminders you create show up in the reminders app along with ones created by the user. Reminders can include proximity or time-based alarms.

The StoreKit framework now support the purchasing of iTunes content inside your app and provides support for having downloadable content hosted on Apple servers.

State preservation makes it easier for apps to restore their user interface to the state it was in when the user last used it. Prior to iOS 6, apps were encouraged to write out information about their current interface state in the event that the app was terminated. Implementing state preservation still requires effort on your part to identify what parts of your interface you need to save

You use the Cocoa Auto Layout system to define layout constraints for user interface elements.Constraints represent relationships between user interface elements such as “these views line up head to tail,” or “this button should move with this split view subview.” When laying out the user interface, a constraint satisfaction system arranges the elements in a way that most closely meets the constraints.

In Addition to location data, the system now ask the user’s permission before allowing third-party apps to access certain user data which includes Contacts, Calendar,Reminders and Photo Library.

The iAd framework supports a new medium rectangle banner size for ads on iPad devices.

The ExternalAccessory.framework includes new interfaces for managing connections to Bluetooth devices. Apps can now post an alert panel that lists the Bluetooth devices available for pairing.

What are Jelly Bean and Windows8 Doing:

Microsoft’s goal is quite clear: instead of having a list of individual apps for payments, everything should be integrated into a single place that replaces your wallet and also offers live updates on your accounts and access to nearby deals. Just as the name suggests: your credit cards, loyalty cards, and others. Specific companies and programs that showed up in the demo were PayPal, Chase, Fandango, and Delta, but you could also save your library card and more to the hub. The hub also integrates with the new Nokia Maps.

With similar functionality, Google wallet is a huge question mark for Google, Sprint is the only official Google mobile wallet partner. Google announced new NFC-based features unrelated to payments, but the challenges in-front of them is number of android devices available with NFC.

iOS adds more features, but keeps the same screen size and user interface that has not been changed since iOS launched .Android’s Jelly Bean improves performance and adds Google Now, connecting different services into persistent available location assistant. Windows Phone 8 now runs on the Windows NT kernel, the same kernel Windows 8 runs on. This means that user gets support for multi-core chips and also gets faster porting of apps and easier overall development across platforms. This will strengthen Microsoft’s ecosystem. Windows phone 8 upgraded to entirely new hardware, but the usability of OS is very tightly bound to the availability of the hardware and upcoming support with Windows 8.

The big challenge in front of Google is only 7% of Android customers who are up to date and running Android 4.0 as compare to 80% of iOS user running latest iOS 5 on their smart phones and tablet. This also tells us something about how the OS’s are being marketed.

 

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Are smartphones ready for the enterprise challenge?

With the increasing number of smart phone users and applications, it is very compelling to expect companies to add Smart Phones to their list of internally supported devices.

There has been a widespread curiosity about Smart Phones applications among C-Level executives at different companies. Many companies have bought Smart Phones in a hope of increasing productivity, gaining operational efficiency, improving customer intimacy or establishing a new channel for sales. Many Enterprise level applications are out there in the market already and employees have been trying to execute work related tasks from their Smart Phone Devices. But how secure is it? Is it as efficient as other devices? Will Smart Phones seamlessly integrate with the existing ecosystem of other devices? What are the use cases and what is the ROI? Can the IT provide same level of support for Smart Phones as it does for other enterprise devices? These are still some unanswered questions.

The ecosystem is complex with too many carriers, handset vendors, application stores, and third party distribution channels, and this multiplied by the number of mobile device platforms could make the deployment and maintenance of smart phones in companies extremely complex, time consuming and costly. The lack of standards could make the life of IT team miserable, and it might be very difficult to ensure security and to put in place a plug and play system that can easily be scaled.

Many enterprise level applications like Salesforce have developed mobile applications, but until the surrounding ecosystem allows for integration and two way communication, it will be very difficult for the enterprise applications to reach wide scale adoption. One of the major success factors for Salesforce, besides its pioneering cloud capabilities, has been the flexibility that it provides by integrating with email clients, other CRM systems, websites etc. This has been possible because of relatively standardized internet space, unlike the mobile ecosystem, which still remains scattered and complex.

In conclusion, Smart Phones will need to move towards a more standardized model before they can become enterprise-class devices. With 4G and increasing popularity of cloud computing, Smart Phones might find a way into companies by offering a platform just as capable as other enterprise devices.

Nick Parmar, Mobility Expert at Infostretch is hosting a Webinar on the top 10 mistakes committed by companies while deploying mobile solutions. I encourage you to attend this webinar to find answers to some of the questions raised above.

Register for the Webinar here.https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/855893336 . Time and date: 2-Nov-2010, 10:00 AM PST.

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The imminent death of Palm?

Back in January of 2009, Palm announced that they will be launching the next ‘iPhone Killer’ pretty soon. This saw a sweet surge in the stock prices of Palm by about $4. CES (Consumer Electronics Show) was held in the later half of January 2009 at Vegas and Palm’s booth was overflowing with what they were about to launch.

What was launched:
At CES 2009, Palm launched their new smart phone platform called the WebOS keeping the developers in mind. Developers could create their applications by using CSS, HTML and Javascript to start with. No new languages to learn. This was in direct competition to Apple, who launched their iPhone SDK with Objective-C. Palm was on a verge of bringing the money on the table with their idea.

The Palm Pre

Apart from WebOS, Palm also launched their new phone called ‘Palm Pre’ that was set to launch in Q2 of 2009 featuring a 3.1″ screen with multitouch(!!), slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 8 gigs of storage, GPS, accelerometer and proximity sensors to start with.

Highlights:
Palm’s new platform could have been a serious iPhone killer – Not just with the hardware, but with the software as well, like how Android is doing at the moment in close partnership with HTC. The WebOS was based on ‘cards’ (very similar to Windows Phone 7’s ‘Tiles’), a dock and gestures (that Android perfected in v2.1). The game-changer has definitely been the ability to truly multi-task (Apple does not yet support multitasking yet). The WebOS runs on Linux and is absolutely full of eye-candy.

The downers:
1. App Catalog:
We all expected that you would have a lot of sensible apps on the Palm’s app catalog (keeping aside the never ending fart-apps and other useless jingle-jangles that cover 140,000 apps on the Apple App Store). Going by app count, by the end of 2009, Palm just had a mere 1000 apps on their app catalog (versus 10000+ for Android and 100,000+ for Apple)

2. Hardware:
The Pre got off to a seriously awesome hype in Summer of 2009, but somehow, for some reason, Palm decided not to improvise on their hardware, no surge in apps and basically they lost Apple, HTC and the other manufacturers came up with bigger and better phones (hardware-wise) and Palm decided not to mess with their Pre for over a year.
The second very important factor is that Apple launched the iPhone 3GS and stole Palm’s thunder. Perfect strategy to kill the demand of an upcoming technology by improvising on an already-set-and-highly-successful platform. Typical Apple.

Palm was in some unknown hurry of launching the Pre, resulting into very limited (hardware and software) testing, which then translated into a lot of unsatisfied users. Almost every other person has returned their Palm Pre atleast once to get them fixed and getting a replacement. With such a high competition from Apple, these small mistakes from Palm were getting on the nerves of the users.

3. Design:
Palm’s Pre had a highly glossy almost mirror-like finish on it’s screen. Now that did go very well with the fairer sex (the Pre was termed as a woman’s phone). Only developers, Palm nerds and geeks would know what the WebOS was really capable of doing.

Palm’s designers complained that the iPhone is too huge to put in a pocket and hence decided to shrink it somehow – resulting in the Pre’s thickness like a bar of soap. Not good again. Palm’s designers somehow forgot that the users do not want to seem like they are carrying a bar of soap or a bundle of cash in their pocket. I was never a fan of the Palm’s keyboards. The Centro somehow pulled it off well, but the ‘chin’ of the Pre was too big a pain to let the user type on the hardware keyboard with ease. Maybe a landscape QWERTY (like the spaced-out keys of the Droid) would’ve helped?

Mistakes, more Mistakes:
Palm thought it would be a good idea to let the users sync their phones using iTunes. Not sure what the developers were smoking when they came up with that idea, knowing that Apple is ruthless with their competition (Apple filing a lawsuit against HTC for implementing Multitouch recently, remember?)

Palm Pre syncing with iTunes

Palm did not focus on improvements on their platform (hardware and software) resulting into newer an d better phones overtaking them (iPhone users complained about copy-paste, MMS, better camera, multitasking – Apple made them wait) – I agree that the situation that Palm is in at the moment, making the users wait was not a very good idea either. Double edged sword, to say the least.

Conclusion:
Looks like all the success stories of the Motorolas and the HTCs and the Apples have learnt from the unforgivable mistakes that Palm has made. Or it may also be the case that Palm was trying to cover an old technology in new overalls.

I guess Palm’s days are finally over. You can blame it on ruthless competition, extremely high expectations from the customers, stupid design calls, hardware and software, just to name a few.

The imminent death of the Palm Pre?

If you have been following all the tech news updates regularly, Motorola was in a similar state a year back when they were about to shut shop on their mobile phone department, and then they decided to give Android a shot. Look where they are now in terms of sales for the Droid, the i1, the BackFlip and the DEXT.

If Palm decides to give away it’s baby (the WebOS) and adopt another (Android), they might be successful (you never know)
Alternate bailout is that Google buys out Palm and continues it’s development

But, to say the least, Palm is dead. Struggle and sacrifice, else R.I.P.

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Difference between Usability and User Experience

The growth of Web Applications, these days, is driven entirely by 2 main factors: Usability and User Experience. The whole idea of Web 2.0 was to provide web services and let the developers have their imagination run with the above mentioned 2 most important success factors.

Usability refers to the ease with which a user can accomplish his or her goals using any tool. Usability has been applied to software in the fields of human computer interaction and includes many important ideas from psychology and statistics. It is fundamentally qualitative but involves the heavy application of quantitative data to identify areas of weakness and suggest improvements. The study of usability often focuses on performing extensive tests with large groups of individuals, sometimes involving in depth techniques like eye tracking to determine how users interact with interfaces. Highly usable interfaces are often credited for being very intuitive, simple or for having a very small learning curve.

User experience on the other hand refers to the way a user perceives his or her interaction with a system. User Experience design is more of a combination of interactive design and visual design focusing more on the ‘eye candy’ User experience is more qualitative with limited usability.

If we take an example, one of the most ‘Usable’ mobile operating systems is the Blackberry OS. Everything is available on the screen under a menu. The operating system is highly ‘functional’ ensuring that the user is not distracted by any animated graphics, etc. It is mainly focusing on getting the job done, and hence, is highly ‘usable’. Highly usable applications usually have a much congested layout and will usually be termed ‘not very rich‘ in terms of eye-candy.

In case of User experience, the best example we have is the iPhone interface. If you observe very carefully, you might miss out on a lot of functionality in comparison with most of the smart phones out in the market, but the eye candy is definitely a big factor in attracting such high sales. For such applications, the learning curve is hardly an issue.

Perhaps the simplest way to distinguish the two would be to summarize them as ‘Form’ and the other ‘Function’. At the end of the day all that is really important is to understand the distinction between the two terms and to realize the massive importance of both in the design of good interfaces.

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The Great Smartphone Opportunity

The iPhone redefined the smartphone space. Motorola Droid was a great success. And now The Google Nexus Phone is here.

The growing interest in the Smartphone space is a indicator of the great market opportunity. Mobile Phone has become the primary screen for everyone. Smartphones are increasing their market share due to falling handset, affordable fixed data plans and evolving users.

The Economic Times reported that the Indian national smartphone market is estimated to be around 4 lakh units, the market has been recession-proof and is growing at around 70-to-80 %. Globally, analyst firm Gartner has estimated that smartphone sales will grow by 29% in 2009 to reach 180 million units, overtaking notebooks in total unit terms. At present, smartphones account for 14% of over-all mobile phone sales but it is estimated to reach 37% by 2012.

Even PC Players like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus are betting on smartphones for further growth. The rise in smartphones will create a huge demand for Mobile Software. The App Store has already fuelled the imagination of marketers and created business opportunities by redefining the mobile world. Already all the leading Internet brands are available as mobile apps. The real winners will be companies who will focus on their business strengths and marry it with the possibilities of mobile platform to create successful opportunities. Like the local pathology lab which will provide free pickup of blood samples on receipt of SMS from customers and send an intimation to field staff. Technological changes create new winners !

2010 is the year when lot of action will take place on the Smartphone side. iPhone, Blackberry and Android Apps will touch our lives like never before. New market opportunities will be created. Are you ready? Time to act is NOW!

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