Category: Mobile

There are several important factors to consider while engaging in mobile app testing. There are no hard and fast rules about best practices for mobile app testing. Nevertheless, there are a few factors that are very important to consider. We have made a list of best practices that we think are absolutely necessary no matter who the developer is: • Security There is nothing more important than security these days. Apps usually require a lot of user information and most people do not like to share their private information anymore. Try to minimize the information that you ask from your users. Also ensure that you do not collect a lot of user behavior data with the help of cookies. • Test efficiently It is very important to test often and regularly maintain a database about how your app is functioning. In that effect, it is also important to test early in order to find out bugs before your consumers do. When you do find out the bugs, release updates as soon as possible so that your users are not affected in any manner. • Use test automation If you do not have access to a device lab or if you do not live close to an open device lab, ensure that you at least purchase a good test automation software. These software programs emulate most devices in the market and will help you to test your app, playback and even debug. •Use manual testing Automation can never replace manual testing. Manual testing allows you to see for real how it feels to use your application on a device. This drastically changes your perception about your won application. Be critical and try to find as many faults as you can with your application and do not leave room for others to find faults. • Comparison testing Try and make a list of all the applications that are similar to yours. Now, compare your application and the competitors’ applications by testing side by side. This allows you to list all the advantages and disadvantages that the competitor has. Finally, make changes so that your application looks and feels better than your competitors’. • Test user experience flows There is nothing more important than checking how it feels for end users to use your application. With that in mind, you must ensure that you know what it feels like for an end user to use your application. Chances are, there will be many things that you will not like. • Ensure design is simple When you test your application, you will realize that the design is almost always faulty and that there is room for improvement. Get your designers to work on the layout, font, logo, design and format before making the app go live. Test and re-test again so that the design does not look outdated. It must, in fact, look fresh and original even after a couple of years. • Test speed Make sure that your application is not slow and that it does not take a lot of time to load. Many well-designed applications take a lot of time to load and that stops people from using them. •Ensure that apps do not crash Apps that crash often are almost definitely deleted by users. This is the main reason why you must check your application several times before making them go live. Make sure that your applications do not crash often and that they use minimum resources. • Battery consumption Nothing is more important than how power-hungry your application is. If users notice that after installing your application the phone is running out of battery, they will promptly delete it. Thus, it is crucial to ensure that your well-designed application is not a power-consuming black hole. While this list is not exhaustive, it is important to note that these simple and rather common errors in applications are the main reasons why people delete applications. People are extremely concerned about security, battery usage and how the app ‘behaves’. It is for this reason that you will need to test and retest your application time and again. Even when the application goes live, you will need to continue testing and restesting in order to maintain quality.

There is nothing better than manually testing mobile applications instead of using emulators and simulators. Real-time testing using various devices helps an app developer to understand the various quirks and problems that an app and a device might pose in conjunction with each other. However, not every mobile app developer will have access to all the devices that are available in the market today. If one considers the number of devices that are available for each platform, the choices are really mind boggling. In order to solve this problem, many testers and developers tend to use emulators or simulators, which are basically software programs that act as if they were real devices. These software programs are cheaper to use and can quickly test a certain application on a wholesale basis. There is no need to individually run the application on each device and check if it works fine. One must note that this method is not fool proof and leaves an app developer vulnerable to many problems in the future. Nevertheless, sometimes, small-time developers may want to use mobile app testing tools instead of investing in an entire lab like a larger company can afford to invest in. Moreover, even if you have access to a real time testing facility, you can always first run an application on an emulator and then move on to test in the real world. The Mobile App Testing Blog had listed about 10 tools that are great to begin with. We think the list is great and the tools are listed and described in detail below: • FoneMonkey for iOS FoneMonkey for iOS is a great tool that helps developers to test applications for iOS devices. It is a functional tool that allows for interactive creation and moreover, it also helps the developer and tester to edit and playback scripts on the user interface. One can go ahead and create suites of tests that will help to discover any flaws within the application, before actually testing it on an iPhone. FoneMonkey for iOS not only supports QA testing but also supports developers at the same time. Gorilla Logic has donated the app to the iOS developing community and can easily be used by developers, whether they are small or big. However, we believe iOS is one of the easier developing platforms as there are only so many devices available in the market and iOS is consistent and sans problems that one usually encounters with Android, which is used on a number of devices. • iPhoney If you were wondering how your design appears on an iPhone, you can go ahead and use iPhoney, which is a great web-browsing environment that is powered by Safari. In fact, this tool can be successfully used to create websites for iPhones. It comes with a great 320 x 480 pixel canvas that mimics iPhones and it is free to use. One must remember that it is not an iPhone simulator but it mimics iPhone’s browser and allows developers and designers to see for themselves how a website appears on the iPhone. The new Version 1.2 comes with a number of features that are useful to both developers and designers. Version 1.2 allows developers to view source code, which is a great blessing if you would like to take a look at the iPhone targeted pages. The tool is also localized for French, German and Norwegian users. Considering the increasing number of iPhone users in Francophone countries in Africa, Europe and certain parts of Asia, this is a real boon for Francophones. • W3C mobileOK Checker W3C mobileOK Checker is a great application that helps developers to evaluate how mobile-friendly an app really is. It performs various tests in order to determine mobile-friendliness and checks if web content is delivered in a fashion that conforms with mobile web best practices. It helps developers to catalyze content that ameliorates functional user experience as opposed to just theoretical user experience. The idea is to check how functional a certain app is, in the context of mobile web experience and the app does not really check if a particular app, website or user agent is good enough. The application must be used from that perspective and must not be used as a means to endorse a particular application. • Modify Headers If you were looking for an open source tool that helps you to add, modify and filter requests pertaining to HTTP headers, you must be using Modify Headers, by Firefox. It helps app developers to check HTTP privacy and test the efficacy as well. Moreover, this add-on is a great way to enhance mobile web development. • dotMobi Now that almost everyone browses the Internet using mobile devices, it is more important to check how a website appears on a mobile device rather than on old fashioned browsers. dotMobi is a great tool that helps developers to check if a certain website appears correctly on a mobile web browser. This tool comes with additional support which can be sought from their homepage. One of the more polished tools, dotMobi Emulator can be used to see if a website that is designed looks great on mobile devices or not. • Google Android Emulator The ubiquity of Android devices need not be explained. Android is probably the most popular mobile platform at the moment and that is because it is open source. Cheaper devices can run Android without having to pay hefty licensing fees. This and its versatility has ensured that Android is used on almost all mobile devices except those manufactured by proprietary software companies like Apple, Microsoft and BlackBerry. Google Android Emulator is a great mobile device emulator that runs on your computer. It helps developers to test and develop Android applications without using a physical device. The Android SDK helps developers to avoid purchasing all the Android devices that are in the market and continue to be launched with each passing day. • Android SDK Another tool that developers might

Generation Y or the Millenials have come to dominate our workforce whereas, generation X employees have already climbed up the corporate ladders. Before we discuss what you should expect from Gen Y and why socialfire, a tool that we shall discuss in detail, is very important, let us take a look at who the Gen Y or the ‘millenials’ really are. Understanding who the ‘millenials’ are: The Pew Research Center describes the millenials as those people who were born after 1980. The University of Southern California and the London business School describe the Generation Y as those who were born between 1980 and 1995. In Canada and Australia, the Gen Y is thought to consist of those who were born between 1983 and 2000 (to even 2004). Generally, we may describe those who were born after 1980 but before the turn of the new millennium, or the year 2000, as Gen Y or the millenials. The millenials are a special demographic across countries because they were mostly born to baby boomers or the older Gen X members. Millenials have mostly lived during the age when Internet took off and they have been the first ones to take to existing technology with ease. Naturally, when millenials begin to work, they communicate with each other in ways that their older colleagues may not. There are several key factors that make the millenials different from their older colleagues. Here are a few: • Millenials prefer to text than make telephone calls • Young workers today prefer to chat on instant messaging applications such as Skype, Whatsapp, Line, BlackBerry Messenger and a host of other texting applications. • Gen Y tend to work better when they can collaborate, usually on a texting application • Millenials prefer to work in autonomy, where a boss or manager is not breathing down their necks. • Millenials also prefer to stay in touch with their colleagues near and far, when they are at work and also when they are off work. All these factors lead us to believe that a texting application should be enough to solve the communication requirements at a modern workplace. Unfortunately, security concerns and enterprise IT requirements render every messaging and chat application useless, unless a lot of money is spent on building unique texting and messaging apps designed for enterprise use. Socialfire: The ‘Whatsapp’ of enterprise communication socialfire application is unique in this respect, as we designed this solely for enterprise use. This next generation enterprise communication application for millenial workforce helps employees to find people and collaborate in real time. It also helps them to communicate in real time without companies having to worry about security threats. This unified messaging solution helps employees to access and connect with other employees within an organization. If an administrator chooses, employees may also connect with people outside an organization. The application works on Wi-fi, 3G and 4G while rendering itself in a secure environment. Employees may choose to collaborate on the go using both voice and chat messaging. With the help of socialfire, companies can reduce Opex and Capex as it conforms to BYOD policies. It helps and augments p2p and group communication without one having to depend on voice calls using traditional methods. socialfire comes with a data consolidator, an admin interface and the mobile application. Ten key features of socialfire app are: • Searchable directory of people: An employee can search for people using various criteria. He or she may choose to find people using various criteria such as location, job role or function, name, etc. This helps employees to gain access to people who are otherwise difficult to reach using conventional methods.  • Individual and Group broadcast messaging: Private conversations can be carried out using individual messaging, whereas group messaging can double up as text conferences and discussions. These features are available on Skype, Whatsapp and other text messaging services. However, socialfire ensures security and encryption. • Integrated VoIP: Employees and individuals can communicate with each other using internet TCP/IP protocol. This is one of the industry-standard methods that augments communication experience. • Pluggable architecture: A person can plug in to enterprise tools on demand. This works in the realms of both data propagation and consumption. • Integration with legacy systems: If one is already using legacy systems and is not willing to invest in new technology, socialfire works with existing directories or SSO systems. This reduces cost and negates the necessity for investing in new systems and directories. • Configuration via web portal: An inbuilt web portal that is powerful and secure helps enterprises to set up the entire system. • Multi-level organization structures: Every enterprise comes with complex corporate structures. These structures need to be managed and admixture continuously. socialfire allows these structures to be managed easily without any hassles. • Fine-grained role based access control: Information flow within an organization can be managed easily by administrators. This level of control and management is not possible on applications such as Whatsapp or Skype. • Audit trails: Companies can easily maintain logs and records of user activities. • Strong Data Security: There is nothing more important than data security when it comes to enterprise communication. socialfire ensures that principles such as information audit, privacy, encrypted data storage and transmission, data integrity and confidentiality are ensured via secured data channel. The application uses 256 bit encrypted REST API. Administrators can also delete or remove data with the help of partial and full remote wipe functionality, which is inbuilt into the system. Socialfire is built according to corporate hierarchy When it comes to functional benefits for a business, socialfire can be particularly impressive. It is built with the hierarchy of an organization in mind. An employee, a project manager, an HR manager and an IT security manager will all have different permissions and privileges. For instance, an employee will be able to access the address book of your company. He or she may also be able to message managers and peers securely. In addition,

In a decade or so, there have been tremendous advancements in the technology that goes into making a cell phone. The lines separating the functions of phone with that of a computer are getting blurred on a day-to-day basis. With the advent of the internet technology for cell phones, there has been a marked emergence of various apps to the otherwise basic features of these phones, turning these portable devices into ‘smartphones’. The main criterion for any app developer to arrive at a suitable decision of building an app for the right operating system is the market share these giants have a say over. The market share has been the bone of contention between these two formidable giants in the business. But iOS is highly ensconced in terms of popularity. Let’s take a look at areas where iOS has an edge over Android. Advantages of iOS over Android There are a number of advantages of developing an app first using the iOS platform and later design one for Google’s Android. Here are 10 areas listed wherein iOS outruns Android in the app race: 1. Better overall app quality The apps developed using the Android platform available on Google Play surely outnumber those developed for the iOS platform but the tables are turned upside down when the topic of quality arises. The pure quality of the apps developed for the iOS platform in wide areas of categories- especially such as those pertaining to games, media creation and children’s apps are unmatched. Google should put in a lot of effort in these areas to match up. 2. Enhanced user experience The accusation against Apple that it hasn’t made any agreeable changes to iOS since its first version is right, but this does not imply that it has turned a blind eye to the user needs. To uphold this fact, it should be noted that the user interface on every other iOS device is not subject to major changes. Contrary to this, the user experience on Android varies a lot from one manufacturer to the other due to skinning. Fragmentation is a big problem on the Android platform. 60 percent of all iPhone users are currently using the newest version of iOS, while less than 5 percent of all Android users are running the newest version of Android. These numbers alone do the talking. Clearly this is a problem of plenty haunting Google given the large assortment of phones that are running on Android. Another problem that crops up because of fragmentation on Google’s Android is that a number of carriers and handset manufacturers associated with it do not keep the users updated on the newest Android versions making its way into the market. This situation exacerbates further because of the endless number of phone models running on the Android platform. Sending regular updates becomes a daunting task for these carriers and handset manufacturers associated with it. To give you a clear view of this problem with Android, over half of all Android users are still running version 2.3, which was released way back in 2010. While, Apple doesn’t allow skinning and when it feels the need, it allows users with older devices to upgrade to the newest version of its OS. This results in a more consistent and an enhanced user experience. 3. Tablet-friendly app listings The App Store has a long listing of apps that are categorically managed. The iPhone and iPad apps are displayed separately in different areas. iPad apps are designed to suit tablets as they have larger screens. Google fails to provide these privileges. 4. No carrier junk Carriers have their Android devices overloaded with third party apps that rarely deliver promised quality. Some of these apps charge exorbitant subscription rates. Many of these pre-installed apps do fall short of their quality and users are not likely to use them often. Even deleting them is not possible. Apple doesn’t allow carriers to install all these unnecessary apps. This is an advantage that iOS users have over Android ones. 5. A better personal assistant Google Now looks decent for a personal assistant, but the version of Siri included in iOS 6 has very surprising features. It is built to look more human when it answers questions put forth by the user. The questions can range from suggestions from it on a variety of problems and the answer is very satisfactory. It uses the technology of Artificial Intelligence to answer these. Siri is so sophisticated that there are very few errors surfacing in the answers it comes up with. Apple has put a lot of efforts in order to come up with Siri. 6. iOS preferred for Apps There are plenty of popular apps available for iOS, but many of them are not available on Android. Android has to catch up with iOS on this. It is true that developers release their apps with both the platforms in mind, but they tend to be more biased to favor iOS over Android by releasing their iOS apps first. This makes things difficult for Android. 7. Better HTML5 support There is no doubt that Flash is installed in a number of computers on the web to cater to the multimedia needs of people, but many people have the opinion that HTML5 has all the potential to replace it. The latter is touted to be the next big thing in the multimedia business. So, instead of supporting Flash, Apple has come up with HTML5 support for Android and plans to stick with it hoping that it will soon replace Flash. This is a very good move on part of Apple. 8. Dynamic App icons The icons on iOS are aesthetically designed and are pleasing to the eye. Folders and apps like Spotify are capable of showing notifications without having the need for you to log in. This is lot better than clicking on them now and then in order to have a look at the notifications. Android has limited capabilities in this

Mobile e-commerce or shopping and transacting on a portable device has become very popular with the people of this age. With the advanced technology that is used in manufacturing these hand-held devices such as smartphones, tablets and the like, the stage is set for mobile e-commerce to be given a serious thought in order to reap rich benefits from stores of popular brands. E-commerce is surely popular, but there is a need for businesses to look into mobile e-commerce too as it has an immense potential to eclipse the former. Mobile users may buy products while using apps on their portable devices or browsing on many popular browsers such as iOS or Safari. Here are a few popular trends that are and can be witnessed in 2013: 1. Emergence of Windows phones Windows phones are gaining over iOS as Apple products have lost their exclusivity so much so that they are available in supermarket stores such as WalMart. Apple has lost its mojo to woo people who look for the next magical device. This has unfolded since the demise of Steve Jobs and the Apple consumer has lost his connect with the electronics giant. Lately, it has become increasingly dependent on the loyalty of its customers. This signals a trend that tech-savvy people are getting increasingly besotted with the Windows phone and OS- Windows phone shipments grew more than 133 percent year over year and have almost doubled this year. Such trends signify the emergence of new e-commerce software that are compatible with Windows’ phones and rely on the Windows OS. Though it should be noted that smartphones with Windows OS do not have innumerable apps such as its competitive rivals like Android and iOS- apps being the sole factor for wielding complete control over this huge mobile market, Windows phones are fast growing and keeping up pace. 2. Android customers have limited means Many people buying Android smartphones go for it mainly because of the price criterion. This is because Google wants to command over a large share of the market and has tied up with a number of vendors that are increasingly identified with the common man. This quantity over quality precedence has made Android not suitable for mobile e-commerce. For Android lovers, their gadgets are a substitute to the high-priced Apple’s products in the market. This indicates that these buyers want the ‘cheap and somewhat best’ phones and thus never compromise over the price, even if they are a few dollars more. Android has ended up garnering a huge market share nonetheless, the popularity of Android is a fad. To sum this all up with the mobile e-commerce market, there is no doubt that Android phone users do not have the wherewithal to purchase products on the stores online and hence brands have to ignore them. They may even browse and hover over the products for the sheer fun sake of it and not necessarily buy these products. This can be put in the mall culture parlance as ‘window shopping’. Entertaining these visitors is detrimental to the brands’ profitability. 3. Increasing importance of iOS There is irrefutable evidence to prove that iOS is becoming increasingly important for e-commerce. iPads are becoming popular for online purchases. The moment iPad was introduced, the visits from traditional desktop and laptop browsers became less frequent to e-commerce sites. They dropped from 92.33 percent to 81.60 percent in one year and mobile devices like the iPad have doubled their market share. This growing prominence of iOS on the iPad is because of the fact that iPad has a comparatively larger screen to view the products listed on the e-commerce apps. This larger display of the products compounded with the clutter-free screen that is friendly to capacitive or resistive touches make the iPad the preferred device for e-commerce needs. 4. Mobile web design getting better Mobile web design is getting better day by day. The browsers are also keeping up with time and adapting to consumers’ needs. For example, Nokia has adapted to people’s needs and has come up with a new version for its handset users. It has incorporated a number of user suggestions that it receives from the feedback button. It has launched a newer version of its browser wherein it supports multitasking or in a more stricter sense, supports the browsing in multiple tabs that largely remained a handicap to its earlier phones. This is a welcome move as the user can open multiple windows simultaneously and can limit the use of desktop computers for work needs. Needless to say, mobile web design is evolving and can reach the zenith regarding flawless usability in the coming years. Mobile e-commerce can be as convenient as on the web then. 5. Mobile phones are getting stickier Mobile phones are more suited for e-commerce needs when compared to desktops. An average mobile phone user shuns the use of desktops because they do not come handy. Imagine the scenario where the mobile phone user forgets to buy something for an occasion such as a gift for a special one and remembers it in the most unusual of places and owing to time constraints and the distance to the nearest store, he cannot purchase it. He can readily order it on the phone as it is ‘sticky’. ‘Sticky’ in this sense, the mobile phone is portable. A desktop cannot help the user avail this privilege as reaching a nearest one can be a long walk. A simple reminder too can make the user aware of his special occasion fast approaching. E-commerce store owners have to take advantage of this fact and make users linger more on their sites. This can be done by driving users towards their site through inbound links from social media sites, where these users can always be spotted. Online chat rooms can also be found teeming with these kind of users. These store owners can plan thoroughly and reap huge benefits. 6. Attractive mobile version for users Mobile e-commerce store

What is Project Management? Well, before we start talking about troubled projects, let’s focus on what is project management. As per Wikipedia, “Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end (usually time-constrained, and often constrained by funding or deliverable), undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value”. Now, that is a complex definition. To simplify the definition, Project Management is all about planning, organizing, communicating, identifying risks and motivating resources. But most importantly to get the work done on correct time and delivered to the right stakeholder. Why a project lands up in a trouble zone? To get the answer of this question, we will need to understand the difference between project and production. Instead of going to a bookish definition, let’s keep it short and simple. Project is achieving a common goal with a set of common services. For example, it can be an IT project or civil project like building a bridge. While any tangible item, which is produced or manufactured in a time-tested environment with a predefined output using some specialized services can be defined as a Production. For example, a factory manufacturing soaps. So, for project, the output is unique in nature and while for production based output is common. Thus, due to temporary and unique nature of project (until it’s quite diligently monitored), there is high chance of getting the same in a trouble zone. Does a troubled project have its own life cycle? There is no difference between a normal project and a troubled project’s life cycle. Something went wrong in the life cycle of a typical project which has introduced the word ‘Troubled Project’ or ‘Project on Fire’ (commonly used in IT world). For a waterfall based project, a typical life cycle will be: Setup or Initiation Planning & Design Development or Construction Testing or Review Deployment Maintenance In all of the above stages, a normal project can easily be turned into a ‘troubled’ project. Well, no one wants to be a part of trouble projects. Read on to learn more about troubled projects compared to smooth sailing ones…. Well, I did screw my project. How do I come out of it? Don’t worry! It even happens with the best in the lot and is normal. Let us focus on how to get the project back on track and make it a smooth sailing one. We don’t need to do something heroic or completely out of the box. Basic project management skills will help you get your project out of trouble. Few quick referencing tips & tricks: As a Project Manager, you need to understand the complete scope of a project. A single line missed in RFP or project scope document can be disastrous. Identify the potential skill of the delivery team of such projects. If require, set up a skill training. Always remember you are in an industry where you need to learn everyday and upgrade yourself.   Communicate with customer regularly and bring back his/her confidence on the team. Always remember when you are dealing with an outsourced project customer, agree to work on commitment virtually agreed on and any troubled project means failure of commitment. You might react more badly if the same happens to you. Update risk register on the project learning (so it can be used for future project reference). Make sure all the key stakeholders along with senior management are informed about daily project progress. This will help you ensure that all tasks performed by you are cross-reviewed at this critical stage. It has been observed that any project with ‘Fire’ really de-motivate the team. Well, let’s control all our emotions and motivate the team and bring back their confidence. Always remember team work is the pillar for any project success. Do a Root Cause Analysis (RCA – Fish Bone Analysis) and share the finding with the key project stakeholder. To all budding project managers, please make sure that the project triangle is always controlled. Always remember if you are running away from a problem, then you are moving far from its solution. Let’s face it and get it resolved. You will love the satisfaction of success. Do It Your Self (DIYS) Just to figure out how good you are in managing your projects, try out this tool: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_60.htm. Be honest to yourself and check your score. On a lighter note If anyone follows this popular graffiti about project management available on online world, that individual will definitely land his/her project into the classification of ‘troubled project’: This Article is part of the employee experience sharing & content contribution initiative for Indus Net Technologies’ Blog site Content Credit : Souvik Chaki, Delivery Manager-Mobile Application, Indus Net Technologies About the Author :  A techno-manager with total of 11+ years in Software Development & Implementations in IT sector, including 7 years of relevant experience in Delivery, Project Management and Pre-sales activities. He can be reached at souvik.chaki@indusnet.co.in

Android platform is challenging to the developers and when aesthetically designed can prove to be visual treat to the customer. This satiating end user experience which is much craved for among the developers, can be a fulfilling experience. The full utilization of the capabilities of android can unleash a wide array of technologically superior mobile devices in the market. But most of the cell phones available in the market do not harness the full potential of the android platform. The tips listed below with a brief introduction to the basic components involved in design are expected to bridge the gap between the designers and the user to create an enhanced end user experience. Conforming to these tenets of design can also give you the assurance of being consistent with the user requirements. It will be useful for you to develop pixel-perfect graphic assets and nice XML layouts. Pixels Pixels are a very important part of the visual design experience. After all, pixels themselves are the basic components that form an image and are the very essence of it. Most of the developers are familiar with User Interface (UI) patterns, but lack the acumen when it comes to visual designing. Exploring the possibility of supplying this lack of expertise can mean the deliverability of high-fidelity mock-ups, drawable resources (i.e., graphic assets) and guidance to the inquisitive developer.  Scale well: Android is a platform designed for a variety of screen densities. Screen resolution is not a question here, but graphics, widgets and layouts on par with a density independent measurement scheme is. Devices using the android platform come factory-loaded with a mechanism to optimize graphic assets for each density. Manually optimizing is definitely not a good idea. The platform can scale down the resources reasonably well without a lot of hiccups. But it is wise to test designs on low-end devices first and optimize resources that scale badly.  Be state friendly: Touch states play a pivotal role in the usage of the device. Going by the market trends, capacitive touch screens are in vogue. The touch states provide the user with available options to select. When customizing widgets such as buttons, it is important to create drawables (the area on the touch screen that is sensitive to the touch) for all the necessary states (i.e., default, focused, pressed and disabled). A brief description follows:  Default: as the name suggests, this state is not available for the operation of the user and can work silently in the background.  Focused: this state usually highlights the option at the very top of the screen. It allows the user to navigate the menu with his trackball or directional pad. This option is not much used in recent smartphones.  Pressed: this state acknowledges the user selection  Disabled: as the name suggests, this state disables or dims the options which are not available or are irrelevant to the operation. The size of the touch target matters too. Normally, if stylus replaces the fingers, there can be a small size touch target. If fingers are used the size of the touch target should be at least 45 density pixels in width and height.  Use fonts: Droid Sans and Roboto are the 2 fonts popular with android developers. Roboto was released in Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4). It has been compared to Helvetica, but is a little condensed, ideally suitable for small screens. There is a provision in Android for using other fonts too. They can be packaged within an app in TTF format (with some memory overhead).  Use 9-Patch drawables: drawables define the touch sensitive areas on the touch screen. 9-Patch drawables allow Portable Network Graphics (PNGs) files, which are basically image files, to stretch (as in the zooming operation) and scale down nicely in pre-defined ways. Markings along the top and left edges define the stretchable areas. The padded content areas can optionally be defined with markings along the bottom and right edges. 9-Patch drawables are essential for creating and customizing User Interface (UI) widgets (i.e., buttons and the like). These drawables can also define the areas for scrolling down a list of options and swiping, which are stretched vertically in the middle of the top of the screen and horizontally stretched at the bottom of the screen respectively. It is possible to manually define the 9-Patches too, but the android SDK is provided with a nice, simple tool called Draw 9-Patch. This facilitates the quick and easy conversion of a regular PNG into a 9-Patch. It highlights the stretchable area and displays previews of the resulting drawable with different widths and heights.  Stick to the design legacy: honeycomb (Android 3) and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) have come loaded with a snazzy visual design that incorporates the Holo theme. Very less manufacturers do justice to the hallowed platform that Android is- they do not keep the versions up-to-date. Only the most popular devices that have made their way into the market recently, sport the Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). There are two types of consumers whom you could possibly cater to- one are that fit in with the modern look and the other vouching for familiarity with the design. The former can be provided with a design necessarily throwing strong focus on delivering the current look, feel and experience to all devices, while the latter can be satisfied with a separate style of widgets and drawables used for Android gingerbread and its previous versions.  Showcase the brand: some clients fear that by going with the recognized user interface design patterns, they may lose their brand appeal. This is not true. On the contrary, with the introduction of non user friendly patterns, the users can be at their wit’s end trying to figure out the right way of using their device. This could be detrimental to the brand, losing its connect with the customer. Branding can be expressed through an appealing design of icons, drawables and widgets, and also with a good choice of colours and fonts.

Android apps provide users a variety of information on everyday weather, fancy games, music, emails, shopping, maps, media, videos, social media etc. Android apps are not only stylish but have great utility along with sophistication, allowing the user to feel confident about his choice of app. The wide varieties of apps that are available in the market cater to both business and personal uses, making Android apps an all time favorite. Adding to this, Android platforms also have great features, remarkable screen resolution, interesting functions and most certainly weigh lesser than other mobile platform phones. It has been observed that the number of application users in other mobile platforms like iPhone, windows, blackberry are very less when compared to android platform owners. The Android platform is slowly beginning to rule the smart phone market showing a tremendous growth in a short duration. The increase in demand for Android apps has led to accelerated increase in Android app developers all over the world. The open source platform provided by Android is a welcoming gesture where developers get to experiment their app and users are free to use it without having to pay for a licensed version of the app. It also allows you to sell the application to a third party vendor, helping the developer make more money out of his finding. Basic Fundamentals of an Android Application All Android applications are written in the java programming language, while the Android SDK tools compile the code, including all data and resource files, into an Android package. The .apk file is treated as an application which all Android platform phones install in order to use an application. Once an application is installed in a phone, it has its own security sandbox. The Android OS uses a Linux system where each application is treated as a different user. Automatically the system assigns each installed application a unique Linux ID, securing the entire system Each process is made to have its own virtual machine, isolating all the applications installed Since each application has its own Linux process, an application process starts and shuts down automatically once the process is complete, helping the system to recover memory when required for other applicationsThese methods are termed as ‘principle of least privilege’ where each application is allowed to do its own work and is not allowed to access other parts of the system creating a secure system.It is also possible for applications to share data with each other and also access system services. This is made possible in two ways: The user can arrange for two applications to share the same Linux user ID making it possible for them to access each other’s files An application can also access device data when permission is granted by the user during the time of installment. Device data such as contact numbers, SMS messages, SD card, camera, Bluetooth and others can all be accessed. Security is Key Data Storage Security: Android offers numerous choices for application data management. Depending on our requirements data can be made private or public and users can also chose the amount of space required to store one’s data. Data that is meant for public is stored in the exterior storage and private data in the internal storage Apps request for Permissions: On installing an Android application, the user has to grant permission right from the start to access other data on the phone. Even after denying a number of permissions, the apps are developed in a manner to still function appropriately Network Security for IP Networks: App developers have to keep in mind to provide network security for IP networks and telephony as it provides recent details for securing applications, recognizes bottle necks created by IP networks, guards against hacker attacks and also protects the phone against dangerous external and internal threats Different Methods of Security: Android apps provide different security features for different reasons. Challenges like virus attack, hackers, breakdown or crashing of the software can all be solved by installing software like C++, Java and many other software which are available in the market. The primary reason to provide security for an Android phone is to lower the occurrences. The security sandbox created by the platform on installing an application would already have separated the app data and system data, creating dual layers of security. A Few Tips for Building Attractive Android Applications Neutral Theme: Appling a neutral theme will avoid the developer from having to change styles for each activity of the app. The dark or light themes are the most used and most preferred of all the themes which suits almost all context Flexible Layouts: Android apps have the malleability to fit multiple screen sizes. Using layout designs that can be stretched to fit the screen are most appropriate to develop fun apps. ‘fill_parent’ and ‘wrap_content’ are layout designs which easily allow the application to adapt the content to the screen size automatically Receptive Web Design apps: Designing receptive web design layouts makes the app compatible with any kind of Android device widening the scope and usage of the app Eye catchy icon: Google play has over 7000 apps and if you want your app to stand out in the crowd, you better make sure your icon is more than eye catchy. The icon should be designed in a manner which will depict the use of the app just through the image Adding a Price Tag: Most of the apps in the market are free of cost. But if you choose to quote a price for an app, it is best to wait for a short duration before you add a price tag. Observe its acceptability in the market and then move on to sell your app, giving the users who have already installed the app a free trial period Give the User some Freedom: Allow the user to end, quit or log off from the app on his own accord. Do not make him plead to be let off.