Tech Guides - Mobile

Hybrid mobile apps have been around for quite some time now, but advances in mobile development software and changes in user behavior have allowed it to grow. Today, users expect hybrid apps, even if they wouldn’t know what a ‘hybrid app’ actually is. What is a Hybrid mobile app? A Hybrid app is essentially a web application that acts like a native app. Or a native app that acts like a web application. That means it can do everything HTML5 does while also incorporating native app features, like access to a phone’s camera. Hybrid mobile apps consist of two parts. The first is the back-end code built using languages such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The second is a native shell that loads the code using Webview. Advantages of hybrid mobile apps Hybrid apps are much easier to build than native apps. This is because they are built using HTML, CSS, and Javascript - software that typically runs in the browser. They also have a faster development cycle than native apps because you only have a JavaScript codebase. It is, however, important to note that hybrid mobile apps require third-party tools such as Apache Cordova to ease communication between the web view and the native platform. Noteworthy Hybrid apps include MarketWatch, Untappd, Sworkit etc. Hybrid mobile apps can run on both Android and iOS devices (the two most prominent OS). This is great for developers as it means less work for them - code can be reused for progressive web applications and desktop applications with minor tweaking. Disadvantages of hybrid mobile apps Although they’re extremely versatile, hybrid apps have certain disadvantages. They’re often a little more expensive than standard web apps because you have to work with the native wrapper. It’s also sometimes a disadvantage to be dependent on a third-party platform. Compared to native apps, hybrid apps aren’t quite as interactive and often a bit slower. Of course, the app is dependent on resources from the web. Hybrid mobile apps also generally have a standard template. Any customization you want to do in your application will take you away from the hybrid model. If this is the case, you may as well go native. Hybrid mobile app frameworks There are a good range of hybrid mobile application frameworks out there for mobile developers at the moment. Let’s take a look at some of the best. React Native Facebook’s React Native is a mobile framework for implementing a single code multiple times. It compiles to native mobile app components to build native mobile applications (iOS, Android, and Windows) in JavaScript. React Native’s library includes Flexbox CSS styling, inline styling, debugging, and supports deploying to either the App Store or Google Play. Ionic Ionic Framework is an open-source SDK for hybrid mobile app development, licensed under MIT. It is built on top of Angular.js and Apache Cordova.  Ionic provides tools and services for developing hybrid mobile apps using Web technologies like CSS, HTML5, and Sass. Apps build using Ionic can be distributed through native app stores to be installed on devices by using Cordova. Xamarin Microsoft’s Xamarin Hybrid development platform allows developers to code in C# many platforms in C#. Developers can use Xamarin tools to write native Android, iOS, and Windows apps with a C#-shared codebase, and share code across multiple platforms. PhoneGap Adobe PhoneGap framework is an open source distribution of Apache Cordova framework. With PhoneGap, hybrid applications are built with HTML5 and CSS3 (for rendering), and JavaScript (for logic) to be used across multiple platforms. Hybrid mobile apps are great for users Hybrid mobile apps are particularly effective when you want to build and deploy an app more efficiently. They are also useful for building prototype applications. However, the key thing to remember about hybrid mobile apps is that many users today expect the type of experience they deliver. The old distinction between browser and native experiences has almost disappeared. A well-written hybrid app does not behave or look any different than its native equivalent and that, really, is what users want. Also, check out React Native Cookbook React and React Native Learning Ionic - Second Edition Ionic 2 Cookbook - Second Edition Mastering Xamarin UI Development

Mobile has become an increasingly important part of many modern businesses tech strategy. In everything from eCommerce to financial services, mobile applications aren’t simply a ‘nice to have’, they’re essential. Customers expect them. The most difficult question today isn’t ‘do we need a mobile app’ Instead, it’s ‘which type of mobile app should we build: native vs cross platform?’ There are arguments to be made for cross platform mobile development and native app development. Developers who have worked on either project will probably have an opinion on the right way to go. Like many things in tech, however, the cross platform v native debate is really a question of which one is right for you. From both a business and capability perspective, you need to understand what you want to achieve and when. Let’s take a look at the difference between cross-platform framework or a native development platforms. You should then feel comfortable enough to make the right decision about which mobile platform is right for you. Cross platform development? A cross platform application runs across all mobile operating systems without any extra coding. By all mobile operating systems, I mean iOS and Android (windows phones are probably on their way out). A cross platform framework provides all the tools to help you create cross-platform apps easily. Some of the most popular cross- platform frameworks include: Xamarin Corona SDK appcelerator titanium PhoneGap Hybrid mobile apps One specific form of cross-platform mobile  application is Hybrid. With hybrid mobile apps, the graphical user interface (GUI) is developed using HTML5. These are then wrapped in native webpack containers and deployed on iOS and Android devices. A native app is specifically designed for one particular operating system. This means it will work better in that specific environment than one created for multiple platforms. One of the latest native android development framework is Google Flutter. For iOS, it’s Xcode.. Native mobile development vs Cross platform development If you’re a mobile developer, which is better? Let’s compare cross platform development with mobile development: Cross-platform development is more cost effective. This is simply because you can reuse 80% of your code becase you’re essentially building one application. The cost of native development is roughly double to that of Cross-platform development, although cost of android development is roughly 30% more than iOS development. Cross-platform development takes less time. Although some coding has to be done natively, the time taken to develop one app is, obviously, less than to develop two. Native apps can use all system resources. No other app can have any additional features . They are able to use the maximum computing power provided by the GPU and CPU; this means that load times are often pretty fast.. Cross platform apps have restricted access to system resources. Their access is dependent on framework plugins and permissions. Hybrid apps usually take more time to loadbecause smartphone GPUs are generallyless powerful than other machines. Consequently, unpacking a HTML5 UI takes more time on a mobile device. The same reason forced Facebook to shift their mobile apps from Hybrid to Native which according to facebook, improved their app load time and loading of newsfeed and images in the app. The most common challenge with about cross-platform mobile development is been balancing the requirements of iOS and Android UX design. iOS is quite strict about their UX and UI design formats. That increases the chances of rejection from the app store and causes more recurring cost. A critical aspect of Native mobile apps is that if they are designed properly and properly synchronized with the OS, they get regular software updates. That can be quite a difficult task for cross-platform apps. Finally, the most important consideration that should determine your choice are your (or the customer’s) requirements. If you want to build a brand around your app, like a business or an institution, or your app is going to need a lot of GPU support like a game, then native is the way to go. But if your requirement is simply to create awareness and spread information about an existing brand or business on a limited budget then cross-platform is probably the best route to go down. How to integrate Firebase with NativeScript for cross-platform app development Xamarin Forms 3, the popular cross-platform UI Toolkit, is here! A cross-platform solution with Xamarin.Forms and MVVM architecture  

If you look at the current trends in the mobile market space, a lot of mobile phone manufacturers portray artificial intelligence as the chief feature in their mobile phones. The total number of developers who build for mobile is expected to hit 14m mark by 2020, according to Evans Data survey. With this level of competition, developers have resorted to Artificial Intelligence to distinguish their app, or to make their mobile device stand out. AI on Mobile is the next big thing. AI on Mobile can be incorporated in multiple forms. This may include hardware, such as AI chips as seen on Apple’s iPhone X or software-based, such as Google’s TensorFlow for Mobile. Let’s look in detail how smartphone manufacturers and mobile developers are leveraging the power of AI for Mobile for both hardware and software specifications. Embedded chips and In-device AI Mobile Handsets nowadays are equipped with specialized AI chips. These chips are embedded alongside CPUs to handle heavy lifting tasks in smartphones to bring AI on Mobile. These built-in AI engines can not only respond to your commands but also lead the way and make decisions about what it believes is best for you. So, when you take a picture, the smartphone software, leveraging the power of AI hardware correctly identifies the person, object, or location being photographed and also compensates for low-resolution images by predicting the pixels that are missing. When we talk about battery life, AI allocates power to relevant functions eliminating unnecessary use of power. Also, in-device AI reduces data-processing dependency on cloud-based AI, saving both energy, time and associated costs. The past few months have seen a large number of AI-based silicon popping everywhere. The trend first began with Apple’s neural engine, a part of the new A11 processor Apple developed to power the iPhone X.  This neural engine powers the machine learning algorithms that recognize faces and transfer facial expressions onto animated emoji. Competing head first with Apple, Samsung revealed the Exynos 9 Series 9810. The chip features an upgraded processor with neural network capacity for AI-powered apps. Huawei also joined the party with Kirin 970 processor, a dedicated Neural Network Processing Unit (NPU) which was able to process 2,000 images per minute in a benchmark image recognition test. Google announced the open beta of its Tensor Processing Unit 2nd Gen. ARM announced its own AI hardware called Project Trillium, a mobile machine learning processor.  Amazon is also working on a dedicated AI chip for its Echo smart speaker. Google Pixel 2 features a Visual Core co-processor for AI. It offers an AI song recognizer, superior imaging capabilities, and even helps the Google Assistant understand the user commands/questions better. The arrival of AI APIs for Mobile Apart from in-device hardware, smartphones also have witnessed the arrival of Artificially intelligent APIs. These APIs add more power to a smartphone’s capabilities by offering personalization, efficient searching, accurate video and image recognition, and advanced data mining. Let’s look at a few powerful machine learning APIs and libraries targeted solely to Mobile devices. It all began with Facebook announcing Caffe2Go in 2016. This Caffe version was designed for running deep learning models on mobile devices. It condensed the size of image and video processing AI models by 100x, to run neural networks with high efficiency on both iOS and Android. Caffe2Go became the core of Style Transfer, Facebook’s real-time photo stylization tool. Then came Google’s TensorFlow Lite in 2017 announced at the Google I/O conference. Tensorflow Lite is a feather-light upshot for mobile and embedded devices. It is designed to be Lightweight, Speedy, and Cross-platform (the runtime is tailormade to run on various platforms–starting with Android and iOS.) TensorFlow Lite also supports the Android Neural Networks API, which can run computationally intensive operations for machine learning on mobile devices. Following TensorFlow Lite came Apple’s CoreML, a programming framework designed to make it easier to run machine learning models on iOS. Core ML supports Vision for image analysis, Foundation for natural language processing, and GameplayKit for evaluating learned decision trees. CoreML makes it easier for apps to process data locally using machine learning without sending user information to the cloud. It also optimizes models for Apple mobile devices, reducing RAM and power consumption. Artificial Intelligence is finding its way into every aspect of a mobile device, whether it be through hardware with dedicated AI chips or through APIs for running AI-enabled services on hand-held devices. And this is just the beginning. In the near future, AI on Mobile would play a decisive role in driving smartphone innovation possibly being the only distinguishing factor consumers think of while buying a mobile device.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when we say “mobile app”? If you are a user, you are probably thinking of, it is something that’s convenient, and eases your life. However, in a business context, an idea that can be converted into an app model and helps boost your profitability. When successful entrepreneurs launch their original idea, they do not just design and develop it for the market; they research, understand the market minutely and more importantly study the users in-depth. One part that leads you to success is the complete understanding of the user. Here, we will try to understand why user behavior analysis is important and how you can best deliver it. Why analyze user behavior? Instead of asking this question, let’s ask the most important question- who are you designing the app for? The users of the app will be members of the target audience, and technically it is for them that you are planning the app layout and coding the all new idea for. In this case, you need to ensure it is usable for them, and they find the app convenient. You need to understand every aspect of user behavior, ranging from an understanding of how they use the app to what engages them. Analysis of user behavior will help you design the UX accordingly, and allows you to deliver effective app solutions. For this, we need to identify the different ways in which you can identify user behavior and what you need to consider, in order to deliver a perfect app solution. 4 Effective ways to analyze user behavior data Here’re four effective ways that will help you to analyze user behavior data to design and develop a mobile app accordingly. The app goal: Whenever the user uses an app, they do it with a specific goal in mind. For instance, when you use Uber, you are choosing travel convenience and avoiding haggling with the driver over the fare. The Uber app allows its users to book their ride with ease and know the amount for the ride beforehand. When you are designing for the user, you need to understand the goal they are attempting to achieve with the app, and how best you can help them achieve it, in the simplest way possible. The mobile usage: While designing an app for the users, you need to understand how they use the mobile phone. What is most convenient for them? For instance, 79% people use their left hand instead of the right hand to cradle their phone or use the apps. Have you considered them while designing the app? Most people prefer the portrait mode for certain apps; however, when they are viewing videos, they prefer to hold it in the landscape mode. If your app does not change the view according to the preferences stated, then you are likely to lose out on the customers. Do users use the thumb to access the buttons on the screen or, do they use their finger? How do they navigate through the screens? Do they hold the phone in one hand or cradle the phone? When you are able to answer these questions, then you have nailed the design strategy You would know just where to place the buttons and how to design the interaction? There are places within the mobile screen which have been marked as inaccessible. If you place the buttons or other clickable elements in that part of the screen, then you are halting the access to the mobile app. Acknowledge feedback: What do users like the most about the mobile app in general, and what are the aspects that frustrate them? For instance, there are mobile app designs that don’t connect well with the user. An app that takes more than 3 seconds to load can be frustrating. If the images don’t load faster, then the app can be discarded immediately. This is true for e-commerce apps, as there are lots of images, and people tend to expect an immediate response from these apps. When the users give you their feedback, make sure you incorporate that into the app. The motivations: Finally, you need to take into account the motivations of the user towards using the app and completing an action. What makes them want to click on the buy now or, the action button in your app? Study your users. For some users, safety plays the predominant motivator while for others, the motivation factor is the value for money the app delivers. Along with the motivators, there are barriers too, which you need to consider in order to design the best user-centric app for the business idea. After identifying different ways to identify user behavior, now, let’s talk about two simple methods that can be used to analyze user behavior data: Questionnaire: Prepare a questionnaire including questions like what do you like the best about our app? Which other apps would you use as our alternative? What do you want us to improve? The questions are endless, but make sure these questions give you insights on your users. Spread this questionnaire among a group of people and based on their answers, you can drive user-behavior data and develop a mobile app accordingly. Mobile App Analytics Platforms: Another method is mobile app analytics platforms. Prepare navigation flow, a flowchart of all the app screens, to submit it on mobile app analytics platforms and identify how users are going from one screen to another. Through this navigation flow of your app, you can identify how users are interacting with screens and how they move through your app. This data will help you to know user behavior. This data helps you make data-driven changes. Conclusion Analyzing user behavior always must be a high priority for businesses who want to make a successful app and grow over time. When it comes to analyzing user behavior, top companies and brands like Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Starbucks are using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to provide a personalized experience to their users. Through AI and machine learning, businesses will learn about customer or user behaviors on a deeper level and get help in delivering a better application. The possibilities are endless. The point is - are you utilizing already existing data to optimize the overall process? Author Bio Yuvrajsinh is a Marketing Manager at Space-O Technologies, a firm having expertise in developing Uber-like apps. He spends most of his time researching on the mobile app and startup trends. He is a regular contributor to popular publications like Entrepreneur, Yourstory, and Upwork. If you have any confusion, or question, or need any consultation regarding the mobile app development process, feel free to contact him. 5 UX design tips for building a great e-commerce mobile app 4 key benefits of using Firebase for mobile app development 9 reasons to choose Agile Methodology for Mobile App Development  

Emerging technologies not only change the way users interact with their devices but they also improve the development process. One such tech where most features emerge is Google’s Android. The Android App Development platform is coming up with new features every year at a neck-breaking pace These are some of the safest Android predictions which can be made for Android development in the year 2019. #1 Voice Command and Virtual Assistants Voice command simply dictates the user’s voice into an electronic word processed document which allows users to operate the system by talking to it and also frees up cognitive working space. It also has some potential drawbacks - it requires a large amount of memory to store voice data files and is difficult to operate in crowded places due to noise interference. What does it have in store for 2019? In 2019, voice search is going to create a new user interface that would be a mandate to take into consideration when developing and designing applications in mobile apps. Voice Assistants are gaining much popularity and we can see every big player has the one such as Siri, Google Assistant, Bixby, Alexa, Cortana. This will continue to grow in 2019. Use Case App: Pingpong Board The use case for voice assistants is to create an application similar to the Ping Pong board. Inside the application, there are two screens: the First screen shows available players with the leaderboard and scores and the second screen displays two players who are playing the game along with their game points. #2 Chatbots Chatbots are trending as they support faster customer service at low labor costs by increasing customer satisfaction. However, simple chatbots are often limited to give a response to the customers which could frustrate them whereas complex chatbots cost more, inhibiting their widespread adoption. What Next? As per the technology experts, it is predicted the whole world is going to introduce their company by Chatbots. The customer support service will be provided efficiently and the customer feedbacks will also be responded quicker to get the better results. Chatbots are a takeaway in this digital world as every application or website wants to provide this facility for the improvised customer support. Chatbots can be taken as the small assistants which are integrated into our applications. We can create our one with the help of DialogFlow which is easy to develop without much coding. Nowadays, facebook messenger is used in spite of being a messaging app as many of the chatbots are integrated into it. Use Case: Allstate chatbot The largest P&C insurer in America developed its own 'ABle' chatbot to help their agents learn to sell commercial insurance products. The bot teaches agents through the commercial selling process and can extract documents and also understands which product an agent is working on and where are they in the process. #3 Virtual and Augmented Reality Augmented Reality systems are highly interactive in nature and operate simultaneously with the real-time environment by reducing the thin line between real and virtual world; enhancing the perceptions and interactions with the real world. It is expensive to develop AR based devices for the desired projects, lack privacy and low-performance level are few drawbacks for the AR compliant devices. What next? The hardware for VR is initially driven by the hardcore games and gadget freaks where the mobile hardware is been caught up in some instances excluding the traditional computing platforms. For the real-world uses with Augmented Reality and sensor into the mobile devices like never before, AR and VR are combined to get much better visibility of applications which seems that virtual reality revolution is finally arriving. Use Case App: MarXent + AR AR is helping professionals to visualize their final products during the creative process from interior design to architecture and construction. By using the headsets enabled by architects, engineers, and design professionals can step directly into their buildings and spaces to look at how their designs might look and can even make virtual spot changes. #4 Android App Architecture Google has finally introduced guidelines after many years to develop the best Android apps. Even you are not forced to use Android architecture components but it is considered a good starting point to build stable applications. The argument about the best pattern for Android - MVC, MVP, MVVM or anything else has turned off and we can trust the solutions from Google which are good enough for all majority of apps. What next? The developers always face confusion implementing the multithreading on Android and to solve these problems, tools like Async Task and EventBus are supporting it. Also, we can choose RxJava, Kotlin Coroutines or Android LiveData for multithreading management. This fetches more stability and less confusion in the developer community. Loads of applications are installed on our mobile devices but we hardly use some of them. For this, Progressive WebApps are becoming popular in e-commerce. #5 Hybrid Solutions Big companies like Facebook is leading in utilizing the cross platforms for most of the part, it is a pragmatic approach where the larger the audience the bigger the market share for advertising and subscription revenues. What Next? The hybrid mobile applications come with the unified development that can substantially save a good amount of money and provide fast deployment through offline support and bridges the gap between other two approaches providing all the extra functionality with very little overhead. The hybrid applications can possibly result in the loss of performance and make the developer rely on the framework itself to nicely play with the targeted operating system. So, escaping out of the traditional hardware and software solutions, the developers have approached the market aiming to offer a total solution or cross-platform solutions. #6 Machine Learning Google switched to AI first from mobile first strategy since some time. This is clearly seen in the TensorFlow and MLKit in the Firebase ecosystem which is gaining popularity for creating simple basic models that do not need expertise in data sciences to make your application intelligent. People are getting more aware of the capabilities of machine learning along with its implementation in Matlab or R for mobile development. What next? Machine learning is used in a variety of applications for banking and financial sector, healthcare, retail, publishing and social media etc. Also, used by Google and Facebook to push down relevant advertisements based on past user search. The major challenge is to implement machine learning by implementing different techniques and interpretation of results which is also complex but important not only for image and speech recognition but also for user behavior prediction and analysis. Machine learning will be utilized in the future for Quantum computing to manipulate and classify large numbers of vectors in high-dimensional spaces. We expect to have better-unsupervised algorithms in building smarter applications that will lead to faster and more accurate outcomes. #7 Rooting Android Rooting Android means to get root access or administrative rights for your device. No matter how much you pay for your device the internals of the device is still locked away. With the help of Rooting Android, several advantages are offered of removing the pre-installed OEM applications, ad-blocking for all the apps which is a great benefit to the user. What next? As the rooting android installs the incompatible application on your device it can brick your device and it is advised to always get your apps from reliable sources. It does not come with a warranty and a wrong setting can move the wrong item which can cause huge problems. The risk with the rooted devices is that the system might not get well updated later which can create errors. Still, It also provides more display options and internal storage along with the greater battery life and speed. It will also make full device backups and have access to root files. Conclusion The year 2019 is going to very interesting for Android app development. We will observe a lot of new technologies emerging that will change the face of mobile development for future use. The developers need to stay up to date with the emerging trends and learn quickly to implement them in designing new products. We can definitely see a bright future by more good quality apps with even more engaging user interactions. We also expect to have more stable solutions to develop applications which result in better products. It becomes important to observe closely the new trends and become a quick learner in mastering these skills that will be the most important in the future. Author Bio Rooney Reeves is a content strategist and a technical blogger associated with eTatvaSoft. An old hand writer by day and an avid reader by night, she has a vast experience in writing about new products, software design, and test-driven methodology. Read Next 8 programming languages to learn in 2019 18 people in tech every programmer and software engineer need to follow in 2019 Cloud computing trends in 2019

Customer purchase does not necessarily depend on the need for the product; instead, it often depends on how well the product has been advertised. Most advertising companies target customer emotions and experiences to sell their product. However, with the increasing online awareness, intrusive ads and an oversaturated advertising space, customers rely more on online reviews before purchasing any product. Companies have to think out-of-the-box to get the customers engaged with their product! Augmented Reality can help companies fetch their audience back by creating an interactive buying experience on their device that converts their casual browsing activity into a successful purchase. It is estimated that there are around 4 billion users in the world who are actively engaged on the internet. This shows that over half of the world’s population is active online which means having an online platform will be beneficial, but there’s a large audience that requires engaging within the right way because it’s becoming the norm. For now, AR is still fairly new in the advertising world but it’s expected that by 2020, AR revenue will outweigh VR (Virtual Reality) by about $120 billion and it’s no surprise this is the case. Ways AR can benefit businesses There are many reasons why AR could be beneficial to a business: Creates Emotional Connection AR provides the platform for advertising companies to engage with their audiences in a unique way, using an immersive advertisement to create a connection that brings the consumers emotions into play. A memorable experience encourages them to make purchases because psychologically, it was an experience that they’ve had like no other and one they’re unlikely to get elsewhere. It can also help create exposure. Because of the excitement that users had, they’ll encourage others to try it too. Saves Money It’s amazing to think that such advanced technology can be cheaper than your traditional method of advertising. Print advertising can still be an extremely expensive method in many cases given that it is a high volume game and due to the costs of applying an ad on the front page of a publication. AR ads can vary depending on the quality but even some of the simplest forms of AR advertising can be affordable. Increases Sales Not only is AR a useful tool for promoting goods and services, but it also provides the opportunity to increase conversions. One issue that many customers have is whether the goods they are purchasing are right for them. AR removes this barrier and enables them to ‘try out’ the product before they purchase, making it more likely for the customer to buy. Examples of AR advertising Early adopters have already taken up the technology for showcasing their services and products. It’s not mainstream yet but as the above figures suggest, it won’t be long before AR becomes widespread. Here are a few examples of companies using AR technology in their marketing strategy. IKEA’s virtual furnitures IKEA is the famous Swedish home retailer who adopted the technology back in 2013 for their iOS app. Their idea allowed potential purchasers to scan their catalogue with their mobile phone and then browse their products through the app. When they selected something that they think might be suitable for their home they could see the virtual furniture through their app or tablet in their living space. This way customers could judge whether it was the right product or not. Pepsi Max’s Unbelievable Campaign Pepsi didn’t necessarily use the technology to promote their product directly but instead used it to create a buzz for the brand. They installed screens into an everyday bus shelter in London and used it to layer virtual images over a real-life camera. Audiences were able to interact with the video in the bus shelter through the camera that was installed on the bus shelter. The video currently has over 8 million views on Youtube and several shares have been made through social networks. Lacoste’s virtual trial room on a marker Lacoste launched an app that used marker-based AR technology where users were able to stand on a marker in the store that allowed them to try on different LCST branded trainers. As mentioned before, this would be a great way for users to try on their apparel before deciding whether to purchase it. Challenges businesses face with integrating AR into their advertising plan Although AR is an exciting prospect for businesses and many positives can be taken from implementing it into advertising plans, it has its fair share of challenges. Let’s take a brief look into what these could be. Mobile Application is required AR requires a specific type of application in order to work. For consumers to engage themselves within an AR world they’ll need to be able to download the specific app to their mobile first. This means that customers will find themselves downloading different applications for the companies that released their app. This is potentially one of the reasons why some companies have chosen not to invest in AR, yet. Solutions like augmented reality digital placement (ARDP) are in the process of resolving this problem. ARDP uses media-rich banners to bring AR to life in a consumer’s handheld device without having to download multiple apps. ARDP would require both AR and app developers to come together to make AR more accessible to users. Poor Hardware Specifications Similar to video and console games, the quality of graphics on an AR app greatly impacts the user experience. If you think of the power that console systems output, if a user was to come across a game they played that had poor graphics knowing the console's capabilities, they will be less likely to play it. In order for it to work, the handheld device would need enough hardware power to produce the ideal graphics. Phone companies such as Apple and Samsung have done this over time when they’ve released new phones. So in the near future, we should expect modern smartphones to produce top of the range AR. Complexity in the Development Phase Creating an AR advertisement requires a high level of expertise. Unless you have AR developers already in your in-house team, the development stage of the process may prove difficult for your business. There are AR software development toolkits available that have made the process easier but it still requires a good level of coding knowledge. If the resources aren’t available in-house, you can either seek help from app development companies that have AR software engineering experience or you could outsource the work through websites such as Elance, Upwork, and Guru. In short, the development process in ad creation requires a high level of coding knowledge. The increased awareness of the benefits of implementing AR advertising will alert developers everywhere and should be seen as a rising opportunity. We can expect an increase in demand for AR developers as those who have the expertise in the technology will be high on the agenda for many advertising companies and agencies who are looking to take advantage of the market to engage with their customers differently. For projects that involve AR development, augmented reality developers should be at the forefront of business creative teams, ensuring that the ideas that are created can be implemented correctly. [author title="About Jamie Costello"] Jamie Costello is a student and an aspiring freelance writer based in Manchester. His interests are to write about a variety of topics but his biggest passion concerns technology. He says, “When I'm not writing or studying, I enjoy swimming and playing games consoles”.[/author]   Read Next Adobe glides into Augmented Reality with Adobe Aero Understanding the hype behind Magic Leap’s New Augmented Reality Headsets Apple’s new ARKit 2.0 brings persistent AR, shared augmented reality experiences and more    

Immersive computing has been touted as a crucial innovation that is going to transform the way we interact with software in the future. But like every trend, there are a set of core technologies that lie at the center, helping to drive it forward. In the context of immersive computing Google ARCore is one of these technologies. Of course, it's no surprise to see Google somewhere at the heart of one of the most exciting developments in tech. But what is Google ARCore, exactly? And how is it going to help drive immersive computing into the mainstream? But first, let's take a look at exactly what immersive computing is. After that, we'll explore how Google ARCore is helping to drive it forward, and some examples of how to put it into practice with some motion tracking and light estimation projects. What is Immersive Computing? Immersive computing is a term used to describe applications that provide an immersive experience for the user. This may come in the form of an augmented or virtual reality experience. In order to better understand the spectrum of immersive computing, let's take a look at this diagram: The Immersive Computing Spectrum The preceding diagram illustrates how the level of immersion affects the user experience, with the left-hand side of the diagram representing more traditional applications with little or no immersion, and the right representing fully immersive virtual reality applications. For us, we will stay in the middle sweet spot and work on developing augmented reality applications. Why use Google ARCore for Augmented Reality? Augmented reality applications are unique in that they annotate or augment the reality of the user. This is typically done visually by having the AR app overlay a view of the real world with computer graphics. Google ARCore is designed primarily for providing this type of visual annotation for the user. An example of a demo ARCore application is shown here: The screenshot is even more impressive when you realize that it was rendered real time on a mobile device. It isn't the result of painstaking hours of using Photoshop or other media effects libraries. What you see in that image is the entire superposition of a virtual object, the lion, into the user's reality. More impressive still is the quality of immersion. Note the details, such as the lighting and shadows on the lion, the shadows on the ground, and the way the object maintains position in reality even though it isn't really there. Without those visual enhancements, all you would see is a floating lion superimposed on the screen. It is those visual details that provide the immersion. Google developed ARCore as a way to help developers incorporate those visual enhancements in building AR applications. Google developed ARCore for Android as a way to compete against Apple's ARKit for iOS. The fact that two of the biggest tech giants today are vying for position in AR indicates the push to build new and innovative immersive applications. Google ARCore has its origins in Tango, which is/was a more advanced AR toolkit that used special sensors built into the device. In order to make AR more accessible and mainstream, Google developed ARCore as an AR toolkit designed for Android devices not equipped with any special sensors. Where Tango depended on special sensors, ARCore uses software to try and accomplish the same core enhancements. For ARCore, Google has identified three core areas to address with this toolkit, and they are as follows: Motion tracking Environmental understanding Light estimation In the next three sections, we will go through each of those core areas in more detail and understand how they enhance the user experience. Motion tracking Tracking a user's motion and ultimately their position in 2D and 3D space is fundamental to any AR application. Google ARCore allows you to track position changes by identifying and tracking visual feature points from the device's camera image. An example of how this works is shown in this figure: In the figure, we can see how the user's position is tracked in relation to the feature points identified on the real couch. Previously, in order to successfully track motion (position), we needed to pre-register or pre-train our feature points. If you have ever used the Vuforia AR tools, you will be very familiar with having to train images or target markers. Now, ARCore does all this automatically for us, in real time, without any training. However, this tracking technology is very new and has several limitations. Environmental understanding The better an AR application understands the user's reality or the environment around them, the more successful the immersion. We already saw how Google ARCore uses feature identification in order to track a user's motion. Tracking motion is only the first part. What we need is a way to identify physical objects or surfaces in the user's reality. ARCore does this using a technique called meshing. This is what meshing looks like in action: What we see happening in the preceding image is an AR application that has identified a real-world surface through meshing. The plane is identified by the white dots. In the background, we can see how the user has already placed various virtual objects on the surface. Environmental understanding and meshing are essential for creating the illusion of blended realities. Where motion tracking uses identified features to track the user's position, environmental understanding uses meshing to track the virtual objects in the user's reality. Light estimation Magicians work to be masters of trickery and visual illusion. They understand that perspective and good lighting are everything in a great illusion, and, with developing great AR apps, this is no exception. Take a second and flip back to the scene with the virtual lion. Note the lighting and detail in the shadows on the lion and ground. Did you note that the lion is casting a shadow on the ground, even though it's not really there? That extra level of lighting detail is only made possible by combining the tracking of the user's position with the environmental understanding of the virtual object's position and a way to read light levels. Fortunately, Google ARCore provides us with a way to read or estimate the light in a scene. We can then use this lighting information in order to light and shadow virtual AR objects. Here's an image of an ARCore demo app showing subdued lighting on an AR object: The effects of lighting, or lack thereof, will become more obvious as we start developing our startup applications. To summarize, we took a very quick look at what immersive computing and AR is all about. We learned about augmented reality covering the middle ground of the immersive computing spectrum, and AR is a careful blend of illusions used to trick the user into believing that their reality has been combined with a virtual one. After all, Google developed ARCore as a way to provide a better set of tools for constructing those illusions and to keep Android competitive in the AR market. After that, we learned the core concepts ARCore was designed to address and looked at each: motion tracking, environmental understanding, and light estimation, in a little more detail. This has been taken from Learn ARCore - Fundamentals of Google ARCore. Find it here. Read More Getting started with building an ARCore application for Android Types of Augmented Reality targets  

Modern day web development is getting harder. Users are looking for relentless, responsive and reliable browsing. They want faster results and richer experiences. In addition to this, Modern apps need to be designed so as to support a large number of ecosystems from mobile web, desktop web, Native ioS, Native Android, Instant articles etc. Every new technology which launches has its own USP. The need for today is combining the features of the various popular mobile tech in the market and reaping their benefits as a combination. Acknowledging the standalones In a study by google it was found that “53% of mobile site visits are abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.” This calls for making page loads faster and effortless. A cure for this illness is in the form of AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages, the brainwork of Google and Twitter. They are blazingly fast web pages purely meant for readability and speed. Essentially they are HTML, most of CSS, but no JavaScript. So heavy duty things such as images are not loaded until they are scrolled into view. In AMPs, links are pre-rendered before you click on them. This is made possible using the AMP caching infrastructure. It automatically caches and calls on the content to be displayed atop the AMP and that is why it feels instant. Because the developers almost never write JavaScript, it leads to a cheap, yet fairly interactive deployment model. However, AMPs are useful for a narrow range of content. They have limited functionality. Users, on the other hand, are also looking for reliability and engagement. This called for the development of what is known as Progressive web apps. Proposed by Google in 2015, PWAs combine the best of mobile and web applications to offer users an enriching experience. Think of Progressive web apps as a website that acts and feels like a complete app. Once the user starts exploring the app within the browser, it progressively becomes smarter, faster and makes user experience richer.  Application Shell Architecture and Service Workers are two core drivers that enable PWA to offer speed and functionality. Key benefits that PWA offers over traditional mobile sites include push notifications, highly responsive UI, all types of hardware access which includes access to camera & microphones, and low data usage to name a few. The concoction: PWA + AMP AMPs are fast and easy to deploy. PWAs are engaging and reliable. AMPs are effortless, more retentive and instant. PWAs supports dynamic content, provides push notifications and web manifests. AMPs work on user acquisition. PWAs enhance user experiences. They seemingly work perfectly well on different levels. But users want to Start quick and Stay quick. They want the content they view to make the first hop blazingly fast, but then provide richer pages by amazing reliability and engagement. This called for combining the features of both into one and this was how Progressive web AMPs was born. PWAMP, as the developers call it, combines the capabilities of native app ecosystem with the reach of the mobile Web. Let us look at how exactly it functions and does the needful. The Best of Both Worlds: Reaping benefits of both AMPs fall back when you have dynamic content. Lack of JavaScript means dynamic functionality such as Payments, or push notifications are unavailable. PWA, on the other hand, can never be as fast as an AMP on the first click. Progressive Web AMPs combines the best features of both by making the first click super fast and then rendering subsequent PWA pages/content. So AMP opens a webpage in the blink of an eye with zero time lag and then the subsequent swift transition to PWA leads to beautiful results with dynamic functionalities. So it starts fast and builds up as users browse further. Now, this merger is made possible using three different ways. AMP as PWA: AMP pages in combination with PWA features This involves enabling PWA features in AMP pages. The user clicks on the link, it boots up fast and you see an AMP page which loads from the AMP cache. On clicking subsequent links, the user moves away from AMP cache to the site’s domain(origin). The website continues using the AMP library, but because it is supported on origin now, service workers become active, making it possible to prompt users (by web manifests) to install a PWA version of their website for a progressive experience. AMP to PWA: AMP pages utilized for a smooth transition to PWA features In PWAs the service workers and app shells kick in only after the second step. Hence AMPs can be a perfect entry point for your apps whereas the user discovers content at fast rates with AMP pages, the service worker of the PWA installs in the background and the user is instantly upgraded to PWA in subsequent clicks which can add push notifications, add reminders, web manifests etc. So basically the next click is also going to be instant. AMP in PWA: AMP as a data source for PWA AMPs are easy and safe to embed. As they are self-contained units, they are easily embeddable in websites. Hence they can be utilized as a data source for PWAs.  AMPs make use of Shadow AMP, which can be introduced in your PWA. This AMP library, loads in the top level page. It can amplify the portions in the content as decided by the developer and connect to a whole load of documents for rendering them out. As the AMP library is compiled and loaded only once for, the entire PWA, it would, in turn, reduce backend implementations and client complexity. How are they used in the real world scenario: Shopping PWAMP offers a high engagement feature to the shoppers. Because AMP sites are automatically kept at the top by Google search engines, AMP attracts the customers to your sites by the faster discovery of the apps. The PWA keeps them thereby allowing a rich, immersive, and app-like shopping experience that keeps the shoppers engaged. Lancôme, the L’Oréal Paris cosmetics brand is soon combining AMP with their existing PWA. Their PWA had led to a 17% year over year increase in the mobile sales. With the addition of AMP, they aim to build lightweight mobile pages that load as fast as possible on smartphones to make the site faster and more engaging. Travel PWAMP features allow users to browse through a list of hotels which instantly loads up at the first click. The customer may then book a hotel of his choice in the subsequent click which upgrades him to the PWA experience. Wego, is a Singapore-based travel service. Its PWAMP has achieved a load time for new users at 1.6 seconds and 1 second for returning customers. This has helped to increase site visits by 26%, reduce bounce rates by 20% and increase conversions by 95%, since its launch. News and Media Progressive Web AMPs are also highly useful in the news apps. As the user engages with content using AMP, PWA downloads in the background creating frictionless, uninterrupted reading. Washington Post has come up with one such app where users can experience the Progressive Web App when reading an AMP article and clicking through to the PWA link when it appears in the menu. In addition, their PWA icon can be added to a user’s home screen through the phone’s browser. All the above examples showcase how the concoction proves to always be fast no matter what. Progressive Web AMPs are progressively enhanced with just one backend-the AMP to rule them all meaning that deploy targets are reduced considerably. So all ecosystems namely web, Android, and iOS are supported with just thin layers of extra code. Thus making them highly beneficial in cases of constrained engineering resources or reduced infrastructure complexity. In addition to this, Progressive Web AMPs are highly useful when a site has a lot of static content on individual pages, such as travel, media, news etc. All these statements assert the fact that PWAMP has the power to provide a full mobile web experience with an artful and strategic combination of the AMP and PWA technologies. To know more about how to build your own Progressive Web AMPs, you can visit the official developer’s website. Top frameworks for building your Progressive Web Apps (PWA) 5 reasons why your next app should be a PWA (progressive web app) Build powerful progressive web apps with Firebase

We've been joking for years that in the future we'll be ruled by Android Overlords - we just didn't think it would be an operating system. In 2015, it's predicted that Android shipped over one billion devices - a share of the mobile market equating to almost 80%. In our 2015 Skill Up survey, we also discovered that Android developers were by far the highest paid of mobile application developers. Android dominates our present - so why is it likely going to be vital to the world of tomorrow too? IoT Will Run On Android (Probably) Ask any group of developers what the Next Big Thing will be, and I bet you that more than one of them is going to say Internet of Things. In 2015, Google announced Android stepping into the ring of IoT operating systems when it showed us Brillo. Based on the Android kernal but 'scrubbed down by a Brillo pad', Brillo offers the possibility of a Google-backed cohesive platform for IoT - something potentially vital to a tech innovation increasingly marred by small companies attempting to blaze their own trail off in different directions. If IoT needs to be standardized, what better solution than with Android, the operating system that's already the go-to choice for open-source mobile devices? We've already got Smart Fridges running on Android, smart cars running on Android, and tons of smart-watches running on Android - the rest of the Internet of Things is likely just around the corner. Android is Colonizing Desktop Microsoft is still the King of Desktop, and Windows isn't going anywhere any time soon. However, its attempts to enter the mobile space have been miserable-at-best - a 2.8% share of the mobile market in 2015. What has been more successful is the idea of hybridizing the desktop and the mobile, in particular with the successful line of Surface laptops-come-tablets. But is the reverse likely to happen? Just like we're seeing Android moving from being a mobile OS to being used for IoT, we're also seeing the rise of ideas of Android Desktop. The Remix OS for PC operating system is created by former Google developers, and promises an "Android for PC" experience. Google-proper's own experiments in desktop are currently all based on the Chrome OS - which is growing fast in its market share, particularly among the education and student sectors. I'm an enthusiastic Chromebook owner and user, and when it falls short of meeting the full requirements of a major desktop OS, I'll often turn to my Android device to bridge the gap. According to the Wall Street journal, Google may be thinking similar and is considering folding Chrome OS and Android into one product. Consider the general praise that Microsoft received for Windows 10 mobile, and the successful unification of their platforms under a single OS. It's easy to imagine the integration of Google's mobile and desktop projects into a similar single user experience - and that this hybrid-Android would make a serious impact in the marketplace. For Apple, the Only Way Is Down Apple has banked on being the market in luxury for its mobile devices - and that might spell its doom. The pool of new buyers in the smartphone market is shrinking, and those late adopters are more likely to be price-conscious and enamored with the cheaper options available on Android. (After all, if your grandmother still complains about how much milk costs these days, is she really going to want to shell out $650 for an iPhone?) If Apple wants a bigger share of the market, it's going to need to consider a 'budget option' - and as any brand consultant will tell you, nothing damages the image of luxury like the idea that there's a 'cheap version'. Apple is aware of this, and has historically protested that it's never happening. But in 2015, we saw the number people switching from Android to iOS fall from from 13% to 11%. Even larger, the number of first-time smartphone buyers contributing to Apple's overall sales went from 20% to 11% over the same period. Those are worrying figures - especially when it also looks like more people switched from iOS to Android, than switched from Android to iOS. Apple may be a little damned-if-it-does, damned-if-it-doesn't in the face of Android. You can get a lot for your money if you're willing to buy something which doesn't carry an Apple logo. It's easy to see Android's many producers creating high-powered luxury devices; it's harder to see Apple succeeding by doing the opposite. And are we really ever going to see something like the iFridge? Android's Strength is its Ubiquity Principal to Android's success in the future is its ubiquity. In just six years, it's gone from being a new and experimental venture to over a billion downloads and being used across almost every kind of smart device out there. As an open source OS, the possibilities of Android are only going to get wider. When Androids rule our future, it may be on far more than just our phones. Dive into developing for Android all this week with our exclusive Android Week deals! Get 50% off selected titles, or build your own bundle of any five promoted Android books for only $50.

You must have heard about the incident where the FBI was looking to unlock the iPhone of a mass shooting suspect (one of the attackers in the San Bernardino shooting in 2015). The feds could not unlock the phone, as Apple didn’t budge from their stand of protecting user data. After a few days, police said that they have found a private agency to open the phone. The seed of that feud between the feds and Apple has evolved into a fully grown tree now. This month, Apple announced a new security feature called restricted USB mode. This disables the device’s lightning port after one hour of being locked. Quite expectedly, the law enforcement agencies are not at ease with this particular development. This feature was first introduced in the iOS 11.3 release and then retracted in the next release. But now Apple plans to introduce this feature in the upcoming iOS 12 beta release. The reason as stated by Apple is to protect user data from third party hackers and malwares which have the potential to access iPhone data remotely. You must be wondering, to what extent are these threats genuine. Whether this will mean you locking yourself out of your phone unwittingly with nothing to get you out of the situation. Well, the answer is multilayered. Firstly, if you are not an avid supporter of data privacy and feel you have nothing to hide, then this move might just annoy you for a while. You might wonder about times  when your phone is locked and suddenly forget your unlocking/ passkey. Pretty simple, write it somewhere safe and remember where you have kept it. But in case you are like me, you keep seeing the recent news of user data being hacked, and that worries you. Users are being profiled by different companies for varying end objectives from selling products to shaping up your opinion about politics and other aspects of your life. As such this news might make you a bit comfortable about your next iOS update. Private agencies coming up with solutions to open locked iPhones worried Apple. Companies like Cellebrite and Grayshift are selling devices that can hack any locked Apple device (iPhone and iPad) by using the lightning port. The apparent price of one such device is around 15k USD. What prompted Apple to introduce this security feature into their devices was that government agencies were buying these devices on a regular basis to hack into devices. Hence the threat was real, and the only way to address over 700 million iPhone users’ fears seemed to be introducing the USB restricted mode. The war is however just beginning. Third party companies are already claiming that they have devised a way to overcome this new security feature, which is yet unconfirmed. But Apple is sure to take cognizance of this fact and press their developers more to stay ahead in this cat and mouse game. This has not gone well with the law enforcement agencies as well, they see it as an attempt by Apple to create more hurdles in preventing serious and heinous crimes such as paedophilia. Their side of the argument states that now with the one hour timer since the user locks his or her phone, it becomes much more difficult for them to indict the guilty because they have more room to escape. What do you think this means? Does this give you more faith on your Apple product and will it really compel you to buy that $1200 iPhone with the confidence that your banking data, personal messages, pictures and your other sensitive data are safe at the hands of Apple? Or will it empower the perpetrators of crime to have more confidence that now their activities are not just protected by a passkey, but by an hour of time since they lock it, after which it becomes a black box? No matter what your thoughts are, the war is on, between hackers and Apple. If you belong to either of these communities, these are exciting times. If you are one of the 700 million Apple users, you can feel a bit more secure after the iOS 12 update rolls out. Apple changes app store guidelines on cryptocurrency mining Apple introduces macOS Mojave with UX enhancements like voice memos, redesigned App Store Apple releases iOS 11.4 update with features including AirPlay 2, and HomePod among others

It’s only been 2 years since Swift was first released to the public and it’s amazing how quickly it has been adopted by iOS developers all over. Seen as a great jumping point for many people and a perfect alternative to Objective-C with some of the best modern language features built in, like tuples and generics; being Open Source is the icing on the cake for tinker-happy devs looking to make the language their own. Swift is in an interesting position though; despite it being one of the fastest languages being picked up right now, do you know how many apps made by Apple actually use it in iOS 9.2? Only 1. Calculator. It’s not a huge surprise when you think about it – the language is new and constantly evolving, and we can safely assume that Calculator’s use of Swift is to test the water as the features and workings of the language settle down. Maybe in the next 2-3 years Apple will have finally moved to a pure Swift world, but other developers? They’re really jumping into the language. IBM, for example, uses Swift for all its iOS apps. What does this mean for you? It means that, as a developer, you have the ability to help shape a young language that rarely happens on today’s web. So here are a few reasons you should take the plunge and get deeper into Swift in 2016, and if you haven’t started yet, then there’s no better time! Swift 3 is coming What better time to get even deeper into the language when it’s about to add a host of great new features? Swift 3.0 is currently scheduled to launch around the tail end of 2016 and Apple aren’t keeping what they want to include close to their chest. The biggest additions are looking to be stabilizing the ABI, refining the language even more with added resilience to changes, and further increasing portability. All these changes have been on the wishlists of Swift devs for ages and now that we’re finally going to get them there’s sure to be more professional projects made purely in Swift. 3.0 looks to be the edition of Swift that you can use for your customers without worry, so if you haven’t gotten into the language yet, this is the version you should be prepping for! It’s no longer an iOS only language Probably the biggest change to happen to Swift since it became Open Source is that the language is now available on Ubuntu officially, while dedicated fans are also currently creating an Android port of all things. What does this mean for you as a developer? Well, the potential for a greater number of platforms your apps can be deployed on has grown; and one of Swift’s main complaints, that it’s an iOS only language, is rendered moot. It’s getting easier to learn and use In the last 2 years we’ve seen a variety of different tools and package managers for those looking to get more out of Swift. If you’re already using Swift it’s most likely you’re using Xcode to write apps. However, if you’re looking to try something new or just don’t like Xcode then there’s now a host of options for you. Testing frameworks like Quick are starting to appear on the market and alternatives such as AppCode look to build on the feedback the community gives to Xcode and fill in the gaps with what it’s missing. Suggestions as you type and decent project monitoring are becoming more commonplace with these new environments, and there are more environments around if you look, so why not jump on them and see which one suits your style of development? The Swift job market is expanding Last year the Swift job market expanded by an incredible 600%, and that was in its first year alone. With Apple giving Swift its full support and the community having grown so quickly, companies are beginning to take notice. Many companies who produce iOS apps are looking for the benefits that Swift offers over Objective-C and having that language as part of your skillset is something that is beginning to set iOS developers apart from one another… With everything happening with Spring this year it looks to be one of the best times to jump on board or dig deeper into the language. If you’re looking to get started building your Swift skills then be sure to check out our iOS tech page, it has all our most popular iOS books for you to explore along with the list of upcoming titles for you to preorder, Swift included.

Previously known as eelo, /e/ is an ‘ethical’ operating system for mobile phones. Leading the project is Gaël Duval who is also the creator of Mandrake Linux. Is it a new OS? Well not exactly, it is a forked version of Lineage OS stripped of Google apps, with a focus on privacy and considered as an ethical OS. What’s so good about /e/? The good thing here is that this is a unique effort for an ethical OS. Something different from the data collection of Android or the expensive devices by Apple. With a functional ROM including all functionalities, Duval seems to be pretty serious about this. An OS that respects user privacy does sound like a very nice thing. However, as pointed out by people on Reddit, this is what Cyanogen was in the beginning. The ethical OS /e/ is not actually a new OS from scratch. Who has the time or funding for that today? You have /e/ services instead of Google services, but ummm can you trust them? Is /e/ a trick… or a treat? We have mixed feelings about this one, it is a commendable effort, the idea is right. But with the recent privacy debates everywhere trusting a new OS is tricky. We’ll reserve judgement till it is out of beta and has a name that you can Google search for.

It’s a great time to be a Swift developer because this modern programming language has a lot of momentum and community support behind it and a big future ahead of it. Swift became a real contender when it became open source in December 2015, giving developers the power to build their own tools and port it into the environments in which they work. The release of Swift 3 in September 2016 really shook things up by enabling broad scale adoption across multiple platforms – including portability to Linus/x86, Raspberry Pi, and Android. Swift 3 is the “spring cleaning” release that, while not being backwards compatible, has resulted in a massively cleaner language and ensured sound and consistent language fundamentals that will carry across to future releases. If you’re a developer using Swift, the best thing you can do is get on board with Swift 3 as the next release promises to deliver stability from 3.0 onwards. Swift 4 is expected to be released in late 2017 with the goals of providing source stability for Swift 3 code and ABI stability for the Swift standard library. Despite this shake up that occurred with the new release, developers are still enthusiastic about Swift – it was one of the “most loved” programming languages in StackOverflow’s 2015 and 2016 Developer Surveys. Swift was also one of the top 3 trending techs in 2016 as it’s been stealing market share from Objective C. The keen interest that developers have in Swift is reflected by the +35,000 stars it has amassed on Github and the impressive amount of ongoing collaboration between its core team and the wider community. Rumour has it that Google is considering making Swift a “first class” language and that Facebook and Uber are looking to make Swift more central to their operations. Lyft’s migration of its iOS app to Swift in 2015 shows that the lightness, leanness, and maintainability of the code are worth it and services like the web server and toolkit Perfect are proof that the server-side Swift is ready. People are starting to do some cool and surprising things with Swift. Including… Shaping the language itself. Apple has made a repository on Github called swift-evolution that houses proposals for enhancements and changes to the Swift language. Developers are bringing Swift 3 to as many ARM-based systems as possible. For example, you can get Swift 3 for all the Raspberry Pi boards or you can program a robot in Swift on a BeagleBone. IBM has adopted Swift as the core language for their cloud platform. This opens the door to radically simpler app dev. Developers will be able to build the next generation of apps in native Swift from end-to-end, deploy applications with both server and client components, and build microservice APIs on the cloud. The Swift Sandbox lets developers of any level of experience can actively build server-based code. Since launching it’s had over 2 million code runs from over 100 countries. We think there are going to be a lot of exciting opportunities for developers to work with Swift in the near future. The iOS Developer Skill Plan on Mapt is perfect for diving into Swift and we have plenty of Swift 3 books and videos if you have more specific projects in mind.The large community of developers using iOS/OSX and making libraries combined with the growing popularity of Swift as a general-purpose language makes jumping into Swift a worthwhile venture. Interested in what other developers have been up to across the tech landscape? Find out in our free Skill Up: Developer Talk report on the state of software in 2017.

Eclaire, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, Kit Kat, Lollipop, Marshmallow, and Nougat. If you thought that was just a list of various sweet treats, well, you're not wrong, but it's also a list of Android version names. And if you guessed that the next version of Android starts with O, well you're exactly right because Google themselves have announced Android O – the latest version of Android.  So, what's new in the O version of Android? Let's find out.  Notifications have always been one of Android's biggest strengths. Notifications on Android are informative, versatile, and customizable so they fit their users' need. Google clearly understands this and has kept improving the notification system of Android. They have overhauled how the notifications look, made notifications more interactive, and given users a way to manage the importance of each notification. So, of course, for this version of Android, Google added even more features to the notification system.  The biggest feature added to the notification system on Android O is the Notification Channel. Basically, Notification Channel is an API that allows developers to define categories for notifications from their apps. App users will then be able to control the setting for each category of notifications. This way, users can fine tune applications so they only show notifications that the users think are important.  For example, let's say you have a chat application and it has 2 notification channels. The first channel is for notifying users when a new chat message arrives and the second one is for when the user is added to someone else's friend list. Some users may only care about the new chat messages, so they can turn off certain types of notifications instead of turning of all notifications from the app.  Other features added to Android O notification system is Notification Snoozing and Notification Timeout. Just like in alarm, Notification Snoozing allows the user to snooze a notification and let it reappear later when the user has time. Meanwhile, Notification Timeout allows developers to set a timeout duration for the notifications. Imagine that you want to notify a user about a flash sale that only runs for 2 hours. By adding timeout, the notification can remove itself when the event is over. Okay, enough about notifications – what else is new in Android O?  Autofill Framework  One of the newest things introduced with Android O is the Autofill Framework. You know how browsers can remember your full name, email address, home address, and other stuff and automatically fill in a registration form with that data? Well, the same capability is coming to Android apps via the Autofill Framework. An app can also register itself as an Autofill Service. For example, if you made a social media app, you can let other apps use the user's account data from your app to help users fill their forms.  Account data  Speaking of account data, with Android O, Google has removed the ability for developers to get user's account data using the GET_ACCOUNT permission, forcing developers to use the account chooser dialog instead. So with Android O, developers can no longer automatically fill in a text field with the user's email address and name, and have to let users pick accounts on their own.  And it's not just form filling that gets reworked. In an effort to improve battery life and phone performance, Android O has added a number of limitations to background processes. For example, on Android O, apps running in the background (that is, apps that don't have any of their interface visible to users) will not be able to get users’ location data as frequently as before. Also, apps in the background can no longer create and use background processes.  Do keep in mind that some of those limitations will impact any application running on Android O, not just apps that were built using the O version of the SDK. So if you have an app that relies on background processes, you may want to check your app to ensure it works fine on Android O.  App icons  Let's talk about something with more visual: App icons. You know how manufacturers add custom skins to their phones to differentiate their products from competitors? Well, some time ago they also changed the shape of all app icons to fit the overall UI of their phones and thisbroke some carefully designed icons. Fortunately, with the Adaptive Icon feature introduced in Android O, developers will be able to design an icon that can adjust to a variety of shapes.  We've covered a lot, but there are still tons of other features added to Android O that we haven't discussed, including: multi-display support, a new native Audio API, Keyboard Navigation, new APIs to manage WebView, new Java 8 APIs, and more. Do check out the official documentation for those.  That being said, we're still missing the most important thing: What is going to be the full name for Android O? I can only think of Oreo at the moment. What about you?  About the author  Raka Mahesa is a game developer at Chocoarts (chocoarts.com), who is interested in digital technology in general. Outside of work hours, he likes to work on his own projects, with Corridoom VR being his latest released game. Raka also regularly tweets as @legacy99.

Android Nougat is here, and it's looking pretty tasty. We've been told about the benefits to end users - but what are some of the most exciting features for developers to dive into? We've got five that we think you'll love. 1. Data Saver If your app is a hungry, hungry data devourer then you could be losing users as you burn through their allowance of cellular data. Android 7's new data saver feature can help with that. It throttles background data usage, and signals to foreground apps to use less data. Worried that will make your app less useful? Don't worry - users can 'whitelist' applications to consume their full data desires. 2. Multi-tasking It's the big flagship feature of Android 7 - it's the ability to run two apps on the screen at once. As phones keep getting bigger (and more and more people opt for Android tablets over an iPad) having the option to run two apps alongside each other makes a lot more sense. What does this mean for developers? Well, first, you'll want to tweak your app to make sure it's multi-window ready. But what's even more exciting is the potential for drag and drop functionality between apps, dragging text and images from one pane to another. Ever miss being able to just drag files to attach them to an email like on a desktop? With Android N, that's coming to mobile - and devs should consider updating accordingly. 3. Vulkan API Nougat brings a new option to Android game developers in the form of the Vulkan graphics API. No longer restricted to just OpenGL ES, developers will find that Vulkan provides them with a more direct control over hardware - which should lead to improved game performance. Vulkan can also be used across OSes, including Windows and the SteamOS (Valve is a big backer). By adopting Vulkan, Google has really opened up the possibility for high-performance games to make it onto Android. 4. Just In Time Compiler Android 7 has added a JIT (Just In Time) compiler, which will work to constantly improve the performance of Android Apps as they run. The performance of your app will improve - but the device won't consume too much memory. Say goodbye to freezes and non-responsive devices, and hello to faster installation and updates! This means users installing more and more apps, which means more downloads for you! 5. Notification Enhancements Android 7 changes the way your notifications work on your device. Rather than just popping up at the top of your device, notifications in Nougat will have the option for a direct reply without opening the app, will be bundled together with related notifications, and can even be viewed as a 'heads-up' notification displayed to the user when the device is active. These heads-up notifications are also customizable by app developers - so better start getting creative! How will this option affect your app's UX and UI? There's plenty more... This are just some of the features of Android 7 we're most excited about - there's plenty more to explore! So dive right in to Android development, and start building for Nougat today!