Stories for Clients

Small shops will be powered by the big guys

The e-commerce marketplace is taking off like never before, and it’s largely powered by a small number of platforms.

As we can can see from the graphs below, traffic to Flipkart, Amazon Seller Central, Shopify and AliExpress is on the rise.

The market is growing thanks to more attractive pricing, easier and broader shipping options and aggressive marketing techniques by these marketplaces. This trend upwards shows no sign of slowing in 2015. Indeed, Flipkart and AliExpress saw accelerated growth towards the end of 2014.

Of course, these four platforms aren’t all directly comparable as products – Shopify powers commerce on sellers’ own websites, whereas Amazon, Flipkart and AliExpress act as marketplaces for sellers to compete against others for custom. Still, the message is clear, interest in small shops powered by online giants is increasing.

US giants will lose their grip on the global online retail industry

Look at the chart below – in particular, numbers four to 10. Yes, those are all non-US companies and for the most part they’re showing more rapid growth than the incumbent American giants at the top. In fact, the only company in the top ten to see a year-on-year drop in search traffic volume between October 2013 and October 2014 was the top dog, eBay.

With that kind of growth in mind, expect 2015 to be a challenging year for eBay, Amazon and Walmart, as international competition kicks up a gear.

App valuations will be based on engagement

Accurately measuring an app’s audience is key to determining its value. While downloads can tell us something about how well an app is attracting new users, measuring continued usage – engagement – is far more informative as to its actual popularity.

2015 will see a rise in the measurement of app engagement.

E-commerce becomes more social

Social e-commerce is nothing new, but it’s most certainly starting to click with consumers.

Check out the growth in social referrals to some of America’s top e-commerce sites between 2013 and 2014. In almost all cases, they’re growing faster than the sites’ traffic overall. This reflects a growing emphasis on social in e-commerce sites’ marketing strategies.

When it comes to sharing purchase ideas, Pinterest is a popular destination. Its visual pinboard-style approach makes giving inspiration to others a cinch.

SimilarWeb data shows that Pinterest is the top social referrer to e-commerce sites, and the amount of traffic it sends is on the up.

Experts say this doesn't matter, because mobile phones and tablet are spread not in an equal proportions.

If you take a brief look at the market you'll see that as for Jan. 2014 almost 315 mln people were owners of smartphones. Up to 2018 IDC says there will be sold at east 6 times more smartphones than both PC and laptops. Each smartphone's user spends 147 minutes with his or her phone on average.

PhoneArena says that most of the popular smartphones are between 4,7 and 5 inches while those who use phones with more than 5 inches still count to be a significant group:

Wha should brands and developers do as mobile market grows and screens grow as well?

What happens on mobile apps market

You probably don't know this, but only 14% of users surf the Web via mobile browsers. Mobile apps are widely used (up to 86% of smartphone owners), 32% of the use games and 17% use Facebook app mainly.

As to the end of 2013 mobile gadgets were used by 25% of owners to rich Internet while in 2012 there were just 14% of them.

This is how TOP-25 of popular mobile apps looks like for US market:

As you can see, social networks and content-aimed services as well as shopping apps and info-services are in the top of this list. And all these apps are designed for big screens for both new Androids as well as new (6 and 6+) iPhones.

What B2C/B2B companies can do

If your company works with consumers on a daily basis (e-commerce, delivery services, news-making, entertainment online services, media startups with mobile apps, shopping and fashion etc.) and you target audience widely uses mobile apps and web— this is the time to check your apps and services for compatibility with this new fancy big screens. Because you never know when more than a half of your customers start using "phablets".

Main points to check up:

they should be native and work in a proper way on big screens;

UX / UI should keep integrity of all its visual components on big screens;

no black stripes or mistakes while working on a smartphone with screens starting from 4,5 inches;

navigation inside app as well as submitting / editing content in it should be the same on different screen sizes.

If you'e noticed that mistakes and problems have become a regular "feature" of your existing mobile app, — it's time to make revision and develop a new app which will be 100% compatible.

Before Nov. 1st end us an email, use promo-code TMBLR in your email — and you'l get 10% discount for developing a native mobile app for your company or brand.

Got interested?

This time we decided to look at the main trends described by Oleksandr Krakovetskyi, CEO DevRain Solutions.

This is how mobile market looks like today (as described worldwide by July 2014):

Marketing indicators for the mobile app market:

Mobile app development in the next few years will be strongly influenced by healthcare industry and wearable fitness devices and smart-bands / smart-watches:

Mobile developers also should consider IoT (Internet of Things) as a productive basement for creating new mobile apps and solutions:

Those who create mobile startups should consider creating something in the IM industry: the most valuable partnerships and deals were created in this segment during the last few years:

And of course, mobile banking and payments will be one of the trends for the several few years, as e-commerce grows up:

New mobile era is entirely connected with AR and tablets as a tool for providing services and expanding target audience of different B2C / B2B startups:

Mobile apps became a universal tool and this is where e-government can be involved in creating and using them:

From research to purchase, holiday shoppers are increasingly turning to mobile. Looking at usage from last year, there's little doubt that smartphones have become almost as addictive as eggnog.

During Q4 2013, mobile accounted for almost 35% of online traffic, up 40% YoY (IBM Digital Analytics Benchmarks, 2014).

December sales on smartphones and tablets were up threefold from 2011 to 19.1% (IBM ExperienceOne, 2014).

52% of online smartphone shoppers used their phones throughout the shopping process during the 2013 holidays (Google and Ipsos MediaCT, 2014).

Post turkey, 40% of Black Friday's online shopping was on mobile (Custora, 2014).

As seen in our piece on Back to School, the second-most popular shopping event of the year, mobile plays an essential role in the shopper's journey. Given last year's holiday numbers, we expect this trend to escalate—and not just for research and/or purchase but for the entire path. According to a Google/Nielsen study on the Mobile Path to Purchase:

On average, consumers spend 15+ hours researching on mobile sites and apps.

Mobile influences shoppers' purchases across channels; 93% of those who research on mobile end up purchasing a product or service, and most of these purchases happen in a physical store.

But do they know where to go? Proximity matters to these mobile consumers. In fact, 71% of smartphone shoppers used a store locator to find a shop location.

There's a sense of immediacy for these shoppers. Over half (55%) of the "I want it now" crowd who use mobile to research want to make a purchase within the hour (83% within a day).

This holiday season, shoppers are more informed than ever about their purchases. Long before the swipe of a credit card, they've been pondering and researching purchases for hours on many screens and during every hour of the day.

The time spent on digital has increased by more than two hours in the past three years—from 3 hours 11 minutes in 2010 to 5 hours 46 minutes in 2013 (eMarketer, 2014).

Since 2012, the time spent researching popular holiday shopping categories, such as toys and home appliances, has increased 9.9 to 12 hours and 13 to 15.8 hours, respectively (Google and Ipsos MediaCT, January 2014).

Before making a purchase in 2013, shoppers referenced 12 sources of information—up from just five in 2010 (Google and Inmar, 2013).

Many of these informed and educated holiday shoppers are brand agnostic. In other words, they're open to influence, and that's music to a brand's ears. A study about 2013 post-holiday shopping by Google and Ipsos MediaCT shows that 57% don't yet have a specific brand or product in mind. But capturing the attention of shoppers who hunt for holiday gifts across many different screens can be a challenge. Brands need to pinpoint the best platforms on which to share engaging content and promotions with consumers. YouTube is a stand out for shoppers: 64% referenced the video site as the most influential channel for making shopping decisions. Creators such as Bethany Mota are particularly persuasive; 85% of the views for brand-related content on YouTube stem from YouTube creators rather than directly from the brand.

In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that foot traffic to stores in November and December plunged from 38 billion in 2010 to 17 billion in 2013. But the fact that consumers may have made fewer visits to retailers, that doesn't mean overall sales were down. In fact, retail sales for that same period increased from $681 to $783 billion. So, although fewer people shopped in-store, those who did bought more, adding value to each visit.

1. Choosing only the lowest price

Rates remains the dominant factor in making a decision for the majority of customers. No matter who, no matter what — if only the price for the project is minimal, then “we’ll work with you”. The fact that for a cheap development you will have “to pay” with a decreasing quality or long terms of development, doesn’t stop the customer. Reduced price tag looks like OK.

Developer selection solely on the basis of the minimum cost of all the options is frustrating quality, terms and parameters of development. As a result, the client’s company will think that all developers are the same ("because doing some dull and defective product, and still want money for it").

Componentix immediately warns customers that the concept of "cheap development" means ignoring the market approach and the need to sacrifice something of two things: either the functionality of the application, or the speed of its creation.

  2. Need for speed in app development

"We need to develop this app in  a week / for yesterday / by the end of the month" — it’s a typical phrase customers say to project managers who guide suddenly "a flat plan" for the development of a mobile application, but did not say when, how and in what time frame could such applications be developed.

In pursuit of those who offer the most rapid development, the customer’s company runs the risk of "crafts" — when an app is not native one rather a mashup. Customer is not aware of such nuances as difference between native, HTML5 and hybrid apps, and also is not very familiar with the work of designers and developers. All these factors lead to rising risks that a final app meets only half of customer’s expectations.

There is a clear time frame and the capabilities of each specialist (from programmer to designer and QA), and we cant’ make these people work "faster" and realize the (relatively speaking) 10 lines of code per second instead of two.

  3. Discounts, discounts, discounts

Often the major studios offer development on obviously inflated price, and when the customer, "pinned to the wall," starts bargaining for getting lower prices, studio offers a discount. Race for discounts at various major studios leads to cross-competition of several components: the price the customer is willing to pay, the quality of the final product and the appetites of the studio. Instead, the problem of "a quality product" at the customer's problem turns into "knocking out a discount for the development." And the quality? "Well, for such a money quality is sure to be ..." The last statement is a common mistake of an inexperienced contractor. High price does not guarantee quality, as well as cheap and "fast" development.

4. No portfolio and no NDA for it

Studio with the best price and services on adequate terms always looks suspicious without a significant portfolio. Here you can name two conclusions: either the studio has been recently established, and experience is not connected with any high-loaded projects; or this studio previously made ​​projects, which for various reasons can not be shown to a wide range of potential customers. If it’s so because of an NDA — it’s OK. Other options are not very satisfied for the contractor. So try to find out whether projects in the portfolio are few because the studio is working recently, because they are under an NDA or because the products were previously too small.

5. Got no office? Got no contract

No matter how many stories you’ve heard about freelancing and home-office work, yet stability and credibility of apps and projects made by “classical” freelancers are less guaranteed than those made by full-time working team. That’s the reason why your developers should spend at least some part of the day within one and the same office. Creating new ideas and products on a daily basis is possible only if it’s about working and meeting and discussing matters in the same room, not in separate co-workings, houses or coffee-shops.

When you hire a team as a contractor feel free to ask whether it has its own office where meetings and working process can be held in.

6. UI / UX outsourcing (or outstaffing)

You should definitely think it’s strange if the contractor says his or her team outsorces design while making the source code and all the parts of the future app. Good developers’ team should have their own UX / UI expert as well as QA engineer and designer on a full-time basis. Team should have unified style of management, task’s control and setting new tasks. That’s how effective projects really work.

7. Several different teams (or companies) make a single app

if you gather a bunch of animals to make a band as in an old fairy tale, you’ll probably see how everything falls apart. It’s the same stuff with developers and separate teams working on the same app but with separate tasks and parts of source code.

If you want to finalize a really working project, you should do in with a single team, now with lots of different ones.

8. No terms and project management valuation

Typically, this is caused by the impossibility and the lack of basic skills of time management and the ability to set priorities, use of project management systems and visualization purposes. Development is money, and money can not stand abstract categories. The contractor, who can not show when, how and under what conditions his company can submit certain stage of product development, is unlikely to help you create a mobile app that you are satisfied with.

9. Making burocracy instead of an app

If the customer chooses tactics "we do not choose the contractor without previous participation in corporate tenders«, this means you have a fan of burocracy in front of you. Choose a contractor not only on the degree of its involvement in the preparation of documents, but rather on a professional expertise, the quality of previously submitted applications and project management skills.

10. Micromanage it. Again

Pictures of goods or meals

Making an order or booking a table int a restaurant doesn’t look like a confident deal without a large image on the screen of a smartphone. The credibility of the operations through the application drops if you can’t provide the customer with a visual confirmation that he does not buy "a pig in a poke".

The right way of booking a right table

Errors in reservations are not permitted. You can’t come to the restaurant and find that your table that you have booked with the help of mobile application is already taken. If you do not tie the API site responsible for the order with the application as well as ensure correct operation of it, it’s necessary to use redirect confirmation with calling back or any other way of confirmation. But remember that using different methods of offline communications to confirm an order from an app will dramatically reduce the interest of the client in smartphone’s app as a booking method. If it’s necessary to call, what should I use an app for? Do not make the mistake of occurrence of additional link between the customer and making a direct order.

Interactive solutions plus gamification

Using gamification while booking additional services or purchasing goods with a bonus / promotional offer is good way to hold the users’ attention inside a mobile application as well as a good way to activate a WOM (word-of-mouth) marketing. The problem is that not every gamification promotes the growth of orders and purchases in the application. If the game is too fancy and all the "special effects" distract users from the main tasks of the application (ordering, shopping, booking a table, choosing a hotel room), then nothing good for conversion will ever happen.

Orders’ cart must be evident

If you have to look for a cart in a mobile app as well as to remove items from the cart or add some more, then this cart works not in a proper way. A customer shouldn’t move between different tabs and forms several times to make an order, otherwise the number of failures and "abandoned carts" in an application will go above average.

Making a “one-button order” with literally one button

The situation here is reminiscent of the problem of "intermediate ring", which we discussed above. Checkout with one button really should look like "push the button — confirm already formed order — pay for it." If there are intermediate forms, redirecting links, transition beyond the application to third-party websites or other related applications, the efficiency of such a tool for placing an order falls down.

No feedback? Too bad

If the application does not provide details for making a call back to the manager or technical support, credibility and reliability of making orders via this application will be much lower.

Social media authorization

Logging in via a social network’s account is a golden rule rather than a sense of a good taste in modern design. If your online store, service or institution wants to attract the audience actively via social networks, there should be no problems with authorization of such a kind.

Currencies and cards for making a payment

Payment for goods, services or rooms booked / tickets bought must be carried out from within the application using the card which is linked to the balance or e-currency (sometimes it’s linked to the subscriber's account balance). This point requires the greatest technical protection and reliability of the application and its related to mechanisms of reception / transaction processing.

System for integrated project management and setting / controlling tasks with a calendar and notifications about basic changes — this is how a typical task-management system looks like.

As a rule, most of these platforms allow us to reduce all operations to sending and receiving e-mails with tasks, as well as working through native applications on mobile and desktop operating systems. There is also a version of the web-based interface with a responsive design which allows you to access this system via any modern browser.

If you want to take a look at the most popular examples of such systems as well as their good and bad sides, you should read detailed research from Siliconrus about TMS (task-management systems).

If we talk about integrated software products which are easy to use for developers (not just for the sales department or marketers and journalists), it’s worth mentioning Asana, Worksection, Basecamp, JIRA, Redmine, «Bitriks24», Wrike, Youtrack, Trello and "Megaplan."

In iur work for almost a year we use Trello, where individual "boards" have separated the problem for developers, designers, testers, marketing and sales. Previously we were using Redmine (mainly because of the possibility of uploading data on time spent from different time-trackers, and the ability to draw a Gantt chart, which was important as a number of studio employees working on an hourly basis, with payment for time spent). But let’s go back to Trello and talk about it.

This system is based on the principle of Japanese management called "kanban". Its essence: every stage of production is monitored and implemented consistently.

In Trello all projects look like separate virtual "boards" with vertical lists inside them. Each list shows the smaller tasks, which represent stages. Cards with the tasks are stored in lists. Each task on the card can be supplemented according to its implementation. You can also attach a description, comments, files (including links and files from document’s cloud storage), deadline and other information about the project (including checklists).

After performing the task card can be moved to a list of completed tasks or to archive.

There are plugins to help Trello in integrating with other systems and time tracking solutions. There is also a mobile application to work with the cards, lists and boards using a smartphone or tablet (which is important for us as a mobile development studio).

There are several reasons why we chose Trello and actively use it every day:

easy operations which don’t require a long learning process or customization;

it’s free to use and has all necessary functionality with zero cost;

it has no strict binding to a specific desktop software or browser version;

possibility of separating access rights to the various boards (developers do not see the board for marketing, marketing "will not go into" projects of the developers etc.);

support for integration with Google Apps;

native mobile applications for iOS and Android (the company employs people who use both);

interface in English.

Nine months of working with Trello showed that it manages perfectly with all of its tasks and the basic requirements for control of time and projects .

Starting an online store with modile-friendly design is a good choice because of several reasons:

mobile technology, apps and smartphones are widely used by young audience which is active and ready to pay for goods and services online;

quick growth of mobile platforms (both qualitive and quantitive along with growth of smarphones on the market) leads to growth of apps and time spent in them across iOS and Android smartphones and tablets;

the structure of e-commerce rapidly changes in favor of responsive design for sites and flexible modern apps for mobile shopping / ordering.

Let's look at the figures of mobile market. By the end of the second quarter of 2014 smartphones' market has got more than 300 mln pcs. Growing segment of smartphones and tablets sold out becomes a reason for growing profits in app development industry. In EU countries level of revenue from app development reaches $16,5 bln by the end of 2014, with annual growth up to 12% in comparison with the previous year.

Fresh research data from Yandex shows that smartphones and tablets are used by 1/3 of users in Ukraine while audience grows 10% per year. In Russia this indicator is +53% per year.

According to research from Google, 56% of respondents use Internet regularly. In Ukraine where Componentix is based for the audience between 16 and 24 years old this amount is 96%. Number of smartphone users has grown more than three times in three years: from 7% in 2012 to 24% in 2014.

Besides the number of smarphones the time spent for mobile sites and apps has also grown, especially in BRIC countries — in this area smartphones has overpassed both PC and laptops.

And finally stats from Morgan Stanley shows that two key mobile platforms (iOS and Android) continues growing with keeping this trend not only till the end of 2014 but also for the next few years.

Mobile apps has become a convenient tool for keeping contacts, media content, news and blogs “in your pocket”. This makes mobile apps a good place to attract users who are ready to pay for quality in content, news and games for smartphones and tablets.

As you can see, there are lots of reasons to turn your online store into a mobile-ready one. So let’s talk about the first five steps to make this an easy start.

1. Responsive design

The quickest anfd the most flexible way to make your online store mobile is to give it a responsive design. This is the way to make it mobile-friendly for both smartphone and tablet without coding an app. 

With responsive design there is no need to control size of the screen. You can also reduce the number of “abandoned baskets” and change amount of time spent for landing pages in a positive way, because your client gets the same experience no matter which kind of device he or she uses — PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet.

Componentix uses responsive design in for our websites. As we’ve told you before using “Nova Knyga” as an example, this makes or websites for customers much more convenient and quick to use for both mobile and “desktop” users.

If you consider using responsive design for your own site, you should start with several main steps:

formulation of the problem for designer, UI / UX expert and developers;

obtaining samples / models and further A / B testing for choosing the best option;

developing a working version of an online store based on the selected and tested responsive design;

make further revisions and improvements in future versions of the design, based on the observation of the behavior and customer reviews about the new responsive web design.

2. Optimized landing pages

Native mobile apps are necessary for big online stores only while smaller ones can develop and start a mobile site. Yet both of the kinds of online stores need optimized mobile-friendly landing pages. The main reasons for this were listed in one of our previous posts.

The main areas of work with landing pages to make them fully compatible with mobile devices include:

making a list of landing pages which should be optimized for mobile devices;

processing them in accordance with the general layout of the responsive design of the site;

execution of search engine optimization and promotion by keywords / search phrases which are popular among both desktop and mobile audience (for which you should use filters accodring to Google Analytics or similar systems for on-site audience analysis);

regular audit and improvement of the pages for mobile devices by the end of the month / quarter / any other selected period.

3. Your mobile blog

Another way of expanding your audience is to launch a mobile blog. The development of mobile blogging has been associated with the advent of mass-market smartphones and traditional mobile phones with cameras. These devices had an ability to add in the browser text and images using the phone directly via mobile browser.

Nowadays mobile blogs allow online stores to solve a number of different marketing tasks:

reflect the author's point of view and to create a platform for discussion between readers and consumers of products and services within a large online project;

extension of the target audience through mobile users;

solution of educational problems for the company;

using your blog as a platform for collective idea generation;

an additional tool for content marketing for HoReCa-sphere or online retail.

Online store can attract a community of mobile users to your blog, and from there they can connect to the relevant shares, discounts and sales, while company ties up context blogging with the offered goods.

4. Native mobile app development

The most comprehensive tool that combines and 100% corresponds to the design of mobile and smartphone hardware features is native app’s development. 

Let us briefly recall that using the native application can provide you full adaptation of your online store to the hardware capabilities of smartphones running a particular mobile OS. If you want your buyers to choose products, add them to the cart and proceed to checkout using the tablet or smartphone in the same way as they do on the main site in the "desktop" version, you should start development of native applications. 

Speaking about ROI and prices in case of using native apps and responsive design for online stores, you should definitely look at short research from “Kontrakty” newspaper.

If you want to start working in a proper way as well set tasks for contractors and developers in a proper way, then you should read our post about correct way of setting tasks.

5. Tools for mobile payments

And the most difficult step from a technical point of view yet an effective one is connecting this store to a mobile payment module for a native app. It gives consumers an opportunity to make payments using their smartphones.

It will require both the project team and the contractor to perform additional work on the development, testing and connecting payment modules of the online store and the application itself. But you will have an opportunity to work with the storage of payment cards, transfer funds and use new tools for making payments via Internet. For example, recently introduced new models of iPhone has implemented opportunities for "cloud" storage of billing and credit card’s info as well as committing instant card transactions.

Brief history of mobile blogging

The development of mobile blogging was related to growth of mass-market smartphones and traditional mobile phones with cameras among mobile users. For main amount of users this happened in the middle of 2000’s.

A new way to create online diaries proved to be very popular even in the early stages of development of mobile technologies. In 2006, mobile bloggers have already written more than 70 thousand new posts per day. Between 2006 and 2010 (according to Wikipedia), the proportion of adults involved in mobile blogging increased to 11%. Then the first smartphones on iOS and Android came. They appeared to be a perfect tools for private and public mobile blogging, reading and publishing content in social networks.

Main platforms for mobile blogging started as a mobile version of the major blog. Then it developed into separate applications and mobile social networks such as Path, Instagram, Snapchat, LoveEat, Secret.

  Main requirements for a mobile blog

Platform or application for mobile blogging must meet several criteria of usability and efficiency of interaction. In particular, it should use native mechanics to interact with content and navigation on the screen of the smartphone.  And the application itself or a web interface for creation of posts should not conflict with both hardware and software platforms of a particular smartphone. There are also other requirements:

simple integration of posts created on the mobile device with all the published content

using multimedia features of the smartphone for publication and consuming content in a blog

movile blog should be available for commenting and editing posts

mobile blog should be equally available for those who use 3G / LTE, and for those who have a slow wireless internet connection

it should be able to cache / store posts of mobile blog for deferred (including offline) reading.

  Key opportunities

Created as online media, mobile blog allows us to solve a number of problems:

to show the author's point of view and give a platform for the discussion to mobile readers and consumers of products and services within a large online project

to extend the target audience through mobile users

to solve educational problems

to use your blog as a platform for collective idea generation

to use it as an additional tool for content marketing for HoReCa-sphere or retail.

  Main risks

the stability of the server-side platform for blogs in the case of connection a large number of mobile users to it

too high price on the mobile / wireless internet access in certain countries or geographical regions

uncomfortable mechanism for editing already published posts

limits for creation of new posts via smartphones and tablets

  Platforms for mobile bloggers

1. Blogger.com — convenient service for mobile blogging from Google, with automated templates for smartphones and tablets

2. Tumblr.com — one of the most popular services for blogging, with a bunch of templates (both payed and free-of-charge)

3. WordPress.com — one of the most popular platforms for blogging, suitable for mobile gadgets

4. Weebly — another free blogging platform for mobile users

5. Squarespace and TypePad — two payed platforms for blogging via both desktop and mobile versions and templates.

Also take a look at the list of plugins and tools for organizing a mobile blog.

Native app as an alternative

You can use native mobile app as an alternative to both payed and free blogging platforms. Such an app can help in spreading content from different authors. This tool for blogging can have its own positive sides:

it's fully compatible with smartphone's hardware

it shows content in a proper way no matter what kind of wireless internet connection you've got

native mobile app can have a special separate admin panel as well as for for adding, editing or publishing posts, media, pictures etc.

a native mobile app provides convenient way of reading articles and posts as well as adding posts into "Favorites"

mobile app supports cashing content for reading / working in an offline mode (if there is an option for "disconnected" working mode in this app)

an app is closed from trolls and unwanted eyes, it gives direct access only to a niche audience (e.g.: LoveEat, Path)

you can put ads as well as other tools for monetization in your app (monetization is often cut-off in free online services for mobile blogging).

Start coding on Swift

If you want to code on Swift, it’s time to download and install Xcode from http://developer.apple.com. Click the Xcode button, download it and register as a new Apple developer.

Your first Swift app

Start Xcode and create a new project, then select iOS > Application > Single View Application to create a template. Let’s put in new options for a new project, push Next and start coding.

Xcode uses Storyboards to develop an app. Click Main.storyboard in the left part of the screen in the Project Navigator. Select iPhone screen as an option for development. Then start developing your first app. You can begin using Swift with creating a simple web browser by example published here. If you migrate from Objective C take a look at official guide from Apple.

Books and guidelines you should read

You can start learning Swift and using it on practice with these guides and howto’s:

main documentation for Swift developers — on iTunes

e-book — web version on official Apple website for developers

special landing page for Swift

brief review of key characteristics and capabilities of Swift

FAQ from Stack Overflow on Swift

full guideline for learning Swift.

Guidelines and cheatcodes:

full guideline with main parameters and commands

designcode.io/learn

paintcodeapp.com

Help from Github on Swift

guideline from Swift Best Practices

two guides from One for Arrays and One for Strings

Other sources:

Trending Repos for Swift code

Functional Programming Guide

Examples of working code:

Swift-version of Flappy Bird

porting iOS-2048 on Swift

iOS app for seeing how tables and web work on Swift.

Changes in the screen size and resolution 

Changing the size of the iPhone has led to the fact that the fans' jokes about "too big Android phones» are now forced to be silent: the size of the new iPhone is as big as Samsung smartphones and Google Nexus. 

Increased size of the screen came with a bigger resolution in both models of the new iPhone. This means that the size of icons, interface elements and the quality of the photo and video applications must be adapted to the high-resolution screen, the quality of which is now comparable with full-length desktop screens.

Sleek design and widgets 

From iOS 7 developers from Cupertino started the transformation of three-dimensional design with icons, "which I want to lick" (bless your name, Steve), to a sleek design without shadows and with thin frames and fonts (goodbye, 3D-shapes). In the eighth version, which all owners of iPhones will appreciate very soon (except for those with very outdated Apple smartphones), flat design trend will continue, but still more talking and speculations about the appearance of widgets (or some similar solutions in the new iOS). Apparently, the novelty of the design will add more work for designers of native mobile applications for iOS. 

Solid hardware

The problem of "heavy" applications finally goes away. Specifications of two new iPhones allow you to run a game without any problems with demanding graphics, as well as using interactive media applications with streaming video and audio. You can also work without any problems with the different navigation services, maps, gaming and IMs.

Advanced hardware features provide more space for developers of native applications: now you have a mobile hardware with which you can experiment freely, not only in terms of media content, but also navigation and distance measurement, height, angle of inclination. 

Special attention should be paid to NFC-module and its own payment system with internal protection and storage of payment cards in the phone memory and related cloud services. Here come the new iPhones with a wide field for the development of e-payment solutions for online stores (we just recently talked when you should develop native mobile app for online store). 

Entertainment opportunities for the main camera 

Developers of mobile start-ups associated with photographing and processing of captured images on your smartphone are satisfied. iPhone's camera have new features of stabilization, face detection, multi-shot and most importantly — support for 1080p shooting up to 60 frames per second + shooing video up to 240 frames. So developers are looking forward for a future wave of mobile applications for capturing, editing and publication of slow-motion movies shot on camera of iPhone 6. 

Improved voice control 

Against the background of the circulating rumors that Siri learns to speak Russian, we can say that the new iOS has improved support for voice control and tips. Those who develop a variety of interactive maps, voice audio guides and games for mobile platforms with voice control, certainly are pleased with new iPhones and the new mobile OS. 

LTE and mobile phone-calls over WiFi 

Separate new product, which is important for countries with developed market of mobile communications and new formats of data transmitted through the air6 is the ability to switch to voice mode in applications between different wireless network standards. This means that starting a voice chat or call via Skype on LTE / 3G, you can store the connection when moving to a WiFi-zone coverage and vice versa. Comfortable "trick" for those who are working in the field of mobile startups for voice communications. 

Applications written with Swift 

Apple App Store started taking for moderation applications written entirely with new programming language called Swift. This new programming language was introduced earlier during previous Apple event. Now, with the advent of support for new applications together with iTunes / App Store distribution, Apple's abstract interesting experiment for developers called "Swift" becomes a real working tool. 

"It's time to redesign. Again" 

And now some "bitter taste" in this big "Apple honey pot". Designers of mobile applications will have to re-draw / re-model / re-build their apps to make them fully compatible and integrated with iOS 8 and two new iPhones.

Those whose applications are still in the stage of design and A/B testing, are more fortunate: their final product will be optimized to the new version of the mobile operating system, as well as the new devices. 

And there is still "dark horse" in the Apple line — it's about mobile applications for Apple Watch. How stable is the work of this new device and what opportunities will have native apps for it? We'll know this soon, when (and in case it will happen) developers get access to the APIs and libraries of Apple Watch. 

1. Minimalism in the content  Small screen size and limited range of mobile browsers lead to the fact that it is necessary to optimize your website, not just to reduce the scale of the text and pictures. And this can be done by reducing the types of additional content that is displayed on the screen if there is no immediate need. Anything that does not play a critical role in the application performance and in addressing major problems for which the application has been released, should be removed. 

2. Single-column layout  Screens of most smartphones do not allow to use two columns without substantially reducing fonts and images. If you want the application to be easy and quick, "lay" all the content in one column. 

3. Large fonts  Fast reading and navigation is possible only in one case — if the user does not waste time while changing display's settings.

  4. Save the overall structure when the screen is rotated  If the application is designed to operate in a horizontal position of the screen (especially on tablets), then there should be no difficulty in navigation, scrolling or adding new content for viewing. 

5. Large buttons  It's not very good, when the user is forced "to stick" to the screen with his or her fingers to get on the right button or link. 

6. Advertising should not take more than ¼ of the screen  Some sites banner ads and pop-ups occupy most of the screen. It is not necessary to repeat the same "coup" in the application: large horizontal blocks ads that distract from the main functions, do not really help you in monetizing your app. 

7. Feedback in less than three steps  Connection with the administration of the project, service support or developers should take place while using one-touch buttons or jumping directly to a page. If you confuse the user with a variety of fill-in forms and multiple tabs and buttons for contacts, it'll be not OK. 

New data from Yandex shows that smartphones and tablets are used by almost 1/3 of Ukrainian users while the amount of audience grows +10$ per year while in Russia audience grows +53% in the same period.

Main goals of starting a mobile version of online store

If you want clear understanding of mobile development for e-commerce site lets look at research from Mail.ru Group about smartphones' market in Russia:

As you can see there's no mobile shopping in the top part of the list. As for conversion it is less than 45% in comparison with those who use traditional web sites.

What should you choose?

Yo have three possible options — mobile site for the main e-commerce project, native mobile app or basic web version without any changes.

Experts say a separate mobile app can help you with attracting additional audience and low-cost promotion from relevant ads in third-party mobile apps. 

What about ROI? Let's look at the comparison of costs:

As you can see, mobile site costs from $7K while mobile app for a big e-store can cost $15K per mobile OS.

Start with the basics

Take a pen, a sheet of paper - and make a list of the tools, techniques and principles of operation, which are comfortable for you, necessary and easy to work with. Cross out the rest.

It may happen that you do have to redraw all the "usual" schedule which has already become "comfortable" on a daily basis for problem solving and application development. There is nothing to worry about. You'd better change everything before projects begin to fall, timing start being ripped off, and the payment for completed tasks start lingering for months.

Before you compile such a list, and a kind of "road map", you will not be able to fully appreciate all of the "bottlenecks" and possible "traps of efficiency", which you have in your daily work.

Use the principle of "MIT": The Most Important Tasks

There are many principles and methods of planning, but we agree with the editors of TNW on one thing: you should choose for execution only the Most Important Tasks. Sometimes they may be small, and sometimes it takes months for the embodiment: the size and duration of the task is not important, but a critical role for the entire project to move farther is of a key importance.

Try to solve three important small tasks per day, and one — per month. Splitting the project into iterations and separate processes is necessary to help you with this.

Take only what actually works

For mobile developers there are lots of tools, environments and platforms to create applications, but the effectiveness of some of them can be different from the rest. So, it's not necessarily rely on the fact that this tool is "fashionable", "trending" or is used in large IT companies.

Our experience shows that a small studio or a startup shouldn't follow all the recipes from the "big IT world".

It is also recommended to make a list of currently used tools and rank them in order of easing operation and the quality / speed of the results. If different specialists use different tools, you should create a separate list for each, and then compare the common positions and possible differences.

Get rid of habits which are harmful for your productivity

If you are uncomfortable to plan things on the screen, and better on paper, why do you make yourself to do it on-screen? If you've got used to read the morning news, but still know that half an hour in the morning spent on procrastination kills your productivity on the first half of the day — why do you still do this? Unlike older children or lazy students, you do not have strict parents or teachers who will stand over your head and tell you what to do and what not to. Procrastination costs money — the longer you are wasting your time on "smoking / drinking coffee / reading news / politics / criticising government", the less money you will get. Is it still not obvious?

Make a list of your daily habits. Then cross out all those that take up your time, but do not give anything in terms of personal, professional and money "growth." Try every week to get rid of at least two of these habits (well, if at all it will be difficult — at least one).

Use the data: it doesn't lie

In order to understand where you are wasting your time and how to use your time, you can monitor productivity with apps like Reporter.

Using the Reporter and filling reports / surveys which can be be set daily, you can see how you spend time and with what frequency, what kinds of activities take up most of the time, and whether they are relevant to your career.

By setting common distractions you can reschedule structure of the working day.

Use Trello or similar simple system for delegating tasks

Task-management systems are usually complicated, with unnecessary extra "twists", most of which are not necessary for small studio or a team of indie developers

We in Componentix took Trello as a system for delegating and monitoring tasks. We are not some ardent supporters of "kanban" or other eastern philosophies of management yet  we see that in a couple of clicks you can deliver and assign a task easier and in a more effective way than via complicated lists6 contact groups and diagrams with roles.

Use important, not "hyped" tools, following its effectiveness.

Reduce the number of telephone calls and Skype-calls

Telephone conversations are distracting. Conference-calls "to check the status of the project" are too distracting. Instead of hours of productive work, let's spend 40 minutes to discuss the fact that in writing this could be discussed and confirmed in 10 minutes. Avoid "transfusion from a sieve": managers of large IT companies can afford wasting time, you are a startup or an indie team of developers — you have no time for bullshit-bingo.

There are cases when voice communication hurts productivity. This is well said in "Rework" book, which deals with the "rule of silence" in the daily work of employees.

Create templates for letters and documents

If you often send business proposals, write for business partners, make reports on the results of the release, make written agreements or send invoices — it's time to pick up a library of templates for all occasions and typical e-mails.

This can save time in two or even three times (compared to the time spent when you make letters and documents "from scratch").

Sell ​​batch development

In Componentix we sell application's development via "package method." Depending on the set of proposed features and capabilities, and with the necessary investment of time on the part of designers, programmers and testers, we offer compiled application packages with ready-out-of-the-box functionality and fixed prices. Additional options and tools are sold at fixed prices, too.

By dividing services into packages and selling them separately, you can get more customers than making the price separately for each case and spending a long time to form a price based on hourly rates and additional costs.

Do not hire people who need to be "re-educated" / "re-trained"

Education of "green" newbie takes time. Retraining specialist with the "wrong" / incomplete skills also takes lots of time. Large IT companies can afford it: they recruit people with minimal skills, "broach" them a couple of months, and then select the best ones of them while transferring others to departments or subsidiaries of the company to further "training." They have a budget for this, HR-specialists, internal training, mentors, and many other options, investing money in hope to get out severe; mature professionals of 10 "green" ones.

In a startup or a small studio, unfortunately, you will not have time to do something like this. We have to follow the rule "a good man is not a profession," and the experience and current skills are transformed as money not only in the form of financial and profitable projects for the company, but also as a competitive salary for the employee. Paying low wages for the low training and the result which is far from desirable, — do you really think that your startup has the time for this?

Treat with a robust skepticism any advice on productivity (including these ones)

Componentix worked for this pizza-maker as a contractor, and we'd like to tell you a bit about Bocconcino iOS app. This case can be useful for those who want to make an app for your own food business.

What You Should Implement

Main triggers for users' attention include quick and convenient process of making new orders, big and bright pictures of pizza or any other food in you cafeteria or restaurant as well as full list of dishes and processing / delivering orders for clients.

One of the most useful options is an ability to make an order without making a call to service-manager.

Also it is useful to provide "Favorities" list and previous orders to look through them. That's what Bocconcino app should look, and that's the way we've decided to design it.

Also it's useful to implement:

regularly updated menu list with all the dishes and drinks for visitors and those who make an order for pizza delivery via a mobile app

ability to make an order with pushing just one button in an app (this makes working with orders and managing client's cart of orders much easier)

slick and easy navigation with history of previous orders

map of the restaurants as well as geolocation and fast local search for making an order or booking a place / table for two etc.

Gamification Makes It Better

One of the ways to make a better restaurant's app is to add gamification. We made it by providing a Pizza Spinner — for those who don't know what to select among all the sorts of pizza available.

Key Options

Besides the options mentioned above we'd like to recommend several more tools to reach a higher level of interaction from clients:

seasonal price-cuts as well as offers of the week

«Pizza of the day» as well as «Favorite dishes» or drinks or whatever you offer to your visitors

client's personal profile

loyalty program

«Can We Get The Same?»

Componentix doesn't update or support this Bocconcino app anymore, but we can develop the same kind of app for any network of cafeteria, pizza restaurants, bars or night clubs or any other kind of such places where people can grab a bite, have a linch or spend time with friends while having a tasty pizza.

We make design and code development as well as back-end server support, special promo-site for an app and app marketing on-demand.

Most people would use their mobile device to do at least one of the following: search for listings, find directions to a house, look for more information on a listing, call or e-mail an agent directly, or watch a video while out looking for a home (Google Consumer Survey, April 2014).

Searches related to home buying are highest over the weekend when people are likely out touring neighborhoods and visiting open houses (Google Data).

Mobile queries for open houses grew 36% in June YoY, while desktop searches remained the same (Google Data).

House hunters used their mobile device most to search for listings and find directions while out looking for a home (Google Consumer Survey, April 2014).

Smartphones and tablets are the tech of choice at home, too. Usage climbs steadily throughout the day and reaches its peak at night—mobile at 6:00 p.m. and tablet at 11:00 p.m (ET)—after the kids have gone to bed and parents have time to catch up.

When potential buyers see a house they like, their first question is often "Can I afford it?" Increasingly, they're using mobile to do the math. So far this year, one-quarter of Google searches for mortgages have been on mobile devices, and terms such as "mortgage calculator" make up half of those searches.

Clearly, the place to reach home buyers is on mobile. Marketers can help them find what they’re looking for through mobile ads, and extensions such as location and click-to-call take this a step further.

Video is also an important opportunity on mobile, with one in five future home buyers indicating they'd use a mobile device to watch a video (Google Consumer Survey, April 2014). On top of that, views of real estate videos are up 13% YoY on YouTube. Often, these are home tour videos that let prospective buyers get a room-by-room view of a listing.

Footsy allows you now only to predict scores but also to follow the championship's calendar and be easy for making new bets.

Componentix designed, developed and tested Footsy app as a contractor. We've been testing it during The World Soccer Cup in Brazil and helped to release it when games of the Premier-Leage started.

The main tab of this app shows you statistics and predictions of the results.

The second tab contains to all the games' calendar as well as scores and matches between predicted and real results.

The third tab shows the current user's rating in the table comparing to friends who also use this app.

And the last tab is for options and authorisation via social media profile.

You can make your bet for the results of any game during the whole period of the championship in the UK.