Top 4 Mobile App Development Nightmares

Posted on November 19, 2012
by Viktor, ShoutEm CEO

Nightmare No 1. – Cost and Time to Market

Oh boy, developing this mobile app made us go broke.

This is definitely the biggest. Get ready to pay a lot of money! I would say anywhere between $20,000 and $100,000 if you are serious about it.

Good developers are hard (read: impossible) to find:

Mobile apps are developed in programming languages that most web developers do not know how to program in. ObjectiveC is the dominating programming language for iOS. That language just recently started getting bigger adoption and the learning curve is much steeper than for web development languages. That results in: a) a smaller number of highly skilled developers and b) higher developer salaries.

Multiply your costs by number of platforms:

Did we say developers are more expensive? We might have underestimated. Multiply that by two, three, or even four. Or just let us know which one of these platforms you don’t want to support:

iPhone? Definitely not.
Android? Forget it. Samsung Galaxy just dethroned the iPhone in sales.
iPad? The fastest selling gadget ever? Sure, you don’t need it….
HTML5? You can’t run your app in a mobile browser? Lame.

Time to market – measured in months:

Mobile development is very, very, very slow. It literally takes forever. Mobile developers are expensive but that does not mean they are fast. Three months is a safe minimum, more realistically it will be six months or more. And when you think you’re done, you actually are not. There is the iTunes App Review process and who knows what can go wrong there.

Nightmare No 2. – App Store / Google Play

Should I consider hiring a former NASA scientist?

You might think that most of the work is done when you are finished with development of your app. Unfortunately publishing apps to the various stores is a rather complex process and requires a developer to do that. You will have to understand all of this:

Compiling binaries
Distribution certificates
Private keys
Push notifications certificates
InApp purchases subscription certificates
Dozens of pages of forms you need to fill in detail
Uploading binary to iTunes, Google play
Providing proper description and images for your app
Communicating with Apple App Review team

This is nothing like putting your website on the server and you are good to go, like anyone can do it.

Nightmare No 3. – iPhone and Android Upgrades

The latest iOS upgrade just crashed my app and our users are pissed off!

Maintaining compatibility with every update of the iPhone and Android operating systems is a full-time job on it’s own. Both platforms are rapidly developing and sometimes do not maintain backward compatibility on some of the features that can break your app.

Screen resolutions:

You’ve heard about the bigger screen on the iPhone5, right? Well, that is a child’s play comparing to Android devices. Do you understand any of this below? If not better start learning.

Small screen
QVGA (240×320), 2.6″-3.0″ diagonal
Normal screen
WQVGA (240×400), 3.2″-3.5″ diagonal FWQVGA (240×432), 3.5″-3.8″ diagonal HVGA (320×480), 3.0″-3.5″ diagonal WVGA (480×800), 3.3″-4.0″ diagonal FWVGA (480×854), 3.5″-4.0″ diagonal

OS Updates:

And we only touched screen resolutions. How about OS updates? They will most likely break your app or at least make it look outdated. For example:

No support for latest iOS native Facebook and Twitter integration. (Add $5,000 to your dev budget)
Not compatible with new iOS maps. (Add $10,000 to your dev budget)
You cannot share to Pinterest? (Add $4,000)
No support for new Facebook like home screen? (Add $7.000)

And the list goes on and on and on… every month… for many years…and keeps adding and adding.

Nightmare No 4. – Managing Content

Get ready to learn some code.

After all the money you’ve spent, you’d probably expect something like this:

An easy way of updating the content, by someone who isn’t tech savvy
All new content that’s immediately visible in the app
Easy ways to change, add or update functionality in the app in real-time

But the reality is much different:

Features are baked in the app
Every change requires developers to republish the app
You cannot activate new features without more development and going through App Review process
No way to change existing functionality without more development

So, is it possible to get around all that?

ShoutEm’s mission is to make all of the above problems disappear. By choosing the right mobile platform you can save ton of time and many headaches. Here’s how we are alleviating all the possible nightmares.

No 1: We reduce the costs to minimum. Starting from $19/month.
No 2: We handle all the steps required to publish the apps
No 3: We automatically update and upgrade your app every month
No 4: We provide most simple and most powerful mobile CMS on the market

Over last two years we’ve built beautiful, simple yet powerful tool and you are welcome to give it a spin at www.shoutem.com for free!

Mobile-Optimize your Website or Web-Optimize your Mobile App?

Posted on November 16, 2012
by John Garbarino

It’s happening sooner than you think: when a business looks to launch, they’ll always think about their mobile presence before they think about their website. In the startup world, many companies are building their business on mobile before the plain old web. For those of us deeply entrenched in the mobile business, this is a big “duh”. But for the vast majority of businesses, this realization has not yet struck. Let’s take a look at why:

Deep Investment in the Web
Most companies have spent an exhaustive amount of time, and in most cases money, building their web presence. Until now, your website has been your primary digital landmark (for some their social media presence has taken the throne). Through a website, you can present yourself and your branding as you want unlike the constantly changing social web. Websites are still valuable yet with each passing year they seem to have a diminishing return. At least, websites are becoming more affordable and streamlined thanks to blogging platforms like WordPress and simple-yet-sophisticated publishing platforms like Squarespace.

Incomplete Data
Since websites are where everyone starts their digital presence, businesses are just getting around to turning on those limited m.yourdomain.com sites halfheartedly provided by their CMS. At least now they can start to see their mobile traffic and engagement patterns—but it’s an incomplete picture. Without a proper mobile UX, there’s no way to gather good data about user engagement with your brand in a mobile context. Which means companies don’t even know what they’re missing.

Natural Reluctance
Let’s face it. Time and money are always limited. And the cost of a professionally developed app can be prohibitive. So even if a company has mobile website and wants a mobile app, they’re probably thinking: “Oy. I have yet another thing to build and manage. I just don’t have time and can’t afford it. The website is good enough.” And just like that, many opportunities fall by the wayside.

Reality check: complete mobile solutions are here, they’re affordable, easy to set up, and integrate with your existing content management tools. On top of that, some new data (thank you, Mary Meeker and Flurry) says in the very near future, the medium through which customers will find you the most often is mobile. And engagement in a native mobile app is twice that of a mobile website.

The debate about whether you need a mobile website or a mobile app is a dead one. You need both. But a mobile website is only the first step to customer acquisition—the mobile app is really what you need to keep them. So the debate should really be about where your starting point is. Until now, we’ve been building the web first, and then translating that experience into mobile. But we say you should reverse the process.

Websites can’t initiate engagement with your customers the way an app can. Start with the right UX of a native mobile app and build your mobile site from that rather than a website built for a wholly different purpose. Now you’re introducing customers to a complete experience on a device they have with them at all times. Once they’re in the door, you can engage them with targeted notifications right to their phones. And as a bonus, you’re getting a complete picture of their geographic and usage patterns.

So why spend your time updating your websites? Start with mobile first and build everything else from there.

Mobile Optimize your Website or Web Optimize your Mobile App?

App Spotlight: Downtown Charlevoix

Posted on November 9, 2012
by Elana Roth

Whether you’re in a bustling city or a lazy beach town, we’re willing to bet you pull out your mobile device on the road to get the lay of the land. Sure, you can rely on general location apps, but how much better is it when the very experts of the city you’re visiting have created a dedicated app to help you out? Downtown Charlevoix is exactly one of those apps.

Nestled in the lakes of upstate Michigan, Charlevoix is a small resort town of only about 3,000 year-round residents. But in the summer, the population swells to nearly 30,000 with the ebb and flow of tourists who come for the incredible waterfront and charming downtown scenery.

Until this year, the City of Charlevoix relied on printed maps and guides to help tourists navigate local attractions. But thanks to some help from the award-winning Pure Michigan campaign, they decided to take Charlevoix digital and mobile in one fell swoop.

Keith Carey, executive director of the downtown development authority, was kind enough to take some time out of his busy summer season to talk to us more about Downtown Charlevoix.

Tell us a little more about your personal history in Charlevoix.
I was born and raised here, but left for southern Michigan to attend college. My wife and I decided to move our family back to Charlevoix in late 2006. I began working for the city as a contract employee, managing the development of a downtown revitalization study. I was hired shortly afterwards to implement the consultant’s recommended action items. I’ve served as the executive director of our downtown development authority since April 2007.

How did the City of Charlevoix decide to move away from print and create an app?
Our community, led by our convention and visitors bureau (CVB), partnered with the award-winning “Pure Michigan” advertising campaign this past spring. Representatives of Pure Michigan suggested we offer a smartphone version of our popular Downtown Charlevoix Shop Directory as a way to support our CVB’s marketing efforts through the campaign.

What was your primary goal in creating the Downtown Charlevoix app?
We wanted to develop a shopping, dining and activity guide for our community. Initially, this app was just going to supplement a printed downtown map and store directory and wayfinding kiosks, but based upon its public reception so far, I expect it will become the flagship tool of our downtown wayfinding efforts.

What have been some of the biggest surprises that you’ve seen since launching the app?
The app will likely allow us to save thousands of dollars annually in printing costs as we transition away from a reliance on our printed directory and maps. This is pretty significant as I work for a local government with limited access to financial resources—I’m required to use tax dollars to fund the project, so anything that helps our budget is wonderful.

Also ShoutEm’s platform allows me to make real-time updates to our business directory and calendar of events. The minute a new retailer or restaurant joins our downtown, any store directories/maps we’ve previously printed are out-of-date—but the app never will be.

How did the summer season go as far as the app is concerned?
The Downtown Charlevoix application has been very positively reviewed both for its content and also the progressive message it sends our downtown businesses, residents and visitors. We’re a small community with a significant reliance on summer tourism dollars and our residents seem to appreciate that we’re technologically-savvy enough to have our own smartphone application!

—

Download Downtown Charlevoix today:

Obama vs. Romney iPhone app comparison

Posted on November 5, 2012
by Viktor, ShoutEm CEO

During the last election four years ago, Barack Obama was the clear winner of smart social media strategy, and that approach got him a victory. This time around though the advantage is not that big, and both candidates have done well in terms of embracing social media and the Internet.

But what about mobile? Was a mobile strategy a game-changer for one of the candidate this time?

Let’s take a look at the official apps more closely.

1. App Store presence

Both candidates tried to realize the power of social media and the opportunities within
mobile apps. Going on the App Store alone, a search for “Romney” gets 222 results and “Obama” gets 546 results.

Obama wins in a landslide. Obama vs. Romney: 1-0

2. Popularity/Downloads

Obama has one official mobile app with 763 reviews ~4.

Romney has three different apps under his iOS developer account:

Romney-Ryan (News category) – 931 reviews, ~4 stars
With Mitt (Photo & Video category) – 416 reviews, ~3 stars
Mitt Events (Entertainment) – 53 reviews, ~4.5 stars

On first glance, it looks like a more focused strategy around one well-done app might be the smarter approach. But it the hard numbers show that Romney killed it with his three specialized apps strategy

Since we do not know exact number of downloads we can assume that Romney is a winner here.

Winner: Romney, Obama vs. Romney: 1-1

3. Design/UX/Code

Both candidates were playing it safe and weren’t too eccentric with design of their apps. Here is our analysis in little bit more detail.

Code base

It looks like Obama’s app was written in native ObjectiveC technology while the Romney app is built with some HTML5/JS cross-platform framework. You can see that Obama’s app is much more responsive, faster and sharply designed.

Romney’s app on another hand looks like an embedded mobile web site in the app. Transitions between screens are not as smooth as Obama’s app and scrolling is slow and breaking.

Design

Obama (positive):

Elegantly designed and looks consistent across all screens
Using modern nav bar. It is not quite clear why Featured screen is selected as main screen. It looks like the designer just used that navbar layout because it is modern (Instagram), without really having a right purpose for it
Due to the native code approach and higher costs Obama’s app is pretty basic in functionality, but it is nicely designed and works smoothly
Login screen slides from the left and looks sharp. It appears when you need it and otherwise doesn’t interfere.

Obama (negative):

Main screen not interesting enough and more prominent navbar icon does not serve the purpose
Basic functionality

Romney (positive):

Ton of functionality

Romney (negative):

Design, in our opinion, is pretty lame and has some major flaws
It looks like some web development shop did the job instead of specialized mobile dev company
Pieces of the app are blurry
Scrolling is breaking
Navigation bar uses pretty lame icons

Winner: Obama by far, nice job. Obama vs. Romney: 2-1

4. Donation Workflow

I guess this is the most important part and purpose of both apps. A detailed comparison of donation sites was already done by Tedd Zeigler. If you compare the design of donation module in both apps, you’ll notice that the Romney’s suggested amounts of donation are little bit higher, but that probably is not a big deal. Otherwise, both apps make the process simple.

Winner: Obama. Obama vs. Romney: 3-1

5. Exploiting mobile opportunity

Ten percent of all donors have contributed via text message or an app. According to the Pew research center (Presidential Campaign Donations in the Digital Age) 15% of Democratic campaign donors have contributed via text message or cell phone app, compared with only 6% of Republican donors.

Winner: Obama wins by 3x, , Obama vs. Romney: 4-1

Conclusion

Obama is the winner on iPhone, that’s for sure. Solid strategy and great execution in his app. Maybe mobile was not the game changer during this election season, but in the future it can become a significant factor. Smartphone penetration is getting close to 50% in US and in four years it might be at the level of 70% or even 80%. That is a huge opportunity for both sides and we hope they have learned a lot from this election.

Let us know what you think! Feel free to comment and share this article.

Introducing our iPad App Builder

Posted on October 24, 2012
by Josh Wolff

There’s been quite a bit of buzz around the iPad lately, especially with the newly announced iPad 4 and iPad mini devices. Which is why we’re pleased to announce the latest addition to our platform, the ShoutEm iPad app builder.

ipadarticle1 Introducing our iPad App Builder ShoutEm iPad app builder dashboard

Our iPad-specific apps offer the following experience:

Rich, responsive full-screen display
Swipe easily through crisp photo, video and written content
Fully customize your design elements, including complete color skinning and graphic element opportunities

Automated publishing process and free updates and upgrades for life

After work on your app is complete, ShoutEm takes care of the entire publishing process to iTunes App Store and Google Play for you and provides automatic app and feature updates for the lifetime of your app. And it all comes for free:

New features and modules
Update of the app once a month or every second month
Compatibility with new iOS and Android OS versions

Our flagship iPad app – The Next Web for iPad

To see a great ShoutEm-created iPad app in action we encourage you to check out The Next Web for iPad from our friends at The Next Web.

Up to the minute global technology coverage
Breaking news
Daily Dose podcast
Videos and photo galleries

iPad app builder video tutorial

It doesn’t take more than one minute to learn how to use our builder dashboard. The following video explains how to complete your app from start to finish in no time:

What the press is saying

“… Code-free services have emerged, but as you have likely seen, a majority of these options are sub-par. One company that stands out in the crowd, however, is ShoutEm.” – The Next Web

“ShoutEm’s app offering spreads from from mobile web to tablet, aiming at publishers that want to build for the iPad.” – TechCrunch

Happy building!

We truly believe that “Apps Should Be Easy”, and we hope you enjoy the latest addition to our rapidly expanding platform.