Trends Shaping Up the Mobile App Market in 2017

The number of mobile users is through the roof – experts estimate that over 3 billion people will own a smartphone by the year 2020. Over 50% of all the time, people spend on their smartphones is spent on apps, which is causing businesses worldwide attempt to engage their customers via apps. There are over 4 million unique apps on Google Play and Apple’s iTunes store combined, which is a number that will increase significantly over the next few years.

So what do all these statistics tell us? Mobile apps aren’t going away anytime soon, and 2017 is going to be a big year, with innovative technologies being used to keep customers engaged. Here are some of the top trends shaping the mobile app market:

Apps Making More Revenues Than Before

This year, applications are expected to make over $77 billion in revenues, a big increase over the $58 billion they made in 2016. Clearly, there has never been a better time to make money from software. 

VR and AR technology

Games like Pokémon Go made Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) popular around the world. This year, the technology will be found in all kinds of mainstream apps, including travel, messaging, and even some business ones. 

Chatbot Technology

Chatbots debuted over two years ago, but we expect them to gain mainstream appeal this year. It allows companies to deliver their products and services faster and provide a more personalized approach with significantly lower investments.

More Security

The majority of the most popular Android and iPhone apps have been hacked. Data and application security are a big concern, and we expect to see developers going to great lengths to ensure their products are as secure as possible, by using encryption and other techniques.

Internet-of-Things

Finally, IoT and wearable tech will dominate this year. There will be a greater focus on the technology this year, and we’ll find it being implemented in industries like healthcare, education, security,  and the automobile industry.

Does your business own an app? If you don’t, you’re losing out. You can hire a dedicated app development team to make you one at an affordable price, in a short span of time. 

Boost Workplace Communication and Productivity with a Mobile App

A large number of organizations own a mobile app these days, designed to help them engage customers better and to grow their business. However, not many organizations consider building an app for their workforce. While building an app for your in-house team isn’t a new idea, it hasn’t caught steam yet.

Here is why building an in-house mobile app for your workforce is a great idea:

Promote communication between employees

Many big companies have offices all over the world these days, but they rarely communicate with each other. A mobile app allows you to provide a unified platform that promotes communication between all the members of your global team. With apps, it’s easier for employees to get to know each other and improve workplace relations.

Boost productivity by providing a work-from-home option

A large number of companies these days are adopting the “mobile workforce” strategy, which is designed to allow employees the freedom of working from anywhere and on any device. An in-house app can help boost your team’s productivity by letting them work from the comfort of their home and boosting work-life balance.

Help them learn new things by providing educational material on the app

Mobile apps allow you to provide educational resources and courses to employees. Your employees can learn at their pace, without pressure, while managers will get access to test results and progress reports on the screens with the touch of a button.

Make life easy for your HR department

The HR department in a company is always actively involved in scouting for promising talent in the market, even when the company has no need for employees at that moment. A mobile app that allows the HR department to automate replies, schedule interviews, to get access to test results, and to maintain a database of candidates is sure to make life easy for them.

Employees are an organization’s biggest asset and a well-motivated bunch can drive a company to great heights of success. There are some free tools you can use to build an in-house mobile app without breaking the bank. A better option is to hire short-term developers to build you an app at an affordable price.  

The 3 Major Trends in Mobile App Developments In 2015!

As the mobile app scene hot topic in 2015, we need to ask the question, what are the trends that are driving mobile app development today? Are they here to stay? And how is it going to span out in the coming years? These are some of the questions we hope to answer in this article.

Use APIs Innovatively

Mobile app development demands that you develop an app across a variety of devices and channels. Now what do you do to achieve that? This is where you need an API-first approach. When your development is focussed on APIs you ensure flexibility and agility.

Among the biggest obstacles to seamless implementation of mobile apps is data storage. This problem is solved to a great extent when you use a catalogue of mobile REST APIs where you can access systems of records in an easier manner. This way you can implement all your security policies under one umbrella.

Leverage the Cloud

Now, the development process is agile, which means business and infrastructure development take place in parallel. While the business department works at its own pace, the other teams ask for tools to speed up their integration and development. It is here that the Cloud plays a very important role. Streamlining back-end integration, user security and management becomes extremely easy with Cloud.

Convenience is King

However high your app might score on functionality, in the end it needs to guarantee a sumptuous experience for the user. Though a million apps populate the Appstore, hardly a fifth of them are used. If your mobile app developers can’t synchronise functionality with user experience, then it is not going to find traction among users.


What we’ve mentioned in this article are just 3 of the important trends that are sweeping the mobile app industry today. For more, watch our next article in the series!

What You Need to do if you’ve lost Your Phone?

Losing a phone is not uncommon. We often hear about it but are we clear about what to do in such a situation? This is what we look at in this article.

Google Tracking

If you’ve connected your device to a Google account and the device in turn, is connected to the internet, only then will this mode of tracking work. You can locate your device with the Android device manager. This is a freely downloadable tool that helps to track your device but with two caveats: that it should be connected to the internet and that it be attached to a Google account.

You can not only locate your device but also ring your phone and erase data if you think it is under threat. Now if more than one device is connected to your Google account, then you need to ensure that you select the correct device.

Android User

If you are an Android user, then you can track your phone by using Android Lost, an app that helps you locate lost mobile phones. Now how do you use this app when you have lost your phone? Android has a solution. It lets you send an SMS via a remote device and log in to your Google account. Through that you can access your SMS, your phone data and your phone’s location.

But again, this will only work if your lost mobile phone is connected to your Google account and the internet. So what if your phone isn’t connected to your Google account?

What ForgotMyPhone App Gives You?

This is where the ForgotMyPhone app helps you. You need to download this app on a secondary phone and a single push notification from your secondary phone directs the web server to ping the primary device. The primary device (your misplaced/lost mobile) promptly responds with its location which the web server messages you.


Remarkably simple as it is, it also allows you to lock your phone to protect it from unauthorised access. If that were not enough, you can also delete data on your mobile via a push notification. Apart from this, you can also receive calls of your primary mobile on your secondary device. You can enable the call forwarding functionality with the help of codes provided by network operators like Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile.

10 Steps to Build a Mobile App That Sells

To know what goes behind the making of a successful app, you should know what mobile app requirements are in the first place. More often than not, developers do not spend enough time on working out the modalities of what the app should deliver and how it needs to be designed. The fault lines of every app that has failed originate here. In this article we take a look at the 10 check boxes that need to be ticked if your app is to be a success.

1. Who Are You Building The App For?

You need to be clear about why you’re building the app in the first place and who you’re building it for. What will be your app’s standout features and functionality? Who are your target users? Analyse the market you want to release your app viz. their preferences of your users and align your app with it.

2. Decide Your Revenue Model

Your app competes with a million others on the Appstore. Have you got the right model to generate revenue for your app? You need an analytics/pricing expert to decide your app’s pricing and ad rates. If you are choosing a pay per download model, your app needs to have features that justify it.


3. Choose Between Native, Web and Hybrid

Which category does your app belong to? Native, web or hybrid? This decides on how much you plan to invest in your app, how many platforms you want to target, what kind of app suits your app’s desired user experience and so on.

4. Get the Design Right

The design of your app must reflect your business in a way that is enriching and engaging. Since your app’s design is the first thing that strikes the customer, it needs to greater attention. Make sure that your design is responsive, touch-friendly and simple.

5. Create a Message Flow for Your App

Your app needs to respond to various situations and get the customer back to engaging with it. Create a message flow to respond to customers in various situations while being focused on the functionality.

6. Ensure Security and Scalability

Is your app secure and scalable? These two qualities are important if you are to attract customers. Get your app certified for both these. Ensure proper maintenance too from time to time to get this right.

7. Focus on UX

There is no point in creating content for your app if the content is not focused on the intended user experience that your app is supposed to give. Remember that if your app ultimately sells, it sells for its user experience and not anything else.

8. Make Your App Well-Integrated

If you’re designing an ecommerce app, make sure you integrate it with a secure payments module. If it is a travel app, you need to integrate it with business listing and classifieds sites apart from social media.

9. Monitor App Metrics with an Analytics Tool

Make sure your app has an appropriate analytics tool to get a clear picture of how many users visit your website, how long they stay, what percentage of users abandon and why, impact of social media on user traffic and so on. Google Analytics is the default choice now.

10. Test Thoroughly and Act On User Feedback


Do a case by case user acceptability test for your app. Once your app goes live, look keenly at user feedback for any actionable suggestions that can enhance the usability of your app and implement them. 

7 Steps to the Right App Promotion Strategy!

The only way to get an increased audience to know your brand or to buy your products is to get a mobile app that bears your name or a part of it. And let us assume you have done the difficult part: building a responsive and well-designed mobile app replete with all the necessary integration's with a user experience to top it all. But how do you get your target audience to use your app? That is what this article wishes to throw further light on.

1. Understand Your User Base

-> This might sound cliched, but is totally meaningful. You need to have a clear understanding of your target audience. For this, you first of all need to analyse how other successful apps in your genre have reached there.

-> What is the strategy that they’ve adopted and study how they approach their customers? Remember, all of your marketing and SEO efforts work only if have an app that’s real quality.

2. Get the Right Optics

-> Many apps get the functionality right, but fare low on optics. Make sure your app doesn't suffer from the same illness.

-> Get a good graphic designer to decide the best colour and contrast for your app. A realistic colour shade does impact your app’s optics.

3. Search for the Right Keywords

-> When a user wants a particular type of app, he/she is going to do a keyword search for it.

-> You need to know what keywords the user will search for. Leverage the power of social media to drive keyword searches to your app.

4. Diversify Your Promotion Approach

-> Don't stick to the same promotion approach for every platform. What works for Android needn’t necessarily work for iOS too.

-> App platforms differ in their approval process and store reporting and this needs to figure in your promotions as well.

5. Get Multiple Traffic Sources

-> Target more than one platform to market your app. Remember; you can never predict where your customer might come from.

-> Target social media sites. Create a separate FaceBook and twitter page and re-tweet positive user reviews about your app. Build positive talk about your app on peer sites as well.

6. Peer Reviews Matter

-> Knowledgeable users will first look at app reviewing sites to first get to know about your app before using it. It might cost you a few dollars, but it is well-worth it. Get your app reviewed on quality sites.

-> But remember, a positive review on any site of repute cannot be ‘bought’. This again takes you back to the basics via, a great design, responsiveness and UX.

7. If None Of This Works, Slash The Price!

-> Now, if you’ve decided upon the price of your app after having done a thorough research and have done it competitively, then your app won’t suffer any handicap in the market.


-> But it may sometimes be the case that your app has been priced a little too higher for its functionality. In this case, you need to cut-down on the prices of your app in order to stay competitive.

Why App Store Optimization is Important?

It is the process of optimizing mobile apps to rank higher in an app store's search results. So, when your mobile app ranks higher on Google’s search results, it means greater visibility to your app and more traffic to your site.

Chief among the challenges for developers in any platform is discovery. As more and more apps get launched every day, this is getting more and more difficult. Therefore, it has now become extremely important for application developers to take it to themselves to promote their apps so as to boost visibility and improve the download rate of their apps.

App store optimization is one important way by which an application developer can improve discovery of their app. Enhancing the major product page elements to increase chances of standing out in a list view, improve search discovery and better the scalability of the page for the purpose of converting to purchase or download. ASO covers all elements of your app's product page such as icon, product description, screenshots, category, name and keywords you use to portray and sell your app.

Taking a look at these elements from the perspective of a user to make sure that they are working rigorously to market and sell your application is the key concept behind app store optimization. Therefore, ASO ensures that your product page elements are creative, convincing and clear.

It endeavors to eliminate any vagueness in what your product provides and attempts to cut through the noise around you in order to make sure that your application can stand out whether a user views your app in a category list or finds it in search results. You need to look at your users, your competitors and make use of some key application tools if you want to carry out app store optimization.

Importance of App Store Optimization:
ASO is important for the following reasons:

·         ASO Improves search results as well as the instantaneous comprehension in the app store lists with an optimized name.

·         It capitalizes on the app ranking opportunities through sub-category and category recommendations.

·       Improves search discovery and increase scalability with SEO focused Product Description.

·         It improves rapid comprehension and brand recall and also increases conversion with screenshots and icon suggestions.