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Mobile

Weekly recap: 10 strategic CIO priorities for 2013, concerns with BYOD, and more…

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EducationEvery 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 CIO priorities, BYOD concerns, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why you’d be stupid to bet against HTML5
If your company is considering mobile apps, what approach are you taking? Native, mobile web, or hybrid? While each approach has its benefits, this article explains the big reason why the mobile web approach is so useful for business. …

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Weekly recap: 10 hot IT skills for 2013, the data-less iPad, and more…

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EducationEvery 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 hot IT skills, small data, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Implement the data-less iPad
Do you want to know the simplest way to ensure that a lost mobile device doesn’t cause a data breach? Don’t store any data on the mobile device. How is this possible? It’s possible with web apps, which access data that’s securely stored on your database, but not on the device itself. And don’t forget that m-Power makes building web apps a breeze. …

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3 great ways other companies are using mobile apps

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EducationMobile apps. They’ve taken the business world by storm. They’re helping businesses become more efficient, boost sales, improve customer satisfaction, and much more. The fact is, mobile apps offer all types of benefits to all types of businesses…yet many companies still hesitate to jump on board.

Why is that?

In my experience, companies hesitate for one of three reasons: They’re not sure exactly how mobile apps can help their business, they’re not sure how to build mobile apps, or they lack adequate resources.

Today, I’d like to take a look at each of these issues. First, let’s examine how mobile apps can help businesses. However, rather than explain all the different ways mobile apps can help a business, let’s look at some real-life examples. I’ve picked 3 great examples of ways that other companies are currently using mobile apps: …

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This mobile strategy might inspire you

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Save Time“But…how can we use it in our business?”

That’s the biggest question surrounding every major tech trend. How can it help my company? Smart companies know that while big tech trends may get a lot of press, that doesn’t make them useful. They must understand the business value before jumping on board.

Rather than try to explain how certain tech trends can help your business, I prefer to take a look at real-life examples. Today, let’s check out a company that’s using a major tech trend (mobile) to save time and money.

What are they doing? They’re using off-the-shelf gadgets (instead of expensive business equipment) combined with simple mobile web apps to dramatically reduce the time it takes to log inventory. If you’d like to read the whole story, you can find it over on ibmsystemsmag.com. …

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Have businesses fallen for Apple’s marketing?

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Education“There’s an app for that.”

Who hasn’t heard that line by now? When Apple opened their app store back in 2008, they centered the ad campaign around that little phrase. From a marketing perspective, they were brilliant ads. They positioned the iPhone as much more than a phone. It was a device that could address most any need you were facing. Have a problem? There’s an app for that. Don’t have any problems? There’s probably an app for that too.

To put it lightly, the campaign (and the app store) was a great success. The app store now contains hundreds of thousands of apps. It recently passed its 10 billionth download. Other companies have opened their own app stores, hoping to cash in on the app trend. In short, consumers are crazy for apps.

The problem is, Apple’s marketing may have worked a little too well. …

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The small IT staff that’s making a big difference

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ProductivityDoes IT matter anymore? I’ve seen that question cropping up around the web in the last month or so. Some people believe that the rise of SaaS options eliminates the need for a traditional IT department. They view IT departments as an added expense that doesn’t help the bottom line.

If you work in IT, that question must infuriate you. IT departments put in countless hours keeping the business up and running. The idea that a business would be just fine without an IT department is ridiculous.

Now, I could spend all day explaining why that question is absurd, but instead, let’s ask a better question: If the business views your IT department as an added expense, what can you do to change that perception?

While the answer to that question varies by company, let’s look at a real-life example of an IT staff that’s making a big (positive) impact on their company. This small IT department recently came up with an inexpensive way to improve employee productivity using smartphones and mobile apps. To find out how, you can read the whole story over at IBM Systems Magazine.

What do your web apps look like on a smartphone?

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EducationWith smartphone adoption rates setting records, it’s time that you asked yourself one question: What do our web apps or web sites look like on a smartphone? After all, the probability that your users will access your apps/site on a mobile device is growing daily.

Now, the best way to address the growing mobile trend: Create intelligent web apps that automatically adapt to each device. But, while that may be the best option, what if your company doesn’t want (or isn’t ready) to create mobile apps yet? Can you just ignore mobile users? Of course not. At the very least, you must ensure that your web apps aren’t completely unusable on a smartphone.

Why is that important? Because some common web design elements don’t translate over to mobile, and will negatively impact usability for smartphone users. What are they? While I’m sure there are more, here are 4 common web design elements that will cause problems for smartphone users: …

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Yes, you can use GPS with mobile web apps (with proof)

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EducationThere’s a lot of misinformation being spread about mobile apps. Just last week, I read yet another article from yet another mobile app “expert” that made me cringe. The article falsely claimed that native apps are necessary if you want to use the phone’s hardware sensors, like the GPS.

Okay. Let me set the record straight: No, they’re not!

Native apps are not required to use the phone’s GPS, and that’s just the beginning. Mobile web apps can actually access almost every hardware sensor that a native app can access. If you’d like to learn which sensors a mobile web app can access, read this article.

So, how can you access the GPS using a mobile web app? It’s simple, and we have two short tutorials and a demo to prove it. …

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7 reasons why mobile web apps are better for business than native apps

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EducationIf your business is planning to build native mobile apps, ask yourself this question: Are you building native mobile apps because you need to, or because you think you have to? While native apps are popular with consumers, they’re quite impractical for most businesses.

To understand why, let’s first look at why native apps are popular with consumers. Native apps do a couple of things very well: They deliver highly graphical interfaces and they’re easy to find and download. While these are important factors for consumers, are they really important to your business?

For most businesses, the answer is a resounding “No”. Unless your business needs highly graphical applications, mobile web apps simply make more business sense. How so? Here are 7 reasons why mobile web apps make more sense from a business standpoint: …

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Hybrid vs. Native vs. Mobile web comparison chart

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EducationNative, mobile web, or hybrid? For companies considering mobile apps, that is the million dollar question. Which direction do you take?

The answer: It depends. There’s no single correct answer that applies to every situation. Each option (mobile web apps, hybrid apps, and native apps) has its own advantages. The right path for your company depends on a variety of factors, such as: What are you trying to accomplish with your app? When do you need it? Which skills do you have in-house?

Here are a couple of options to help you figure out which path is best: First, you can check out this white paper that takes an in-depth look at the topic. Secondly, we’ve put together the following comparison chart for each mobile development method. It compares the main differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each. …

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