Nielsen, a research company at the forefront of both traditional and digital media, has released several reports which shed light on who the smartphone consumer is. Here are a few of their key findings:

• Consumers are ok with in-app advertising. Overall, 51% of consumers say that they are okay with advertising on their devices if it means they can access content for free.
• App usage is increasing. In just one year the number of apps an average smartphone user has downloaded onto their device has increased from 32 to 41 apps. Time spent on apps has increased 10 percent over the past year.
• Consumers willingness to pay for apps depends on the app category. When it comes to games, 33% of users download only free apps (27% download a combination of free and paid).
• Android and iOS are dominant forces in the mobile app market. The top two operating systems (Android OS and iOS) account for over 80% of the market.
• The use of smartphones is still increasing. As of March 2012, the majority of cell phone users in the US now own a smartphone (50.4%). Two thirds of those ages 25-34 own a smartphone.
• Smartphone usage in-store varies by type of store. Consumers use their smartphones in electronic stores and department stores most frequently: while in electronic stores, 73% of smartphone users read reviews and 57% scan a QR code for product details and while in department stores 43% read reviews and 41% request a coupon of some type.

By embracing these consumer trends you will be much more likely to watch the influence of your app increase dramatically.

This buzz surrounding the original tablet is unlikely to fade anytime soon. According to the second-quarter profit report from Apple earlier this month, 11.8 million iPads sold during the quarter (up 151 percent from last year)!

So what, it’s just a new consumer trend, isn’t it?  What’s the big deal for businesses? Here are three ways iPads are changing the face of business:

1. Advertising opportunities

The use of iPads open up an entirely new world for app development. The bigger screen and available accessories provides a more versatile array of opportunities for tablet use. Consumers can comfortably work from the device one minute and the next be immersed in a high-quality role-playing game – all while keeping up to date on emails and conversing with their online social networks.

As the iPad becomes a central device for work, play, communicating, and life in general, it also becomes a key medium for advertising. Through iPad app development and in-app advertising, this opportunity to reach a captivated audience is rivaled only by mobile phones, which in reality is more of a complement than competitor.

2. Customer experience

Businesses like Buffalo Wild Wings, Puma, and so many more are utilizing iPads in their restaurants/retail stores to enhance their customers’ experiences (and increasing their productivity at the same time). B-dubs use of iPads at the table gives their patrons the opportunity to order freely and their front of the house staff more time to serve the customers in other ways. Puma improves the experience for their stores’ visitors by giving them the opportunity to be inspired by the shoes on the shelf and add their own twist by designing and ordering a pair of shoes right in the store.  

3. Business productivity

There are a plethora of ways in which iPads are changing the internal productivity of businesses. The portability of the device allows on-the-road employees to have constant connection with the office, custom apps allow employees to stay abreast of company data reports and trends, and the syncing abilities allow work to be done at and away from the desk without missing a beat. Just as mobile phones and laptops have changed business in the past, iPads are well on their way to impacting the way we will do business in the future.  

If you are ready to expand your advertising reach, enhance your customer’s experience, and increase your business’ productivity, let’s talk.

1. Mobile Bill Payments

If you are in an business where you collect recurring payments from your customers, you are likely to have already established a way for your customers to pay over the phone, through your website, and maybe even via text message, but what about through a mobile app? Not only can you offer your customers an easier way to pay their bills, you can establish notifications to remind them when the bill is due, provide a platform for them to receive customer support, and offer information about current and new services, product releases, and other important information.

2. Image Recognition

 Coupling two of the trending innovations in the mobile industry, mobile payments and image recognition, Jumio has created a technology that utilizes a phone’s camera to securely capture credit card information for an easy, transparent transaction. This mobile app enhancement seamlessly transforms a mobile app into a mobile store.

3. In-Store Payment

More and more businesses are providing their customers with an opportunity to pay for a service/product in their store rather than writing a check, swiping a debit card, or counting out cash. Starbucks, for example, has created an app for their members that allows them to save their favorite drinks, look up store information, and pay their bill right from their phone.

How are you going to take your app to the next level? Dream big and then contact us to help bring them to reality.

The results of a recent study were released on Tuesday and indicated that of all American smartphone customers, 58 percent use some type of location based application on their phone. Combine this with the trend of increasing smartphone purchases and the market for these apps has the perfect scenario to increase dramatically.

The popularity isn’t the only thing changing, though. Developers are constantly improving the technology and marketers are uncovering innovative ways to implement this technology into their company’s mobile apps.

One of the biggest location based trends gaining speed right now is a technology called “geo-fencing”. So, what exactly is geo-fencing? It is exactly what the name suggests, a digital “fence” powered by GPS, surrounding a specific geographic area.

That’s cool, but what does this technology mean for businesses? Well, it means that you will be able to more precisely target nearby consumers for advertising. Take this situation for example:

You own a clothing store in downtown Chicago and your annual sale just happens to be at the same time as a big event downtown. There are more people than ever walking in front of your store, but you wonder if they remember your store is here. Do they even know about my store? How do you tell them and encourage them to stop in to your store without putting a man on the street with a sandwich board? You set up a geo-fence. Once a person that is carrying a location-aware smartphone crosses the digital perimeter of your “fence”, you can send a message to their phone. The message can be a coupon, a reminder, or even an invitation to stop in to your store.

Of course retail isn’t the only application for this technology; the opportunities to integrate geo-fencing into a mobile app are limitless. Do you watch from your store windows as customers walk by every day? Do you wish that you could grab their attention and share a quick message about what is happening in your store? A geo-fence may be just what you need.

Contact us to learn more about how a location-based app can help you get more attention for your business.

For many reasons, the answer is yes.

Of all the potential financial benefits of mobile app development, mobile commerce is one of the most tangible. The mobile commerce trend is rapidly gaining speed and businesses are realizing substantial sales increases. Over the past two holiday seasons mobile sales have grown from 3.4 percent to 9.6 percent (an increase of over 280%)!

With this in mind, the question quickly becomes, “how does my business capitalize on the mCommerce trend?” Here are 3 unique strategies:

Include QR Codes in your print advertisements

Until now consumers have had to wait to purchase the products they have seen in ads until they are in a store, but what if they could purchase the products instantly? What would happen if consumers could buy your product while they were looking at your advertisement in their favorite magazine? Glamour magazine asked that same question, then answered it with an app of their own. Readers flip through the pages, find something they like, scan the SnapTag (a version of a QR code), and are able purchase the product in a matter of seconds.

Implement custom ordering process into an app

Baked by Melissa is a well-known bakery specializing in custom cupcakes. To make the ordering process both more fun and easier, they have developed an app that allows their customers to creatively design their own cupcakes, showcase them to their friends via social media for feedback, and order them, all from comfort of their iPad. Do you offer custom solutions for your clients? Could they benefit from being able to customize their order and purchase the products straight from their mobile device?

Develop an Mcommerce catalog app

Best Buy has taken their extensive online catalog mobile making it easier than ever to shop for the latest technology gadgets. Consumers simply download the app, find the product they are looking for, make the purchase and have it delivered to their home or a nearby Best Buy store. The best part is, if you already have an online web store it is quick and easy to develop a mobile app from what you’ve already created.

If you still have questions about how mobile marketing can benefit you, let’s talk. We’d love to help your company benefit from this growing trend.

On the exterior, it’s almost the same as the iPad2.  It’s slightly heavier than the iPad2 and slightly taller when laid on a flat surface.  None of these things is a big deal or has any negative impact on the product at all.

First, everyone is talking about the retina display.  And they should be.  The color fidelity on higher resolution images is so much better.  On the commercials and in the Apple Store, they show all sorts of really great photos on the new iPad, but quite frankly those are such professional photos, they will look great on the iPad 1.  Where I’ve noticed the new retina display really shines is text.  Yeah, the photos are great, but reading is much clearer.

No pixels are visible while reading your favorite iBook.  The fonts are simply perfect.  This is going to result in a lot less eye strain – which is great because I use the iPad for hours a day.

The clearer display does make me a little more crazy about keeping my screen finger-print free.

While the highlight of the iPad is the retina display, the processing power of the new iPad is nothing short of amazing.  There’s no lag while flipping pages in a 60MB PDF.  Loading Batman: Arkham City Lockdown is a lot faster (not that it was ever slow), but the extra processing power just makes the iPad speedy!

New iPad on the left, iPad2 on the right.

I’ve always complained about YouTube on the iPad.  It’s always been choppy.    I don’t know if this was an issue with the network connectivity with the iPad or, more likely, a processing issue, but YouTube finally runs really well on the iPad.

One of the huge advantages is the voice recognition feature.  I’m a terrible speller, so this feature is a huge advantage for me.  Searching Google for “What is angioplasty”, “What is the capital of Czechoslovakia” and “What is an aneurysm” is now really easy!  Dictation is great too.

The new iPad performs voice recognition while I read a small section of the book Ender’s Game.

The only complaint that I have about the new iPad is the battery.  The new display and enhanced processing power, really depletes the battery quickly – and it takes a very long time to charge.  Plugged into my laptop, it charges at about half the pace the iPad 2 charged.  It’s of concern – but it won’t stop by from playing with this device as often as I can.

This leads us to the question of the day: how are your mobile marketing efforts measuring up? If you aren’t sure, here are two of the top measurement tools that can assist you in finding the answer:

Google Analytics:

A standout company in analytics tools, Google provides an easy, interactive interface to measure mobile-site interaction, mobile influence in Adwords and mobile app usage. Mobile-site and Adwords analytics give you the ability to break down the information based on mobile sources: “High-end Mobile” and/or “tablet”. This feature makes it easier than ever to see how mobile users are interacting with your site through paid search engine searches.

You are also able to track analytics on consumers’ usage of your mobile apps with Mobile Application Tracking (courtesy of Google Analytics). A couple of the top analytics features on the list include: tracking application use down to activity and session management (knowing when your app is being actively used or if it is simply running the background).

Flurry Analytics:

While not as well-known as Google Analytics, Flurry Analytics can hold their own in mobile application analytics. With this tool you are able to:

• Measure usage statistics such as how many consumers download your app and how often they use it,
• Set benchmarks to make analyzing the data easier and more relevant to your goals and objectives,
• Customize parameters to track the usage patterns of your users,
• Analyze your users’ demographics, location, and interests in order to gain a better understanding of who your main audience is, and so much more.

When establishing a means of measurement in mobile marketing, remember the tool isn’t as important as the fact that you are actually tracking your results. If you are unsure where to start, give us a call. We’d love to help!

The mobile app space is just starting to see the effects of security issues, with two incidents in recent weeks that have brought mobile security under a microscope. Google overrode Apple security in their web browser, Safari (default on all Apple products) to collect cookies for their targeted advertising and Google+ integration. And in a notable case for a new social network, Path was exposed for capturing iPhone users’ private address book data.

While both Google and Path are correcting the issues, consumers are increasingly hesitant to provide personal information to mobile apps for fear of private data being taken and misused.

If your app in any way handles private information, easing security concerns can reassure your user base — and lead to more downloads. Here are some things to consider when building your app:

Limited Functionality

If you are in a business where security is of the utmost importance, such as a banking or financial institution, an app that functions the same as a secure website or an in-store visit may not be necessary (or well received by your customers). By researching exactly what your target audience wants to be able to do on the go and what they are comfortable doing on their phones you can create an app that meets their needs without scaring them away with security issues.  

User Permissions Approval

While the major platforms (Android, Blackberry, Apple) have established guidelines for developers to limit their ability to access information stored on users’ phones, the rules aren’t always followed (which is one of the main reasons for security concerns). One way to build confidence is to not only require an approval for changes to security permissions settings, but to make sure your users’ know about the required change. Using a pop-up, as pictured below, is a great way to keep users informed.

Social Integration Alternative.

Consumers are opting for stricter privacy in the information they share on the Internet (including both social networks and mobile apps). More and more apps (such as Pinterest, see below) are utilizing social network accounts to give their users an easier log-in experience, the ability to skip the sign-up process, and the ability to connect with friends across networks.

However, this is not universally accepted and requiring this can lead consumers to opt out of using the app. Pinterest addresses this by allowing users an option to integrate with their social network if desired or to use the app through alternative credentials (email address, user name, etc.).

A single security breach can lead to the loss of thousands of otherwise loyal mobile app users. Don’t risk your mobile app’s reputation — make sure that data security is a central, and obvious, part of your app development plan.

Customer Service:

There are several aspects of hospital visits that are very stressful to visitors: waiting room times, simply being sick, uncertainty in the situation, cost, etc. Through mobile apps health care facilities are working to ease these frustrations. An app we built for MedWaitTime reduces the frustrations caused by waiting room times by providing real-time updates on wait times at doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities. The app also highlights at what clinics and with what doctors are accepting walk-in appointments and the services each facility offers.

Diagnostics

In 2010 more than 50% of physicians used a smart phone or a PDA device on a regular basis for everyday treatment activity according to a recent research study by Kalorama. Whether it is drug research, updating health records, or even monitoring vitals, doctors are turning to their mobile phones more than ever before.

Education

Mobile apps are also making their way into medical training at medical schools across the country. Harvard Medical University openly encourages students to utilize the increasing selection of mobile apps to assist them in their education. They even maintain licenses for the most popular apps for students to download and use. Apps like VisualDX Mobile (a catalog of images and information displaying disease progression in a variety of cases), iRadiology (a resource full of radiology cases and images), and Epocrates Essentials (an all-in-one drug and disease guide) are among the top apps used by medical students.

As the mobile app industry continues to grow, expect to see an increase in the number of health care related apps. Remember it is the combination of unique, problem solving ideas and solid development that will bring the most traction in the market. Bring your idea to life by teaming up with our development team!

The default UIActivityIndicatorView that is native to X-Code is nice, but doesn’t always give the greatest user experience.  A great use for a UIActivityIndicatorView is to show a user that a web page is loading when you’re using a UIWebView.  However, this can be problematic if the web page being loaded is a similar color to the UIActivityIndicatorView because it can blend in.  It also is boring and doesn’t really give a pleasant user experience.  This post will show you how to easily create your own nicely formatted “Please Wait” bubble.

First, in the view controller that you’d like to add your new Please Wait Bubble, add an IBOutlet UIView* to your class along with the associated property.  For now, let’s call it waitView.  In this example, I’m adding it to a class to be used with a UIWebView.

Next, in the .xib file, add a UIView that is horizontally centered in the screen.  To have the nice transparent effect, change the Alpha value to something other than 1.  I prefer .75 or .8, but you can change it to be less if you’d like more transparency.  Don’t forget to connect the UIView to the waitView outlet.

After this, please add your wait message UILabel and spinning UIActivityIndicatorView to your waitView view.

Once you do this, all you have to do to display the message is use the .hidden property of the new waitView view.

This is all fine, but the message still looks like a box.

Now, it’s time to add the rounding effect to the box.  In your view controller class, make sure to include the QuartzCore/CALayer.h file.

Finally, to get the rounding effect, add the following lines to your viewDidLoad function:

The result should be a nice rounded, semi-transparent “Please Wait” bubble that will be a much better user experience than a traditional UIActivityIndicatorView.