As an app developer you can’t always afford to spend a long time testing your app, especially if you’re developing for a client or have customers who are expecting a release on a set-date. You need to make sure that your testing phase is as complete and as effecient as possible, but how to do that if you’re under strict time restrictions?

Well, TestFlight, an app testing company, are part of a small niche (right now) of companies who provide you with the tools to test your app whilst it is still in beta. It’s a good idea, and definitely one that has developers very excited in the Android world. The private beta for Testflight Android had over 5000 developers signed up to it, with their tools being downloaded around 50,000 times by developers looking to utilise them in their apps.

They have been working with iOS for a while now, and many developers were pushing for an Android release, and now here we have it. Testflight stayed away from Android for a while because, at the time, the platform was so fragmented it was incredibly difficult to create a standarised system to test with. Fast forward to now though, and Android has seen 4.x version take over as the dominant version of the OS, which makes it a lot easier for testing and so TestFlight is now on board. Despite staying away from the Android market, TestFlight say that they don’t feel like they’ve lost any ground to competitors, simply because there isn’t really anyone else doing what TestFlight do in the Android world.

One of the points that TestFlight have noted is that testing for iOS and Android isn’t as different as it might first appear:

“The iOS and Android workflows are proving to be similar,” said TestFlight CEO Ben Satterfield “We actually were counting on this and created the Android workflow to have minimal changes in the UI so developers could onboard effortlessly.  It seems to have worked as within the first 24 hours of the private beta we had roughly the same percentage of developers connect their build systems and automatically start uploading their APKs.”

Developers have been flocking to the open beta so far and with good reason, it’s a chance to cut down a large amount of the work that goes into testing and a chance to perhaps take greater risks with your app development. After all, if you have the same amount of time to make your app, but you know that testing won’t be as time consuming, you can perhaps try out adding that feature you really wanted to but knew it would add too much time to the project.

Of course as innovative as TestFlight’s software is, there’s no substitute for some good hard graft when it comes to testing your app, especially with Android’s multiple versions and device types. And again, there is no one sure fire way to test an app, it’s a combination of different methods. That said, TestFlight can take out a large majority of the bug hunting quickly and easily, so passing up that opportunity should not be something you do.

After all, time is money, and anything that can save you one, or both, can only benefit your development (provided, of course, you keep to Good Design Practices). Another way you can save time and money is, if in need of a Mobile Backend as a Service, you talk to us at Kumulos. Our Mobile Backend as a Service is made by app developers, for app developers to make your creating a Mobile Backend quick, easy, and just what you need.

So why not talk to us today?

This is, of course, great news for developers who are seeing their market expanding outwards all the time. More than ever we have the opportunity to create great apps for a huge number of people from a variety of backgrounds and locations. And of course, this growth is driving the technology companies to create better and better smartphones.

More, better, faster, that old adage seems to be the motto behind mobile technology and of course, app development with it.

But what if we told you that you didn’t have to build big to make big money?

At the moment there were some 250 million feature phones sold in Q4 last year out there in the emerging market, and whilst it might not seem like it, there’s a huge market for low tech app solutions on these devices available for developers right now.

And some developers have made it their goal to target these feature phone markets.

After all, it’s not really a market that you hear a lot about in app development, but there are more than enough devices and users interested in using these devices with apps out there to make it more than worth your while. In essence it’s a largely untapped oil well.

ForgetMeNot, a South African app developer, have done some very interesting work in this area already. For example, they made an app that lets users of feature phones update their Facebook through an incredibly simplified app that only lets you update your status and nothing else. They also, even more recently, created an app that lets users browse the BBC newsfeed.

Ashley Bosler, the head of app development company Bosler, said that “What we did with this was simplify a lot of the data that came from the BBC… We made sure any photography worked on the phones. You can’t have hi-definition… We removed the video and generally made the way you look at it – the interface – really simple.”

Essentially you’re giving those who have feature phones an opportunity to engage with the wider mobile world, if even in a more simplified way, without them having to pay for an advanced piece of kit that they likely can’t afford.

There are, of course, problems with targeting feature phones for app development. There aren’t any centralised distribution hubs like the App Store or Google Play which means you have to shoulder much of the responsibility of getting your app to users on your own. The other problem is payment systems, which depending on the location of your customers, could vary quite wildly. Some want to pay by bank transfer, some just want to attach the cost to their monthly bill, and some don’t even know how they want to pay for an app.

That said though, it’s definitely a market that’s ready for more entries. It’s also a very stable market, because as much as feature phone sales are falling, many of these phones are used for years and tend to be sold on or passed down families rather than just ditched as many smartphones are. This gives your app and the market it’s based in much more staying power than it might appear.

But as always, if you’re an app developer needing some help, or even if you’re bang on track and just need a Mobile Backend, talk to us at Kumulos. We’ve got experienced developers who are here to help you and a Mobile Backend as Service that can give you the tools to create a powerful and customised Mobile Backend for your app. Whatever the case, why not contact us today and see what Kumulos can do for you?

It’s the same in the instant messaging world. With Facebook, Whatsapp, Vine, MessageMe, Poke and all the others all vying for attention in various different ways, how do you as an app developer even begin to create something that’s useful, familiar and innovative in the messenger market?

Well, Talkz, an app that’s just recently been announced at TechCrunch’s Disrupt NY conference, is wanting to change how we message forever.

How is it going to do that?

Well, it wants us to stop typing and start talking. What does that mean? Well, the app allows for every type of sharing you can imagine, so messaging, pictures, video, voice etc, but it’s the voice messaging that’s really putting them on the map as something to watch out for. Every textual message sent is accompanied by a voice message of the same text. At the moment the only voices available are Obama, W.Bush and Romney, but there are apparently big plans for getting celebrity endorsements.

But how does this actually work? What are the “voice clones”?

Talkz uses a very clever piece of voice recognition software that, over time, as you send voice messages, learns your voice. It learns your inflections, your tone and the overall character of your voice until it can create a fairly close replica of your spoken voice. That’s the voice clone in action; where eventually, you can send a text message and it can be read out as a voice message, in your voice, using your own little nuances and inflections as it does so.

Of course, there’s a major market here for celebrity voices and the creators of Talkz are already in negotiations with various, currently unnamed, celebs to get clones of their voices to sell to those using the app. Just as celebrity and other specialised ringtones were the biggest thing in the late 90’s and the start of the 2000’s, Talkz is looking to become the next wave of that particular area of the mobile world.

Combining with that the ability to send videos, doodles, pictures and even arrange chat hangouts (welcome, the chatrooms of the 21st century), Talkz has essentially got every base in the messenger market covered, and by the looks of things, has it covered well.

The sticking point in the whole operation is of course the voice cloning and whether it takes off or not. But having seen the massive viral success of the game Moon Lab Alpha, where users have created hundreds of hours worth of videos on Youtube of weird and wonderful sounding conversations created by the text-to-voice in the game; it could be the Talkz with its celebrity voices could generate a good amount of traction, if even for people to have ridiculous sounding conversations with.

Ultimately Talkz is an example that with enough creativity, an app developer can create a solid app even in markets that are seen to be pretty well full. The key here is, as always, having a good idea and a solid app design plan and implementing that plan properly. Although, it doesn’t hurt to have a little help along the way, and if you do need help with your app development, especially with creating a Mobile Backend, talk to us at Kumulos. We have a solid Mobile Backend as a Service created with app developers in mind that can take your app development cycle further, faster than you thought possible.

So why not talk to us today?

Whilst we all know that Android has managed to have an overall global lead in terms of handsets shipped, this is a clear indication that the shipped handsets aren’t just languishing in stores, they’re moving at a fair clip straight back out of them again. Android has a dominating lead in Spain, for example, where 93.5% of all handsets sold are Android. In fact, the only country that Android isn’t leading in out of those 9 is Japan, where iOS pulled ahead slightly to secure a 49.5% overall percentage, whereas Android is making do with 45%.

As you can see above though, overall Android is doing incredibly well, and Kantar think that this will only continue further into 2013:

“We expect to see a further spike in [Android's] share in the coming months, as sales from the HTC One start coming through and the Samsung Galaxy S4 is launched,” writes Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “This will pile pressure on Apple, BlackBerry and Nokia to keep their products front of consumers’ minds in the midst of a Samsung and HTC marketing blitz.”

Speaking of Apple, is it us or has Cupertino been very quiet this year so far? It is only early days of course, and the hype machine has already started to get the gears turning, if very slowly, with promises from Tim Cook of “big things” at the end of the year. But at the moment, without a new phone or even other product launch on the near horizon, Apple seem to be slipping from the public consciousness as Samsung pushes its latest and greatest Galaxy SIV and HTC stands shoulder to shoulder with Facebook to promote the “Facebook Phone” and of course, this spills over onto the One as well.

Android is now at the forefront of public consciousness, and despite Blackberry’s best efforts, it just can’t seem to make any kind of dent in the Android ship, with only 0.9% of sales globally last month. There is a surprising winner in all of this though, and that is Windows Phone, which has seen a small but steady amount of growth to 5.6% of global sales. Now that might not sound like a lot, but when you consider that Android has 64% and iOS has around 35% of sales, there’s not a lot of pie left to take; so 5.6% is quite respectable.

It is interesting that WP has managed to keep momentum up, and the main reason behind it could be that Nokia know how to make easy to use and good looking smartphones, and Windows Phone is less complex to use than Android or iOS if you’re coming from an older feature phone. WP is becoming the opening of the funnel into the smartphone world, and if they can keep their place their, they won’t get the ridiculous sales numbers of the two giants, but they will manage to gain and likely hold a place in the mobile market.

What will be very interesting is seeing what happens when Google inevitably announce some new shiny tech at I/O and Apple start pushing the hype machine up a few gears. An announcement, or even teaser, of a new iPhone will probably be enough to get Cupertino back in the spotlight. The telling results will likely come in Q4, so we’ll be back then to give you the next run down most likely.

Until then though, regardless of whether you develop from Android, iOS or Windows Phone, if you need a Mobile Backend, we at Kumulos have you covered. Our Mobile Backend as a Service has all the tools you need to create a customised, powerful Mobile Backend that will get your app working smoothly in no time at all. So if you’re an app developer in need, why not talk to us today and see what Kumulos can do for you?

Aside from also challenging TV veiwership numbers, app useage numbers are now roughly equal to those who are using laptops and PCs. This is something of an amazing statistic when you realise how common it is for households to have 3 or more computers that are regularly used. But the data doesn’t lie, and according to the mobile market researchers Flurry, there are now 224 million app users to 221 laptop and pc users out there.

App usage is also starting to dwarf more traditional types of media consumption options. Flurry found that during the “prime-time” hours of 7-10pm, there were on average 52 million people using ap

As the above graph shows, app usage is strong throughout the day, with the gradient going up until about 9-10pm where it starts to tail off. Interestingly, unlike other forms of media, weekday and weekend usage didn’t change an awful lot, with weekdays still getting 75% of the usage of the weekends. This points to the flexibility and portability of smartphones and mobile devices being a key component of their success. You can use any app you have, any time, anywhere. This causes much more consistent usage than say, TV, where you’ll get massive spikes and troughs, and maybe newspapers, where you get probably big spikes of use around breakfast and lunch, then a steady trail off into nothing by the evening.

But to even hit the number of 52 million simultaneous users, you’d have to combine the prime time viewing numbers of the 3 top TV shows and the top 200 in circulation newspapers.

So clearly, apps are becoming the thing when it comes to grabbing an audience, which means there’s no better time to be an app developer. Your app could be part of the 500 “prime” apps used across smartphones and tablets in that 52 million person spread. And the only way to make that happen is to get down to business and develop that app.

Sometimes that can be tricky though, especially if you need a Mobile Backend and don’t know how to program one effectively. Well, fear not, because that’s where we at Kumulos step in with our Mobile Backend as a Service. Made by app developers, for app developers, it’s designed to make creating a Mobile Backend for your app that much easier.

So why not talk to us today and see what Kumulos can do for you?

It seems like the “next big thing” though, is HTML 5.

Firefox definitely think so, with Head of Engineering Jonathan Nightingale recently saying in an interview that: “if you aren’t betting on HTML 5, you’re making a mistake”.

Developers certainly seem to agree with him, as Geekphone, the Spanish based OEM that Mozilla have been working with, have already sold out of their developer and preview versions of their medium and low tier phones, the Peak and the Keon respectively. It only took a few hours for the devices to sell out, and Mozilla have seemed very happy with this performance so far.

“Mozilla is thrilled to see such high demand for the Firefox OS developer preview devices, made available today by Geeksphone,” Stormy Peters, director of websites and developer engagement at Mozilla, said in a statement sent to TechRadar.

This may be interesting to some who looked at the two device’s performance and quietly questioned the thinking behind Mozilla’s move. With only 512Mb of RAM, 4Gb of storage space and a 1Ghz processor, the Keon is definitely low tier and won’t be impressing anyone with spec lists any time soon. Peak, the bigger sibling, isn’t too much more powerful, adding a 1.2Ghz dual-core chip but keeping the same amount of RAM and storage.

In this day and age of Samsung releasing a phone that’s more powerful than some mid-level laptops, phones that don’t have the same credentials can seem a little underwhelming. That market, however, is not what Mozilla is aiming at with Firefox OS.

They are instead trying to create an affordable, capable but not overly complicated phone that your average user is likely to find more than sufficient. This and they are opening up a whole new and exciting avenue for app developers. Whereas it used to be that, to get the best performance in an app, you have to make it native to the OS it would be running on. There have been some great ports, but they rarely measure up to the original product. This is changing with HTML 5 though, as it means that apps can run on essentially any phone as they are running a very slick web-app rather than a natively installed app.

This opens up the field for developers who may have wanted to create, say, a more complex app but didn’t think the investment was worth it due to having to go through the trouble of porting it. It also opens up the field a little more for first time developers who are looking to create, small, simple apps that users are likely to find useful on a phone that’s less capable, but perhaps more user friendly for those of a non-technophile mindset.

Whatever the case though, developers are clearly excited for the opportunity to develop for this new platform and Geeksphone and Mozilla are looking to get orders up and running again at a rate of 5000 a day if possible.

As always, we at Kumulos will keep you up-to-date on this and other aspects of the mobile development world, and if you need a Mobile Backend in the mean-time; well, we’ve got just what you need. Our Mobile Backend as a Service was made from the ground up by our own app development team with helping app developers being the sole purpose of it. So if you need a Mobile Backend, why not talk to us today?

And now of course, we have Google Glass, which is looking to single handedly get us all very interested in wearable reality augmenters.

It helps then, that Google’s I/O conference is under a month away, going from the 15th to the 17th of May, and there’s rumours abound as to what we can expect to be revealed to us. So we thought we’d do a little round up here at Kumulos of the stuff we think are the most interesting possibilities.

Nexus 4 update or even Nexus 5

The Nexus 4 is a great phone, and clearly quite popular as it sold like hot cakes over the Christmas period. Combining high performance with low price and vanilla, always up-to-date Android, it’s a pretty good package overall if you’re looking for a modern smartphone. That said, it has its problems. For one it’s only got 16Gb max of space and doesn’t have an LTE chip, meaning no 4G for you. However, there are strong rumours Google are either looking to update the 4 with LTE  and/or 32Gb of space, or perhaps announce a whole new Nexus 5 handset to combat Samsung’s current powerhouse, the SIV.

This could risk current Nexus 4 owners feeling a little burned, but in this modern mobile world, it’s not exactly unexpected that whatever tech you buy is quickly going to go out of date.

Key Lime Pie 5.0

Android Version 4 has certianly taken the little green robot into a whole new area of quality. With the improvements that ICS and JB brought Android could, for the first time, stand up against Apple’s ever pretty iOS. But we’ve been on v4 for a while now, and many are starting to ask what’s next. Well, considering last I/O we got Jelly Bean, it would make sense that now we’ll get KLP 5.0. What improvements are expected aren’t entirely clear right now, but Google Now is said to be a big part of it all.

What’s going on at Motorola

Google quietly acquired Motorola back in 2011 and the company has been largely silent since then, turning out medium tier handsets but nothing that’s caused any waves in the mobile market. That could be, until now. The rumour mill has been kicking up a gear recently in relation to the X Phone. Specifically, if what’s being said right now is to be believed, the X Phone line may be a game changer in the current market. There have been quotes talking about its potentially being the most powerful, capable handsets ever seen, with new, never seen before features. Of course this kind of hyperbole is common when there’s no real facts to go on, but where there’s smoke there’s normally fire; so we’ll be eagerly paying attention to this one.

Google Glass

Now we all know what GG is all about, but so far we’ve not really heard much about developers or the potential apps that are coming to Google’s wearable reality augmentation. It makes sense that they’d give us a look into the future of GG at I/O, and it will be very interesting to see where they can imagine taking the technology.

New Nexus 7?

The Nexus 7 is now the grandaddy of modern tablets in terms of age. It’s already a year old, which is about 65 in mobile technology years, and definitely ready for retirement. But what to replace it with? Well, a shinier, better Nexus 7 most likely. Google are being tipped to be working with Asus again so we can probably expect another high quality, ferociously low priced tablet if there’s one coming. A few of us at Kumulos (Backend as  a Service) have Nexus 7s, so it will be interesting to see what comes of it.

Surprise project?

Now, we know that this is unlikely, after all, this is the age where a company can’t even attempt to make a new handset without it getting leaked so heavily the announcement is more of an official stamp of existence rather than an exciting reveal.

But still, it would be very cool if Google could bring us another announcement like Google Glass again, after all, what’s more fun than getting something good you didn’t ask for?

As always though, if you’re an app developer who’s excited about I/O and wants to get their app out in time for the next tech wave, why not talk to us at Kumulos? Our Backend as a Service is made with you in mind and designed to turbo charge your app development cycle and take the stress out of getting your app out of your head and into the market.

So if you’re in need of a Mobile Backend, talk to us today and see what Kumulos can do for you.

Fragmentation.

Yep, that’s right, we’re going to talk about the much maligned downside to developing for the world’s largest mobile OS. If hearing the word fragmentation didn’t make you cringe a little, you’ve clearly not tried to release an Android app and keep all your various customers happy.

In fact, just for good measure, here it is again.

Fragmentation.

Just picture your fellow developers shuddering at their desks as memories of countless hours spent testing the app to see if it will work across the various versions and handsets available on Google’s little green robot.

Thankfully though, there is a company out there looking to make developers and carriers lives easier. Their name? Apkudo, and they are a research lab that specialises in testing the various devices available on Android to provide information on their capabilities when running different apps. Top tier mobile carriers do this as a matter of course, rigurously testing handsets to see if they’ll work properly, and larger developers can afford to spend some time going through a longer testing phase to ensure maximum capability of their latest app.

Smaller carriers and developers don’t have this luxury, and that’s where the team at Apkudo come in. They run various tests on the devices whilst constantly monitoring all aspects of the performance. They even go to more extreme lengths, like checking for framerate drops during an app’s use by using high framerate cameras. As it stands Apukudo have tested over 1700 devices, although no specific devices can be named, their CEO has said that if you’ve seen a modern handset, it’s likely already gone through the wringer.

Apkudo’s testing has started to become sought after with smaller carriers, with many refusing to stock a handset until it’s recieved the “Apkudo Approved” certificate. Many large OEMs are also starting to come knocking at their door, wanting hard, unbaised data on the performance of their devices so they can target upgrades to just the right places.

As for developers, well it means that you can find testing data on over a thousand Android handsets without having to puzzle out their performance capabilities yourself. If you already know what a handset can do, you can usually tell quite easily if its capable of running your app, which cuts down time and stress on your development team. Of course this doesn’t account for any bugs or coding errors in your actual app that could cause problems.

Like most things in the app development world, there’s no silver bullet problem solver for these things, and all Apkudo’s testing won’t neccessarily mean that your app will work any better than it already does. What their data does also mean though, is that for the first time the somewhat labyrinthian aspects of Android’s platform fragmentation are starting to be pulled away. Apkudo are slowly working their way through the, quite frankly huge, list of Android devices and creating a set of highly useful data for everyone involved in creating or selling Android products.

At the end of the day though, as much as Android’s fragmentation causes problems, it’s also one of the reasons the platform is so strong globally. With Android you can get a smartphone on almost any budget and that’s why Android has a 70% market share.

As a developer, it may sometimes be a pain, but ultimately it means that many different people, on many different handsets, can experience what you’ve created. And if you need a little help with that creating, look no further than Kumulos. We’ve got a Mobile Backend as a Service that has all the tools you need to create a powerful, personal Mobile Backend for your Android (or indeed iOS or Windows Phone) app. So if you’re a developer in need, why not talk to us today and see what we can do for you?

What creates that spark? Well for apps usually it’s finding a need for something useful that isn’t there, but probably should be. There are a lot of apps out there trying to solve the same problems (travel times, weather etc), but app developers in Iceland have certainly taken the biscuit for the most original app idea we’ve heard of in a while.

Essentially, Iceland has such a small population and long history (320,000) that young people looking to hook up can never be quite sure if the person they are wanting to be with isn’t related to them in some way. Apparently accidental sex with unknown first cousins isn’t that unusual in Iceland.

So what did the Icelandic app dev team do? Made an app that has a direct link to an online registry 720,000 people who were born in the country in the recentish past that partners can check before they start removing any clothes.

Their slogan is “Bump the app before you bump in bed” and the app is designed to talk to the same app on another phone and compare the user’s personal data to find out just how related they actually are. Of course, that may not stop them from carrying on, but they at least can’t claim ignorant bliss.

As one user review on the Play store said:

“If I would have had this app last year I probably wouldn’t have gone home with my cousin.”

So, sucks to be them, but the fact remains that the idea is quite ingenious. And it is likely to be an app that is very popular with the younger generations, as there are probably many stories like the one on the Play store.

Like we said at the beginning of the blog, good apps are partially good design, but it always helps to have a solid idea to work off of. So instead of just trying to copy others and make apps that already exist, try to find problems that haven’t been solved yet, or are unique to your country or area. And if that isn’t an option, or you’re really set on an idea that’s already been done, get those planning hats on and work out how you can make your app the one that’s going to define that little piece of appdom, rather than it being a tagalong.

And as always, if you need a Mobile Backend to truly get your app off the ground, why not talk to us at Kumulos? We’ve got a Mobile Backend as a Service ready and waiting to help you create the perfect Mobile Backend for your Android, iOS or Windows Phone app.

Even if it’s an incest checking app.

The monetisation question is especially important when it comes to deciding whether to create a free to download app or not. Free apps get many more downloads, that’s a given, but they also rarely make as much money for their developers as paid apps. And in the free app world there are still decisions to be made, do you make your app freemium? Do you add microtransactions? Or, do you use ads?

The final question is one that many developers go through because, ultimately, do you want ads to be part of your app? Do they make you money?

Well, according to Rovio, they make more money from the free, ad driven version of Angry Birds than they do from people buying it (although that could be something to do with the fact that everyone has already bought it). So that’s at least a good start.

But if you’re going to make an app with ads as its main revenue, you might want to pay attention to this latest report by Opera, an ad research firm.

In it they find that despite being temporarily beaten by Android at the end of 2012, iOS devices are back on top for mobile ad “impression volume”. Which essentially means that iOS is the platform to go to if you want to make money out of an ad based monetisation plan. According to the report, mobile ad campaigns on iOS “consistently achieve the highest average eCPMS” and in all, pulls in just over 49% of all ad revenue.

The table above tells a more complete tale. As always, Smartphones have a massive lead over tablets in terms of revenue generated, but iOS does have a significant lead over Android in this regard. This may be somewhat odd considering Google is an advertising powerhouse, but they specialise in a different area of advertising which is targeted ads, not ad campaigns so it makes sense.

As for where the revenue is coming from, it’s largely from the US still. 75% of all ad revenue still comes from the US. And almost exactly half of global ad requests are still coming from there, but other areas like Europe are closing the gap quickly, with massive ad request growth throughout 2012 that brought Europe up to holding 21% of the share of the overall ad reuqests. Asia Pacific holds 14% and the remainders are made up by Americas (non US) at roughly 8%, Africa at 4% and the Middle East at 1%.

The main thing to take from this is that if you’re looking to monetise through adverts, iOS seems to be the choice to go for. If you’re developing an iOS app with this in mind, it would seem you’re on the right track, and if you need a little help, just talk to us at Kumulos. We’ve got a Mobile Backend as a Service that can support you whatever your Mobile Backend needs and it’s been designed to be the most useful tools for app developers without any useless guff attached.

So why not talk to us today and see what Kumulos can do for you?