Join us in exploring the world of modern development, evolving technologies, and the art of future-proof software
Native mobile applications are popular among consumers, but how do their advantages translate to the business world? Not as well as you might think.
If you’re considering mobile apps for your business, here’s a new white paper that you’ll want to read. It explores each mobile app option, and explains why businesses should think twice before taking the native approach. You can access the white paper right here.
Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on a recent CIO survey, the need for custom mobile apps, and more. I hope you find them useful:
5 new smartphone OS’s bet on HTML5 and improved UIs
Did you know that 5 new smartphone operating systems are scheduled for release this year? Will any of them become the next iOS or Android? Perhaps a better question: If your business is building native mobile apps, how many of these new operating systems do you plan to support? …
In 2012, Gartner estimates that smartphone and tablet sales reached 821 million, accounting for approximately 70% of all devices sold in the last year. In 2013, they expect those sales numbers to reach 1.2 billion.
If it feels like the mobile trend is growing faster than other trends in recent history, you’re right. According to a report published by MIT, mobile computers (smartphones/tablets) are on track to saturate markets in the U.S. and the developing worlds in record time. In other words, smartphones and tablets are spreading faster than any other technology in history.
How are businesses responding? A 2012 Accenture survey found that 78% of CIOs consider mobility a “top 5 priority”. Businesses understand the importance of mobile, and are rushing to take advantage of this trend.
That’s where the problems arise. As businesses rush to build mobile apps, they often dive into the project without proper planning, or without an adequate understanding of their mobile app options.
As you might imagine, this causes problems. First, it produces mobile apps that the company doesn’t really need. Second, without proper guidance, some companies build the wrong type of mobile app–wasting time and money in the process.
To help your company avoid these problems, I’ve created a list of questions you should ask before building a mobile app. Hopefully, these questions will keep you from building an app that fails, or from building the wrong type of mobile app. Before you build your mobile app, here are 4 questions to answer: …
4 essential questions to ask before building a mobile business app (Part 1)Read More »
If your company operates in multiple countries and currently translates your web sites and/or apps into multiple languages, let me ask you a question: What if you could combine the speed of machine translation with the accuracy of human translation?
If that sounds intriguing, here’s a video you’ll want to watch. It outlines the growing need for translation, and explains a unique translation method that nearly automates web application translation. I hope you find it informative.
Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on how IT can keep its strategic role in 2013, linux on smartphones, and more. I hope you find them useful:
Ubuntu on smartphones: What you need to know
The popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu, recently announced that they’re creating a smartphone OS, which should be released this year. Mozilla also recently made news with the announcement that they are also working on a smartphone OS. What does this mean for business? If your company has built mobile web apps, you’re in the clear. Mobile web apps work across all operating systems, both now and in the future. …
Let me tell you a quick story about two similar development projects at two very different companies. Both companies were building extranets/portals–applications that let their customers log in, view their data, and place orders online.
Both had similar requirements. Both were nearly equally complex. The big differences between the two projects: One required 3 years, while the other required 3 months.
What caused this huge disparity?
As it turns out, the first company made a number of mistakes that killed their developer’s productivity. What were they? I’ve pulled out the most important lessons to learn from this story, and listed them below. With that in mind, if you want to maximize your developer’s productivity… …
Here’s a great new feature that will improve your web apps. With the latest m-Power enhancement, developers can now automatically include a custom, drop-down navigation menu in every application.
Here are a few reasons you’ll love this new feature:
1. Maintenance is simple: The m-Power navigation menu is built for simplicity. Once you create your navigation menu file and tell m-Power to include it in your applications, you’re home free. Because the navigation menu is a separate file, maintenance is a breeze. You only have to change one file to update your navigation menu across all applications.
2. User-based security: When you apply the same navigation menu across all apps, you run into user-access problems. What happens if certain applications should only be accessible by a select number of users? Don’t worry, we thought of that. You can set up user-based security on the menu, so users can only see the menu items that pertain to them.
3. We’ve already done the hard work for you: We’ve already created the CSS and HTML necessary for the drop-down menu (though you can alter it if you want). There’s nothing for you to do except tell m-Power that you want the menu added to your applications.
Want to add the navigation menu to your m-Power applications? It’s simple. We’ve written up a short tutorial in our techblog that explains the whole process. You can find it right here.
Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on IT resolutions for 2013, design tips for developers, and more. I hope you find them useful:
2012: The year in application development
In 2012, application development experienced some notable shifts. HTML5 became even more popular, mobile app development finally went mainstream in the business world, and much more. …
Weekly recap: Best IT resolutions for 2013, design tips for developers, and more…Read More »
When you look back at 2012, what stands out in your mind? As an IT professional, what are you going to remember the most about the past year? As I think back on 2012, several stories and events really stand out as shaping the year (and possibly beyond) from a business technology perspective.
While there are too many stories to list, I looked back over the past year and pulled out the news, stories, and events that were of significant importance to IT pros and developers in 2012. Feel free to add anything I missed in the comments, but here’s my list of the top IT stories of 2012: …
Top 8 tech stories of 2012 for IT pros and developersRead More »
Here are a few questions for you as we head into 2013: Do you want to cut your development time in half? Do you want to automate mobile development? Do you want a way to quickly build new features into your current software?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, here’s a video you’ll want to watch. This short, 2-minute video explains how m-Power answers each one of the questions above, and even walks you through a sample build process. I hope you enjoy it.