Location-based services are in high demand.

Get to know the nitty-gritty of building an app with GPS tracking functionality.Remember how some ten years ago you’ve used to meet up with someone and explain to them how to get to your place?

Three blocks down, turn at the corner second corner on the right, walk till the house with a blue door and then turn into an alley and then it’s the second door on the left.

While some of us still give those scattered instructions, more often we just choose to forward a map dot indicating where we stand.

And that’s the beauty of GPS and location tracking in action.You don’t need a map or asking strangers for directions.

Your phone will guide you towards the place you need and indicate where’s the exact thing you need – a 24/7 taco stall, closest pharmacy or a prospective date.

According to a survey conducted by Apptentive, free apps make a profit when using a combination of different strategies:

Alty team decided to conduct our own investigation and compared different approaches based on both our client’s and our own results as app publishers.

To be more precise that is $7.40 paid for apps every three months versus $9.20 on in-app transactions.

Yet freemium Android apps still account for 98% of Google Play revenues on a global scale.

So stay with me till the next section for the tips

Also, you may be surprised to know that Asian consumers spend 40% more in apps compared to the rest of the world.

App Store and Google Marketplace are busy places where you are forced to compete with hundreds of other products in the same category.

If the icon looks well crafted, it’s a solid promise – the rest of the app will likely offer equally sleek experience.

So how to design a mobile app icon that conveys your entire product concept in just 120px by 120px?

In fact, the company has rather clear guidelines for designing iOS app icons:

Use a simple background and avoid transparency

Offer a single focus point

You need an app concept, but let’s assume you have it already.

Mobile commerce will total $142 billion in revenues by the end of 2016 according to Forrester forecasts.

The average order value for tablet purchases is $98.07 and $81.27 for mobile purchases.

Set up card distinguishing by the first four numbers.

Others feel reluctant, especially after the recent series of major data breaches.

However, as long as you are selling physical products or subscription plans for your software, then you can choose any payment gateway integration that suits your business needs most (and avoid the 30% payment cut Apple and Google takes from every app purchase made).

One of the simplest to understand customer journey mapping examples has been created by NNGroup.com:

This map shows the general characteristics of all customer maps, though formats may differ widely.

The Output: What has been learned about the customer experiences, and what opportunities are there to improve those experiences, so that customer and business goals are met.

Step 1: Setting the Goals for the Map

Looking at the example above, you will see that goals are part of the “Lens” element.

If there are different personas, then there should be different customer experience mapping for each of those audience segments.

That project quotes you’ve got ranged from $30,000 to $150,000 for the same set of specifications and left you completely smitten.

However, while a top price tag for a Jaguar doesn’t seem to baffle some of us, the same figure in a custom quote for a mobile app development project may sound outraging.

Simple user feed and profile registration

The development timeline goes under 500 hours and the final product can cost you $5,000 to $20,000 (depending on the final list of features).

Dynamic Apps: These apps are capable of extracting and rendering data from external sources through API integrations e.g.

All the in-app information is constantly updated in real time.

Okay, so you can still grab a coffee and sandwich at that sweet shop 250 meters ahead as they just sent you a discount coupon.

iBeacon is the Apple’s native version of the Bluetooth-based beacon concept, which allows gadgets to broadcast and receive certain static pieces of data within short distances.

For instance, when you walk into a museum with an iBeacon transmitter installed and assuming that you have the museums app on your phone, you’ll get notifications about the latest exhibitions, queuing time and other useful information.

In fact, iBeacon can now go even beyond a mobile app.

You plug this gadget to any smart TV and it starts displaying pre-set content when users approach it with a beacon-compatible phone.

EasyJet has started experimenting with this technology back in 2014 at three major hubs – London Luton Airport, London Gatwick Airport and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Get to know why building a virtual reality application may bring tangible ROI for your business.VR may seem like another industry buzzword.

Everyone are talking about how VR is about to go mainstream and create a new (non-virtual) market segment for businesses.

Yet, consumer interest still remains seemingly low and the prices for VR gear appear to be beyond reach for most users.So does virtual reality ROI for businesses are too “virtual” as well?

Alty team decided to investigate the matter.Continue: Virtual Reality App Development  

I used to turn on the Weather Channel when I got up in the morning, and watched as my coffee percolated.

Not only does it remember my zip code, but I can ask specific questions about locations where I plan to travel, events, places of interest.

Much better than any TV or even radio forecast.

And conversational design has been the hotness of 2016 with more and more businesses jumping onto developing chatbots or building their entire product concept around the conversational UI.

Conversational commerce is about delivering convenience, personalization, and decision support while people are on the go, with only partial attention to spare.

Here are just a few stats that speak for the value of designing a chatbot:

And when an individual or a company needs to hire one, their goal is to hire an expert.

It needs high-quality code first and foremost.

While this post may not make you an expert, it will give you some steps and questions to ask, as you consider the many iOS developers for hire who are out there competing for business.

A great company shouldn’t feel reluctant about that.

You also want to get a feel for work ethic, meeting deadlines, etc.

Apple is notoriously famous for rejecting the “ugly ducklings” and praising the sleek, solutions that meet the set design benchmark.

You have figured out your business branding strategy, your financial model and target market and how you are going to market that product all over cyberspace.

And you do have options here:

Door Number One: Lots of friends will tell you how they know of entrepreneurs who have created their own websites and apps and had them up and running in half a day – complete with menus, page links, text/content, images, and even a shopping cart.

But when you begin to ask the deeper questions, like is it responsive for iPhone and Android access, and what tools are best to use, they become strangely silent.

It’s not just a question of time – it’s about getting the product that will work, that is appealing, and that will give your customers the best experience ever when they visit, consider what you offer, and hopefully make some purchasing/upgrade decisions.

And don’t forget that when you look for individual UX designers for hire, you have to make sure that they can further collaborate with the developers you’ll hire to code your product.

The State of The Crowdfunding Industry

The global crowdfunding market is forecasted to grow by 26.87% during the period 2016-2020.

And this growth refers not just to the popular reward-based model offered by the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but a few other niches as well:

Here’s a quick overview of how much money was raised in those segments in 2015:

And on a global scale:

As you can see, P2P lending proved to be one of the most popular funding options and netted over $25 billion dollars to prospective businesses.

To make an educated decision in 2017 we propose you take a look on the next comparison of Android vs iOS development, which includes the latest information and stats on market share, profitability, time-to-market and a good bunch of other insights.

Comparison of Android and iOS Development

Market Share & User Base

#NotSurprised: Android is still dominating the global market share:

But there’s some more data from Kantar Worldpanel that you should take into account in 2017:

iOS devices have achieved a year-on-year growth across most regions except Germany and Urban China.

However, most product owners tend to focus on getting publicity for their app and pushing it on social media, instead of doing one simple thing – performing app store optimization (ASO).

Similarly to Google, both Apple Store and Google Play take certain factors and signals into account when they decide which apps to show first to the user.

And in this guide, we’ll break down the key app store optimization practices to follow.

Here are two descriptive titles for to-do lists apps, which currently rank in top-6 for “to-do list” search:

According to a recent case study by Tune apps with keywords in title tend to rank 10.3% higher than those without keywords:

However, do mind the official App Store Review Guidelines, which clearly disapproves keyword stuffing in app titles and descriptions:

As the saying goes – simple apps are often the most successful ones.

Not exactly, but some of the most popular iPhone and Android products share the next core features:

They bridge the gap between the common problem and lack of a decent solution to fix it.

They have sleek, attractive design and UI.

In this guide, we’ll take a currency calculator app as an example of a simple and profitable project you may consider developing.

The freelance economy is on the rise as well.