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A Deep Linked Facebook Mobile App

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 0 Comment

I recently released RubyApp, a deep linked Facebook App.

RubyApp allows users to send a bouquet of pictures, and a short love message. You can tag the recipient of your message (which prompts the recipient that they have been tagged), make the message public, or both.

Facebook Deep Linking is a feature provided by Facebook to make your mobile app an extension of the Facebook experience. When a user clicks a Facebook news feed message associated with the deep linked app, instead of opening a website, Facebook opens the mobile app, and passes information about the clicked message to the mobile app, so the mobile app can immediately present the media associated with the message.

If the deep linked mobile app is not yet installed, Facebook prompts the user to install the app.

As you can imagine, this is a terrific way of driving viral mobile app installation – people see a Facebook post which interests them, click the post, and painlessly download and install yet another copy of your app. They then use the app to post their own media, which all their friends can see – and so on.

And this is exactly what is happening with RubyApp. A few people tried the app, loved it, and it is now spreading throughout the Facebook community – with no publicity effort from me whatsoever.

What happens if a user is not using an iOS device? For them, there is the RubyApp website – https://apps.facebook.com/ruby__app/.

Why build a deep linked Facebook mobile app, if you already have a Facebook website? The rationale for building a deep linked Facebook mobile app was that I wanted to include a soundtrack with the bouquet of pictures. iPhones do not automatically play sounds presented by websites – so the solution to creating a high quality user experience for iPhone and iPad users was to bypass this limitation, by creating RubyApp.

If you would like to know more about how Facebook deep linking can drive downloads of your app, and what opportunities Facebook deep linking presents to content providers, please contact me at eworrall1@gmail.com.

Apple iWatch Delayed?

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 0 Comment

The Register printed an interesting article today, suggesting that the Apple iWatch will be delayed, citing as evidence Apple’s aggressive iWatch team hiring spree.

What does iWatch mean for app development?

When the iWatch arrives, it will present an entirely new vector of customer requirements. Assuming Apple opens iWatch to developers (and there is no reason to think they won’t), iWatch will be an opportunity to give prominence to your offerings. If your competition only has a phone app, the iWatch presents a few seconds convenience – if consumers choose your app, they save a few seconds of their life, by engaging with your app on their iWatch, rather than having to pull their phone out of their pocket.

Do a few seconds matter?

The answer is an unequivocal YES. The world’s premier search engine, Google, have calculated that improving response times by just a tenth of a second produces a measurable change in customer behaviour.

https://support.google.com/mini/answer/15796?hl=en

Average increases in response time of only a tenth of a second have a negative effect on search usage.

The downside is what works on a phone is unlikely to work, unchanged, on a watch size display. No rework was necessary when iPad Mini was released, because iPad apps worked, without modification, on the iPad Mini platform. But a watch size device will be not be able to display content designed for a phone size display. In addition, a watch size device is likely to be heavily constrained, in terms of processing power and battery life, even when compared to a phone.

so watch apps will be new. They will be lean, mean and clean – apps cut back to the bare essentials. But in terms of user interaction, a good watch app will be first in the queue – people will use their watch, if it saves them pulling out their phone. When iWatch is released, getting in first with apps which fulfil user’s needs will be your key to beating the competition.

If you would like to find out more about how mobile apps can help your business, mobile app development in general, iPhone app development, Android app development, or likely near future technology trends, and how they might affect you, please contact eworrall1@gmail.com.

The Third Dimension

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 0 Comment

When will my phone produce true 3d images – images with depth, like a 3d Television?

The answer – phone size 3d devices are already appearing.

Wikipedia provides a list of 3d phones which are already, or soon will be on sale. My experience with such phones is current generation 3d phones are power hogs – if you want to play a 3d game, you need to plug the phone charger in, otherwise the 3d display will flatten your battery in minutes.

Normal phone displays are power hungry. If you stop touching the phone, normal 2d phones dim the backlight within a minute or two, and switch it off completely a few minutes later, to preserve battery life.

The reason 3d displays are so power hungry is that 3d displays produce two display images – one for each eye. So a 3d phone consumes battery reserves at least twice as fast as a normal 2d phone – even faster once you include the additional computation required to keep both displays coordinated.

What we are looking for then, is not a new type of display – 3d displays are already available. What we need, to make 3d displays practical, is a leap forward in mobile battery technology.

There is good news – we probably won’t have long to wait. And when true 3d displays become mainstream, most of the games and apps constructed by developers like me will be able to use the new technology, without modification.

Under the hood, games and other advanced apps are already 3d. When you see photo realistic space ships, monsters, or other 3d components of app games, what you are seeing is actually a computerised 3d shape created by app developers and artists, projected by software onto a 2d display. No tricks – phone apps and game consoles are already 3d under the hood.

Will the next iPhone, iPhone 6, be true 3d? Probably not. But my prediction is iPhone 7 might be.

If you would like more information about some of the exciting advances in 3d graphics which could be used in the development of your new app, please contact eworrall1@gmail.com.

Who should Host My Server?

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 2 Comments

Most apps require a server component – a place to store common data, which is shared with other app users.

If your app is successful, demand on your server could soar. You have to be prepared for success – by all means keep the costs down until revenues start flowing, but the last thing you want is to have your app’s success compromised by poor customer experiences (and reviews) due to inadequate server capacity.

So how do I keep costs down, while at the same time preparing for success?

Short answer – Amazon

Most people know Amazon as the online bookstore, but for several years they’ve also specialised in providing server hosting for online businesses.

Why choose Amazon? Because it starts cheap, but scales easily. While you are waiting for your marketing campaign to attract app sales, your Amazon server will cost next to nothing to run. The lowest Amazon service tier costs between zero and a couple of dollars per month.

But make those app sales, and with a few clicks of the Amazon console, and you can scale up your server to handle almost any imaginable load, within minutes of discovering your server is reaching its limits. With Amazon servers, you won’t see a sudden success snatched from under your nose by poor customer reviews due to inadequate server capacity.

My only criticism is Amazon is it is technically complex to administer compared to a normal ISP account – but that is why you hire techies ;-).

You still have to register your web domain name with a an ISP, if you want a web address for your server. If you are unfamiliar with server setup, Desirable Apps is happy to walk you through the process, and carefully explain the options and costs of every step of building, deploying and managing your app, including configuration and installation of your server.

Contact me today to discuss your app development and app server development requirements. eworrall1@gmail.com.

Why should you build an App?

Posted by Eric Worrall on in Mobile Development 0 Comment

Apps have substantial advantages over websites. While websites are becoming more app like, apps are still far more efficient at harnessing the full power of the mobile device, to offer the best possible user experience.

In addition, apps have substantial offline capabilities – your app can deliver its service in areas of poor or intermittent internet coverage.

For example, the success of apps such as Angry Birds is built on targeting people with a few minutes to spare, such as people commuting on public transport. But internet coverage of public transport routes is often poor to nonexistent, particularly on an underground metro train! Apps which do not rely on a continuous internet connection can continue to provide their service, long after websites fail due to poor mobile coverage.

Finally, the best reason of all – if you don’t act on your idea, and build your app, someone else will. In the globalised world of app development, he who hesitates is lost.

Contact me now, to discuss how I can help turn your idea into an app.