Blog Directory

As applications become a go-to approach for businesses to promote their services, many small businesses are seeking in-house development platforms to cut expenses and develop the finest app they can.

With instructive instruction and plenty of templates to choose from, they can quickly generate a good-looking mobile app. There are a number of app building platforms that allow you to create high-class mobile apps without needing you to learn to code or spend a lot. These tools will help you quickly develop applications based on hundreds of existing templates. It is essential to choose the right tool/s to guarantee that an ideal mobile application is designed for your purpose.

1.       Appery.io

Appery is a cloud-based mobile app builder which you can use to build Android or iOS applications, including Apache Cordova (Phone Gap), Ionic, and jQuery Mobile with access to its built-in parts.

It is easy to get started quickly since there is nothing you need to install or download as the builder works in the cloud. For building UI, Appery App Builder makes use of a drag and drop features as it demands visual editor. It has a characteristic of generating an auto-code for any component that you drop in. You have access to add a cloud database instantly as well as the backend to your app when you are in need to store data.

With the Appery plugin catalog, you can add strong features or create your own custom personal plugins to use in your apps. If you work with a team, you can readily share your project with them and collaborate for an additional fee in real-time.

2.       Xamarin

Xamarin is a C#-based cross-platform framework that app developers can leverage. Xamarin is a cross-platform based on C# that app developers can leverage. One of the best qualities of Xamarin is that it is an ideal tool which enables users to work with native IDEs, APIs, or languages. It gives you access to data across multiple platforms and can also reuse business logic layers. Xamarin also supports QA and testing features to promote the development of robust, scalable mobile applications.

3.       TheAppBuilder

AppBuilder is the best choice that offers a suite of apps to fit staff, customers, events, and brochures, with two distinct approaches available. If you wish to design an app as an intranet for a company, AppBuilder proves to be the best pick. With the help of available online toolkit and the training available, this platform will help you work while describing and building the app’s structure and populate it with initial content.

You can provide your customers with a window into various applications using the dedicated AppLibrary and even customize it with your own branding. It also helps you in securing both public and private apps with usernames and passwords and distribute them through the app store, using the active directory integration of TheAppBuilder to enable login with existing credentials and user groups.

Moreover, it helps you update the content and framework even after the applications have gone live. It allows you to create unlimited updates and publish them in one click on various mobile platforms. It has a support a number of platforms including native iPhone, iPad, and Android, with live updates within 60 seconds of posting a change.

4.       XOJO

XOJO has proven to be another great choice to develop iPhone device applications. XOJO’s toolkit helps developers to work faster and provide greater performance. This open-source platform is known for its simplicity. It can easily build cross-platform apps because it has all the rich features that developers look for. It offers generous support for graphics, DB servers, IPs so you can develop any kind of applications, bringing imagination to reality. With minimal distraction, it helps developers focus on making out-of-the-box applications. It is particularly preferred for a superb app interface.

5.       Appcelerator

As the name suggests itself, Appcelerator accelerates the app development process with briefly thin lines of coding for app creation. It’s a popular Titanium platform on Twitter, which developers can leverage to build native apps for mobile platforms, desktop ad tablet devices. Appcelerator works quite well with languages such as JavaScript, HTMS, Ruby, PHP, and Python. It is a platform which empowers more than thousand native applications every month.

It is beneficial in terms of location data and APIs and customizable metrics, that is why it is the top choice for various developers. It also facilitates you with real-time analytics that helps you keep a track of performance as well as find issues.

6.       Appy Pie

Appy Pie is a cloud-based mobile app development tool that enables users to develop and publish an app for almost any platform without programming abilities. There’s nothing to install or download — just drag and drop pages to build your own online mobile app.

Once finalized, you will obtain an HTML5-based hybrid app that functions with all platforms, including popular mobile platforms: Android, iOS and Windows, and even a Progressive app. All revisions are in real-time, with the capacity to send push notifications, monetize advertisements, see live analytics, and track GPS location. You can also incorporate social media feeds, blogs, websites, audio, radio, and more.

You are provided with different themes while using this platform, ranging from a restaurant to a radio station. They also have an appointment scheduler tool, which is particularly helpful for companies such as physicians, salons, or spas with contact features such as one-touch call included. You can embed custom code and iframes using the code page.

7.       PhoneGap

PhoneGap is Adobe’s diverse open-source app development tool and is most sought-after by new-age app developers due to its widespread benefits.

With the help of this tool, you can develop a single app that operates on most mobile device systems such as Android, iOS, and Windows. Other than these, it also supports other platforms such as BlackBerry, iTouch, iPad, and Symbian. This is PhoneGap’s greatest advantage app developers have.

PhoneGap is a platform which builds apps that are compliant with HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3. The tool best interacts with native device components such as GPS, camera, accelerometer, sound, and more. The framework has a wide library of components that you can use to strengthen the functionality of the app. Its enormous flexibility saves time and effort in building high-quality applications.

8.       AppMachine

AppMachine is considered to be the most easy-to-use platform that develops and design professional native applications for both iOS and Android. With its drag-and-drop interface, you can merge various construction blocks that give a range of features such as data, pictures, and video.

AppMachine’s building blocks also allow you to connect your app to Facebook, Twitter, or online stores. You can design the app in your own distinctive style and choose your navigation routes, colors, fonts and icons, take full control of the layout and watch your progress using the Previewer. It also facilitates you to scan a website for key content that could be transferred to an iOS or Android app.

Test your app as you build it and test how it works on different devices. When you are done testing your app and it is all set to go live, you can publish and promote the app as well as analyze user data. AppMachine takes care of everything you need to get your app to Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

9.       Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is a multi-platform application builder that enables you to create a new app or use a ready-made app. The software is specifically designed for companies seeking to simplify and automate tasks, such as creating applications for functions such as sales management, order management, event management, logistics, or recruitment monitoring, for instance.

Whatever you’re planning to do, however, you can customize it completely the way you want. Zoho Creator involves a drag-and-drop editor to assist build your app from within a single dashboard.

While initially targeting companies looking to create applications for specific needs within their business, Zoho Creator can also be used to create applications for the wider market. Even better, you can incorporate data from other applications, improving their usability. Potential integrations include other Zoho applications, Paypal, Twilio, G Suite, and Quickbooks.

10.   Ionic 

It is the framework for the growth of HTML5 mobile apps. It is extensively used to develop mobile hybrid applications. It is a helpful tool for building mobile apps using web technologies such as CSS, HTML5, and SASS.

Ionic Framework is a project that is 100% free and open source. It builds a progressive mobile web and native applications for every key app store. It provides excellent tools and services for creating extremely interactive applications. Moreover, it enables web developers to create applications with a single code base fall major app store. It comes with many CSS elements and JavaScript components to develop mobile apps. Ionic emulates the native UI guidelines of the app and employs native SDKs.

Conclusion

This was the list of some of the best mobile app development tools and frameworks you can adopt for 2019. Reliable and unique, each of them has an incredible ability to meet your project demands and offer an app for both Android and iOS.

There are various kinds of outsourcing models, we’ve mentioned 5 of them which are the outsourcing trends 2019. You can pick the one suitable for your particular project and estimated expenditures.

Fixed-Price

Out of all the outsourcing strategies, fixed-price development agreement is known to be the most successful one. In this type of agreement, one needs to pay a particular amount of money for a specific job performed. This strategy works efficiently for short-term products whose development requires a few months or less. All the risks involved are put on the outsourcing partner as they wait to make payments until the project is done which consequently protects your budget also.

It involves giving the required details of the future piece of software, website or mobile application-their primary features, design, etc. Since fixed price agreement cannot be readily modified, all requirements should be transparent to both the client and the team.

In case, if any issue arises, you can work on a unique amendment to the current agreement specifying unmentioned points of the first, for instance, improved complexity of the project resulting in a price change, etc. Signing a fixed price contract also implies delegating control of the development to the representatives of the IT business. Usually, customers are not actively engaged in the process – instead, product managers take the head position.

Time and Materials (T&M)

T&M demands your outsourcing partner to bid for the project based on your demands, depth of scope and the amount of work that needs to be done. If your teams are good at outlining project requirements, this model is the right pick for you. In this way, your outsourcing partner will spend less time reworking issues, shortening your project overall time and saving you money.

Be prepared to build effective project management teams to guarantee that the entire project is completed on time and on budget. You will need to keep a close eye on project outcomes and prevent costly project delays. Keep in mind that building a cushion can assist you if the project goes over time or budget.

Time and material model of cooperation does not involve advanced specifications, so it can be used when all of the features of the future product cannot be explained at once. Unfortunately, due to the flexible nature of the cooperation, it is impossible to define the time required to complete the project.

Dedicated team

A dedicated team guarantees productivity and high-quality results. In this type of agreement, the whole focus of the developers will be on your specific project and will be interested in lengthy and productive collaboration. The dedicated team agreement counts among the global outsourcing trends.

Furthermore, if you are working with a dedicated team, customers handle the development process on their own, assigning tasks and altering priorities. The outsourcing firm can only help with some organizational moments, but the entire process is with the owner of the product. It is mostly preferred for long-term and complicated projects as it will result in time and money expenditure on employing skilled staff and supplying them with the necessary tools.

Incentive-based Pricing

You can always choose to go for incentive-based pricing models for your next IT outsourcing. It is often an add-on to the more traditional models mentioned above, incentive-based models involve bonus payments to the outsourced developer as a reward for meeting performance objectives above and beyond what is written in the contract agreement. Incentives can help make up for constraints in fixed-price or T&M models to ensure that the motivations of your partner remain in line with your own.

Adding complexity to your engagement model implies you will need to make sure that your partner delivers measurable advantages to your company. Many businesses end up paying partners for premium services that do not actually benefit them.

Shared Risk-Reward Pricing

Like the incentive-based model, this model contains a flat rate and maintain extra payments until your partner achieves particular goals. Here, however, customers and service suppliers generally share financing for the development of new products, enabling your partner to share in the incentives for a specified period of time. The Shared Risk-Reward Model promotes your partners to develop ideas that strengthen your business by sharing financial risk between both sides and, according to Gartner, assigning responsibilities to the partner mitigates some of the risks associated with new procedures, technology or models.

End Note

We’ve mentioned the most popular IT outsourcing engagement models; you can make use of any of them which fits best for your business. Remember, outsourcing is a partnership, and no party should enter into the debate trying to take advantage of the other. However, communicating your expectations obviously and selecting the right pricing model can go a long way to attaining success.

Technology greats of the Silicon Valley have apparently united to make WiFi connectivity easier and more effective in the future.

It’s reported that the group has come up with the inkling of a new WiFi bandwidth for 6GHz before the Federal Communications Commission.

The new WiFi band, it is thought, will bring new, unfailing connectivity for numerous types of devices including AR/VR headsets, smartphones, laptops, tablets and more.

“As detailed in the slide presentation, we explained that VLP operations in the 6 GHz band operating without Automated Frequency Coordination (“AFC”) at 14 dBm EIRP, or -5 dBm/MHz radiated Power Spectral Density (“PSD”), would present no real-world risk of harmful interference to licensed FS operations,” mentioned the accompanying letter sent to FCC Secretary  Marlene Dortch.

Apple and Google are supporting 6GHz WiFi because they can use it for their smartphones, AR/VR headset, virtual assistant-based car infotainment system, and other devices that can use the same band.

The advent of this new band may improve the use of 5tG connectivity in smartphones, which FCC is yet to confirm.

It’s also stated that this technology could also bring peer-to-peer connectivity between vehicles, which may help avoid crashes between self-driving cars in the future, a project on which Apple seems to be working on.

As for the calculation choices of delivery rates, it is possible to substitute or alter the default method price with the MageWorx extension. This allows you to overwrite the original shipping cost, surcharge the designated sum to the original value, or set a shipping discount by deducting from the rate of the method.

The Magento 2 module also allows changing default prices using fixed or percent amount of surcharge and discount.

Furthermore, the Magento 2 table rates module offers users with advanced conditions for configuring customized shipping rates. Using the extension settings, you can calculate the exact shipping cost based on the delivery address in accordance with the following parameters:

• Total weight or weight range of products in an order. 

• Order subtotal or cost range of items ordered.

• The number of products in order or quantity range of items.

As for the delivery destination, the module enables the targeting of a customer’s geographic location by specifying a postal or zip code in addition to choosing a shipping country and region. The feature of the Shipping Table Rates extension allows store owners to leverage advanced validation based on a specific postal code or postcode list, as well as the range of zip codes. Thus, you can activate shipping rates depending on the destination of the order, thus avoiding fees for correcting the delivery address and providing unique pricing for shipments to particular locations.

It is also important to note that in relation to numerical postal / zip codes prevalent in most countries, MageWorx Shipping Table Rates supports alphanumeric postcodes. This kind of codes is used in countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, and others. So, if you deliver your products to these locations, the Magento 2 module offers the necessary features to set the suitable zip code format.

Another useful feature of the Shipping Table Rates extension is the functionality of import/export. The module offers the capacity to readily transfer shipping-related data from other sources, such as from your other website. It allows you to handle and analyze all your shipping charges from one place conveniently and edit information manually when necessary. You can also import a CSV file with existing table rates and assign it to any shipping method or carrier depending on your business requirements.

Conclusion

MageWorx shipping suite is a robust Magento extension that offers an extensive set of tools to modify Magento 2 shipping integration options and create custom shipping, methods, and rates. MageWorx enables merchants to create custom shipping carriers. By using this module’s advanced shipping conditions, you can extend your delivery choices and limit specific shipping options as your business strategy needs. Thus, you can streamline Magento shipping extension management in your web store and provide more convenient delivery and reasonable shipping costs for your customers.

Dollar 1 billion has been invested by Microsoft in OpenAI, reaching a multiyear deal with the artificial intelligence research startup to mutually grow new supercomputing tech. OpenAI will run its services on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

Launched in 2015, San Francisco-based OpenAI has frequently highlighted its focus on the moral use of artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity.” Microsoft and OpenAI said that artificial intelligence should be used to resolve presently obdurate problems such as the global climate crisis.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement: “AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time and has the potential to help solve many of our world’s most pressing challenges.” “By bringing together OpenAI’s breakthrough technology with new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, our ambition is to democratize AI — while always keeping AI safety front and center — so everyone can benefit.”

OpenAI, which has a unique structure, is supported by leading tech leaders such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist, co-founder of PayPal and a Facebook board member. It began as a nonprofit but earlier this year, the nonprofit formed a for-profit company that the nonprofit’s board still controls.

The new partnership with Microsoft comes at a time when cloud services for OpenAI have allegedly become a noteworthy cost. Microsoft said that OpenAI has been an Azure customer since 2016.

Earlier this year OpenAI offered a glimpse into GPT-2, a AI-powered text generator that focuses on reading comprehension, answering questions and summarizing.

“We are in the process of porting our Rapid project to run on Azure,” an OpenAI representative said. “Rapid is a large-scale reinforcement learning software we’ve been developing for the last few years, and was used to train both our Dota agents and the robotic hand.”

In this blog post, we’ll offer you ways to improve the efficiency of your Magento store. Please note that it is important that you take a backup before you start working on your Magento website. Nothing is more frustrating than a broken site.

Eliminate unused extensions

To speed up Magento, it is best to remove unnecessary extensions rather than simply disabling them. If you disable an extension, it will still be in the database. It would not only improve the size of your database (DB), but it also contributes to DB’s reading time. So, keep your approach clear: DELETE it if you don’t need it. Once the unnecessary extension has been deleted, it will decrease the database reading time and help load the Magento admin panel quicker.

Delete inactive and outdated products

One should bear in mind that a fast store is a clean store. We can operationalize the front-end faster by caching and demonstrating only a limited set of products even if we have more than 10,000 items in the back-end, but we can’t escape their wrath. If the number of products continues to increase at the backend, your Magento admin panel may be slower, so it is best to remove unused products because each product would take some resources to slow Magento admin panel. Repeat this activity every few months to maintain the store’s speed.

Reindexing

Reindexing is one of the fundamental reason website administrators experience slow performance while saving a product. The Magento backend begins to reindex whenever you save a product, and since you have a lot of products, it will take some time to complete. This leads to unnecessary delays. Now, we can’t disable reindexing because keeping all products aligned is very important, but we can always disable auto-updates from the admin. Instead, reindexing can be scheduled via shell. Magento offers very powerful CLI tools, so why not use them.

This can be set up via CRON to run somewhere during off-peak times, so the load it causes does not impact visitors.

Tuning Up the Database

Database tuning plays a significant role in fine-tuning the performance of the Magento admin board and thus enhance the speed. You may need some expertise for this. It’s not that difficult either, though. You can simply use a tuner script. Once you have downloaded it, you can execute it. It will guide you on the things you need to do.

Clear the Cache

The cache is very essential as far as any web application is concerned, so a web server does not have to process the same request over and over again. A fair amount of memory and execution time can be saved by using the cache. However, if you don’t clean your cache containers carefully, this gets a little out of control. Magento has distinctive caching methods that use both disk and database to maintain everything clean. It is essential to avoid overloading of the cache folder.

There is another folder, i.e. session, along with cache, which also needs to be cleared. Just like the cache, you need to prevent it from expanding too much.

Sessions are stored in the database (DB) in some instances. You need to truncate the core session table from DB.

Cache tables in the database may also be challenging. So, keeping core cache_% table empty is a good idea. These tables can expand very fast. As a consequence, the database becomes bloated and the output slows down.

To make it simpler, here is a sample PHP script that can help you understand the above-mentioned actions.

Optimize Images

Images are a must-have asset for eCommerce businesses, but optimizing and compressing pictures is of utmost significance as it has a direct impact on page weight. The CDN support team at your eCommerce store can assist with this. Otherwise, you can go to the Google PageSpeed server extension.

Varnish for full page caching

Implementing Varnish cache is an essential element of your Magento 2 load time optimization method as it can speed up your mobile web loading acceleration more than 25x.

Varnish cache is a fast cache technology that functions as a temporary storage unit which makes a copy of your eCommerce store’s web pages. When a request is sent to make a web page, the application is first directed to the Varnish server. Rendering pages from the Varnish server requires only a few milliseconds, which considerably decreases the load time (time varies depending on the hardware capacity).

Varnish cache can be used as a mechanism for failover, caching inverse HTTP proxy, or load balancer. Using Varnish cache, you can decrease the number of web servers you depend on to support your website and accelerate response time.

All these aforementioned steps are an apt guide on how to optimize the performance of your Magento 2 eCommerce.

Magento 2 Performance Optimization

Identifying and solving bottlenecks will create an enormous difference in the processing of your data. Using full-page cache and varnish will also enhance the speed of your website and boost HTTP traffic. You should always use Magento on your live server’s production mode, no excuses. Use minification to reduce the size of CSS and JS files, a smaller file will both download quicker and use less bandwidth.

Allow flat tables to minimize requests for databases and enhance response time for databases. Use Magento 2 speed optimization extension, optimize your images and, if possible, use a CDN. Set indexers to be updated on the schedule and allow Magento CRON.

Although the project was reported to have stopped late last year, there were rumors that it still remained active.

Google executive Karan Bhatia said: “We have terminated Project Dragonfly.” A spokesman for the company later verified that Google was not considering launching search in China with no work being done in that regard.

Google’s model Chinese search engine had previously been branded “disturbing” by one former employee.

Dragonfly had drawn censure as a possible means through which Chinese authorities could expurgate web content and screen citizens’ behavior online.

In late 2018, Google appeared disinclined to confirm that the development of the search engine had been totally stopped, notwithstanding rising pressure on the firm.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai told the US House Judiciary Committee in December that work on Dragonfly at that point was “limited”.

As per documents secured by investigative news site The Intercept, Dragonfly was launched as a company project in the spring of 2017.

You must be confused about choosing a fixed price or hourly rate to pay developers. You can employ the finest mobile app development company that can make your dream come true.

Certainly, pricing is the primary thing to decide before continuing with stuff as far as food delivery applications are concerned. Any restaurant android app development cost will greatly depend on the specifications it has. Also, development partner will also impact your mobile application development costs.

These are the variables that influence pricing while creating a mobile app. Here are the significant factors that influence the price of developing mobile apps. You have to keep these points in mind while building a mobile application.

Device and the Operating System

Developing an app for a particular operating system will lower the cost. The app-building system Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) will greatly impact pricing. You have to develop an app that operates perfectly across different operating systems and consumes a fortune.

Native or Web app

This is one of the main constraints. The native app is OS-centric and costs a little bit more but offers incredible customer experience. While the web app is accessible at a cheaper price, the user experience is not as pleasant as the native app. You can first opt for a web app and then switch to the native one if you’re on a tight budget.

User Authorization

There are some applications that require user authentication or authorization. Such applications will cost a little more than the usual amount. It relies entirely on your requirement to go with such apps or not.

App Distribution

Official distribution channels like the Google Play store will charge $100 as the price of licensing developers. You have to be prepared to pay that amount because it’s something you can’t avoid. Before deploying it, the hosting company will check whether the applications fulfill all the demands or not.

Add-ons like integration with social media applications, buying in-app will cost you a little more.

Define Your Target Audience

Although, nowadays apps are used by majority 9of the people since everyone loves doing everything while staying in their comfort zones but usually, apps usage is seen among individuals having a busy lifestyle. Whether they are professionals, students, working-class. So keep them as your primary target.

It is always smart to do your research first. So, before you set out to make your product, study your competitors, check on their weaknesses. Also, observe what makes their apps a success. But remember, food delivery applications are not about being copycats, but rather about innovating. Do research beforehand so that you don’t have to make any modifications later on. See their features, the services they provide, and what makes them different from others when it comes to designing food apps. For example, if you are looking for a sample business plan for tiffin services, you need to understand the magnitude of the online food ordering system project.

Features of a Good Food Delivery App

People who order from delivery apps look to be in their comfort zone, so your app requires to be easy to navigate and easy to customize according to user needs. A sleek design and an introductory tour that can help people find their way the first time around for your food apps helps.

We have listed some of the primary features for your food app development experts that you should remember to include other than those you already have in your mind.

Order Placement with Custom Search Tool

This method should be fast and straightforward. Moreover, the app should provide an opportunity to specify any meal’s content. People may have distinct food preferences and intolerances, so offer them the possibility to customize a meal. A list of search categories and customization options will make the ordering process much more convenient.

Geolocation

A helpful function for both the customer and the delivery staff. It enables clients to find neighboring restaurants and at the same time makes the logistics system clearer for carriers.

Tracking Option

Every customer likes to monitor the delivery process, so you need to provide this choice. Moreover, such data is also helpful for restaurants as it helps them evaluate the preparation process.

Payment Choices

Keep in mind that people want to have preferences for payment systems as well, so your app has to provide several alternatives (internet payment options or cash on delivery, etc.).

Feedback

Customers must be able to write a review on a restaurant or meal. It encourages you to discover weak points in your services.

Notifications

Another important feature of any successful app. Inform your customers about their order status, inform them about discounts, and remind them to order a meal if they’re busy.

Social Media Integration

People like to share their experiences with others, so offer them the ability to do so. In return, you will gain more popularity and increase your audience.

Offer Rewards

Incentives such as loyalty schemes, discounts and coupons will bring more customers to your business.

Cross-Interface Options

This is important for restaurant executives and couriers both. The app should provide a feature to manage orders, update information and interact with other stakeholders.

Order History

Any person should be able to check prior orders. Here the reorder choice can be very useful. At the same time, restaurants must have access to order history as it is important information for analytics.

We’ve described some of the most important features for a food delivery app. Your food delivery app may also have some other features or functionalities which will make it exclusive.

Something really exciting is going on at Google. For the third time in just one week, Google has once again updated its search ranking algorithm, with many of the tools showing enormous variations in the Google rankings.

Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld, who termed this update as “Update Maverick”, said it was named in honor of yesterday’s Top Gun trailer release, as this update appears slightly furtive and detailed. Nevertheless, all the key algorithm tools are reporting an update has happened.

Bret said that he is not a huge fan of naming an update for a movie, and would have preferred something around the 50th anniversary of the moon landing but “Google had their opportunity to name it and they didn’t get back to me after numerous attempts.”

Some of the tools realtime screenshots:

Source: https://algoroo.com

Source: https://www.advancedwebranking.com/google-algorithm-changes

Source: https://www.semrush.com/sensor

Source: https://serpmetrics.com/flux