Tech Guides - Mobile

Developer advocates are people with a strong technical background, whose job is to help developers be successful with a platform or technology. They act as a bridge between the engineering team and the developer community. A developer advocate does not only fill in the gap between developers and the platform but also looks after the development of developers in terms of traction and progress on their projects. Developer advocacy, is broadly referred to as "developer relations". Those who practice developer advocacy have fallen into in this profession in one way or another. As the processes and theories in the world of programming have evolved over several years, so has the idea of developer advocacy. This is the result of developer advocates who work in the wild using their own initiatives. This article is an excerpt from the book Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book serves as a rallying cry to inspire and motivate tech enthusiasts and burgeoning developer advocates to take their first steps within the tech community. The question then arises, how does one become a developer advocate? Here are some experiences shared by some well-known developer advocates on how they started the journey that landed them to this role. Is developer advocacy taught in universities? Bruno Borges, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft says, for most developer advocates or developer relations personnel, it was something that just happened. Developer advocacy is not a discipline that is taught in universities; there's no training specifically for this. Most often, somebody will come to realize that what they already do is developer relations. This is a discipline that is a conjunction of several other roles: software engineering, product management, and marketing. I started as a software engineer and then I became a product manager. As a product manager, I was engaged with marketing divisions and sales divisions directly on a weekly basis. Maybe in some companies, sales, marketing, and product management are pillars that are not needed. I think it might vary. But in my opinion, those pillars are essential for doing a proper developer relations job. Trying to aim for those pillars is a great foundation. Just as in computer science when we go to college for four years, sometimes we don't use some of that background, but it gives us a good foundation. From outsourcing companies that just built business software for companies, I then went to vendor companies. That's where I landed as a person helping users to take full advantage of the software that they needed to build their own solutions. That process is, ideally, what I see happening to others. The journey of a regular tech enthusiast to a developer advocate Ivar Grimstad, a developer advocate at Eclipse foundation, speaks about his journey from being a regular tech enthusiast attending conferences to being there speaking at conferences as an advocate for his company. Ivar Grimstad says, I have attended many different conferences in my professional life and I always really enjoyed going to them. After some years of regularly attending conferences, I came to the point of thinking, "That guy isn't saying anything that I couldn't say. Why am I not up there?" I just wanted to try speaking, so I started submitting abstracts. I already gave talks at meetups locally, but I began feeling comfortable enough to approach conferences. I continued submitting abstracts until I got accepted. As it turned out, while I was becoming interested in speaking, my company was struggling to raise its profile. Nobody, even in Sweden, knew what we did. So, my company was super happy for any publicity it could get. I could provide it with that by just going out and talking about tech. It didn't have to be related to anything we did; I just had to be there with the company name on the slides. That was good enough in the eyes of my company. After a while, about 50% of my time became dedicated to activities such as speaking at conferences and contributing to open source projects. Tables turned from being an engineer to becoming a developer advocate Mark Heckler, a Spring developer and advocate at Pivotal, narrates his experience about how tables turned for him from University to Pivotal Principal Technologist & Developer Advocate. He says, initially, I was doing full-time engineering work and then presenting on the side. I was occasionally taking a few days here and there to travel to present at events and conferences. I think many people realized that I had this public-facing level of activities that I was doing. I was out there enough that they felt I was either doing this full-time or maybe should be. A good friend of mine reached out and said, "I know you're doing this anyway, so how would you like to make this your official role?" That sounded pretty great, so I interviewed, and I was offered a full-time gig doing, essentially, what I was already doing in my spare time. A hobby turned out to be a profession Matt Raible, a developer advocate at Okta has worked as an independent consultant for 20 years. He did advocacy as a side hobby. He talks about his experience as a consultant and walks through the progress and development. I started a blog in 2002 and wrote about Java a lot. This was before Stack Overflow, so I used Struts and Java EE. I posted my questions, which you would now post on Stack Overflow, on that blog with stack traces, and people would find them and help. It was a collaborative community. I've always done the speaking at conferences on the side. I started working for Stormpath two years ago, as a contractor part-time, and I was working at Computer Associates at the same time. I was doing Java in the morning at Stormpath and I was doing JavaScript in the afternoon at Computer Associates. I really liked the people I was working with at Stormpath and they tried to hire me full-time. I told them to make me an offer that I couldn't refuse, and they said, "We don't know what that is!" I wanted to be able to blog and speak at conferences, so I spent a month coming up with my dream job. Stormpath wanted me to be its Java lead. The problem was that I like Java, but it's not my favorite thing. I tend to do more UI work. The opportunity went away for a month and then I said, "There's a way to make this work! Can I do Java and JavaScript?" Stormpath agreed that instead of being more of a technical leader and owning the Java SDK, I could be one of its advocates. There were a few other people on board in the advocacy team. Six months later, Stormpath got bought out by Okta. As an independent consultant, I was used to switching jobs every six months, but I didn't expect that to happen once I went full-time. That's how I ended up at Okta! Developer advocacy can be done by calculating the highs and lows of the tech world Scott Davis, a Principal Engineer at Thoughtworks, was also a classroom instructor, teaching software classes to business professionals before becoming a developer advocate. As per him, tech really is a world of strengths and weaknesses. Advocacy, I think, is where you honestly say, "If we balance out the pluses and the minuses, I'm going to send you down the path where there are more strengths than weaknesses. But I also want to make sure that you are aware of the sharp, pointy edges that might nick you along the way." I spent eight years in the classroom as a software instructor and that has really informed my entire career. It's one thing to sit down and kind of understand how something works when you're cowboy coding on your own. It's another thing altogether when you're standing up in front of an audience of tens, or hundreds, or thousands of people. Discover how developer advocates are putting developer interests at the heart of the software industry in companies including Microsoft and Google with Developer, Advocate! by Geertjan Wielenga. This book is a collection of in-depth conversations with leading developer advocates that reveal the world of developer relations today. 6 reasons why employers should pay for their developers’ training and learning resources “Developers need to say no” – Elliot Alderson on the FaceApp controversy in a BONUS podcast episode [Podcast] GitHub has blocked an Iranian software developer’s account How do AWS developers manage Web apps? Are you looking at transitioning from being a developer to manager? Here are some leadership roles to consider

Superior user experience is becoming increasingly important for businesses as it helps them to engage users and boost brand loyalty. Front-end website and app development platforms, namely Bootstrap vs Material Design empower developers to create websites with a robust structure and advanced functionality, thereby delivering outstanding business solutions and unbeatable user experience. Both Twitter’s Bootstrap vs Material Design are used by developers to create functional and high-quality websites and apps. If you are an aspiring front-end developer, here’s a direct comparison between the two, so you can choose the one that’s better suited for your upcoming project. BootStrap Bootstrap is an open-source, intuitive, and powerful framework used for responsive mobile-first solutions on the web. For several years, Bootstrap has helped developers create splendid mobile-ready front-end websites. In fact, Bootstrap is the most popular  CSS framework as it’s easy to learn and offers a consistent design by using re-usable components. Let’s dive deeper into the pros and cons of Bootstrap. Pros High speed of development If you have limited time for the website or app development, Bootstrap is an ideal choice. It offers ready-made blocks of code that can get you started within no time. So, you don’t have to start coding from scratch. Bootstrap also provides ready-made themes, templates, and other resources that can be downloaded and customized to suit your needs, allowing you to create a unique website as quickly as possible. Bootstrap is mobile first Since July 1, 2019, Google started using mobile-friendliness as a critical ranking factor for all websites. This is because users prefer using sites that are compatible with the screen size of the device they are using. In other words, they prefer accessing responsive sites. Bootstrap is an ideal choice for responsive sites as it has an excellent fluid grid system and responsive utility classes that make the task at hand easy and quick. Enjoys  a strong community support Bootstrap has a huge number of resources available on its official website and enjoys immense support from the developers’ community. Consequently, it helps all developers fix issues promptly. At present, Bootstrap is being developed and maintained on GitHub by Mark Otto, currently Principal Design & Brand Architect at GitHub, with nearly 19 thousand commits and 1087 contributors. The team regularly releases updates to fix any new issues and improve the effectiveness of the framework. For instance, currently, the Bootstrap team is working on releasing version 4.3 that will drop jQuery for regular JavaScript. This is primarily because jQuery adds 30KB to the webpage size and is tricky to configure with bundlers like Webpack. Similarly, Flexbox is a new feature added to the Bootstrap 4 framework. In fact, Bootstrap version 4 is rich with features, such as a Flexbox-based grid, responsive sizing and floats, auto margins, vertical centering, and new spacing utilities. Further, you will find plenty of websites offering Bootstrap tutorials, a wide collection of themes, templates, plugins, and user interface kit that can be used as per your taste and nature of the project. Cons All Bootstrap sites look the same The Twitter team introduced Bootstrap with the objective of helping developers use a standardized interface to create websites within a short time. However, one of the major drawbacks of this framework is that all websites created using this framework are highly recognizable as Bootstrap sites. Open Airbnb, Twitter, Apple Music, or Lyft. They all look the same with bold headlines, rounded sans-serif fonts, and lots of negative space. Bootstrap sites can be heavy Bootstrap is notorious for adding unnecessary bloat to websites as the files generated are huge in size. This leads to longer loading time and battery draining issues. Further, if you delete them manually, it defeats the purpose of using the framework. So, if you use this popular front-end UI library in your project, make sure you pay extra attention to page weight and page speed. May not be suitable for simple websites Bootstrap may not be the right front-end framework for all types of websites, especially the ones that don’t need a full-fledged framework. This is because, Bootstrap’s theme packages are incredibly heavy with battery-draining scripts. Also, Bootstrap has CSS weighing in at 126KB and 29KB of JavaScript that can increase the site’s loading time. In such cases, Bootstrap alternatives, namely Foundation, Skeleton, Pure, and Semantic UI adaptable and lightweight frameworks that can meet your developmental needs and improve your site’s user-friendliness. Material Design When compared to Bootstrap vs Material Design is hard to customize and learn. However, this design language was introduced by Google in 2014 with the objective of enhancing Android app’s design and user interface. The language is quite popular among developers as it offers a quick and effective way for web development. It includes responsive transitions and animations, lighting and shadows effects, and grid-based layouts. When developing a website or app using Material Design, designers should play to its strengths but be wary of its cons. Let’s see why. Pros Offers numerous components  Material Design offers numerous components that provide a base design, guidelines, and templates. Developers can work on this to create a suitable website or application for the business. The Material Design concept offers the necessary information on how to use each component. Moreover, Material Design Lite is quite popular for its customization. Many designers are creating customized components to take their projects to the next level. Is compatible across various browsers Both Bootstrap vs Material Design have a sound browser compatibility as they are compatible across most browsers. Material Design supports Angular Material and React Material User Interface. It also uses the SASS preprocessor. Doesn’t require JavaScript frameworks Bootstrap completely depends on JavaScript frameworks. However, Material Design doesn’t need any JavaScript frameworks or libraries to design websites or apps. In fact, the platform provides a material design framework that allows developers to create innovative components such as cards and badges. Cons The animations and vibrant colors can be distracting Material Design extensively uses animated transitions and vibrant colors and images that help bring the interface to life. However, these animations can adversely affect the human brain’s ability to gather information. It is affiliated to Google Since Material Design is a Google-promoted framework, Android is its prominent adopter. Consequently, developers looking to create apps on a platform-independent UX may find it tough to work with Material Design. However, when Google introduced the language, it had broad vision for Material Design that encompasses many platforms, including iOS. The tech giant has several Google Material Design components for iOS that can be used to render interesting effects using a flexible header, standard material colors, typography, and sliding tabs Carries performance overhead Material Design extensively uses animations that carry a lot of overhead. For instance, effects like drop shadow, color fill, and transform/translate transitions can be jerky and unpleasant for regular users. Wrapping up: Should you use Bootstrap vs Material Design for your next web or app development project? Bootstrap is great for responsive, simple, and professional websites. It enjoys immense support and documentation, making it easy for developers to work with it. So, if you are working on a project that needs to be completed within a short time, opt for Bootstrap. The framework is mainly focused on creating responsive, functional, and high-quality websites and apps that enhance the user experience. Notice how these websites have used Bootstrap to build responsive and mobile-first sites. (Source: cssreel) (Source: Awwwards) Material Design, on the other hand, is specific as a design language and great for building websites that focus on appearance, innovative designs, and beautiful animations. You can use Material Design for your portfolio sites, for instance. The framework is pretty detailed and straightforward to use and helps you create websites with striking effects. Check out how these websites and apps use the customized themes, popups, and buttons of Material Design. (Source:  Nimbus 9) (Source: Digital Trends) What do you think? Which framework works better for you? Bootstrap vs Material Design. Let us know in the comments section below. Author Bio Gaurav Belani is a Senior SEO and Content Marketing Analyst at The 20 Media, a Content Marketing agency that specializes in data-driven SEO. He has more than seven years of experience in Digital Marketing and along with that loves to read and write about AI, Machine Learning, Data Science and much more about the emerging technologies. In his spare time, he enjoys watching movies and listening to music. Connect with him on Twitter and Linkedin. Material-UI v4 releases with CSS specificity, Classes boilerplate, migration to Typescript and more Warp: Rust’s new web framework Learn how to Bootstrap a Spring application [Tutorial] Bootstrap 5 to replace jQuery with vanilla JavaScript How to use Bootstrap grid system for responsive website design?  

Running Android apps on Chrome is a complicated task, especially when you are not using a Chromebook. However, it should be noted that Chrome has an in-built tool (now) that allows users to test Android-based application in the browser, launched by Google in 2015, known as App Runtime for Chrome (ARC) Welder. What is ARC Welder? The ARC Welder tool allows Android applications to run on Google Chrome for Windows, OS X, Linux systems. ARC Welder is basically for app developers who want to test run their Android applications within Chrome OS and confront any runtime errors or bugs. The tool was launched as an experimental concept for developers previously but later was available for download for everyone. Main functions: ARC Welder offers an easy and streamlined method for application testing. At the first step, the user will be required to add the bundle into the existing application menu. Users are provided with the freedom to write to any file or a folder which can be opened via ARC software assistance. Any beginner developer or a user can choose to leave the settings page as they (settings) will be set to default if skipped or left unsaved. Here’s how to run ARC Welder tool for running android application: Download or upgrade to the latest version of Google Chrome browser. Download and run the ARC Welder application from the Google Chrome Store. Add a third-party APK file host. After downloading the APK app file in your laptop/PC, click Open. Select the mode “Phone” and ‘Tablet”--either of which you wish you run the application on. Lastly, click on the "Launch App" button. Points to remember for running ARC Welder on Chrome: ARC Welder tool only works with APK files, which means that in order to get your Android Applications successfully run on your laptop, you will be required to download APK files of the specific application you wish to install on your desktop. You can find APK files from the below mentioned APK databases: APKMirror AndroidAPKsFree AndroidCrew APKPure Points to remember before installing ARC Welder: Only one specific application can be loaded at one single time. On the basis of your application, you will be required to select the portrait/landscape mode manually. Tablet and Phone mode specifications are necessary as they have different outcomes. ARC Welder is based on Android 4.4. This means that users are required to test applications that support Android 4.4 or above. Note: Points 1 and 2 can be considered as limitations of ARC Welder. Pros: Cross-platform as it works on Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome OS. Developed by Google which means the software will evolve quickly considering the upgrade pace of Android (also developed by Google). Allows application testing in Google Chrome web browser. Cons: Not all Google Play Services are supported by ARC Welder. ARC Welder only supports “ARM” APK format. Keyboard input is spotty. Takes 2-3 minutes to install as compared to other testing applications like BlueStacks (one-click install). No accelerometer simulation. Users are required to choose the “orientation” mode before getting into the detailed interface of ARC Welder. There are competitors of ARC Welder like BlueStacks which is often preferred by a majority of developers due to its one-click install feature. Although ARC Welder gives a much better performance, it still ranks at 7th (BlueStacks stands at 6th). Apart from shortcomings, ARC Welder continues to evolve and secure its faithful following of beginners to expert developers. In the next section, we’ll have a look at the few alternatives to ARC Welder. Few Alternatives: Genymotion - It is an easy to use android emulator for your computer. It works as a virtual machine and enables you to run mobile apps and games on your desktop and laptop efficiently. Andy - It is an operating system that works as an android emulator for your computer. It allows you to open up mobile apps and play mobile games in a version of the Android operating system on your Mac or Windows desktop. BlueStacks - It is a website that has been built to format mobile apps and make them compatible to the desktop computers. It also helps to open ip mobile gaming apps on computers and laptops. MEmu - It is the fastest android emulator that allows you to play mobile games on PC for free. It is known for its performance, and user experience. It supports most of the popular mobile apps and games, and various system configurations. Koplayer - It is a free, one of the best android emulator for PC that supports video recording, multiple accounts, and keyboard. Built on x86 architecture, it is more stable and faster than Bluestacks. Not to mention, it is very interesting to load android apps on chrome browser on your computer and laptop, no matter which operating system you are using. It could be very useful to run android apps on chrome browser when Google play store and Apple app store are prone to exploitation. Although right now we can run a few apps using ARC Welder, one at a time, surely the developers will add more functionality and take this to the next level. So, are you ready to use mobile apps play mobile games on your PC using ARC Welder? If you have any questions, leave in the comment box, we’ll respond back. Author Bio Hilary is a writer, content manager at Androidcrew.com. She loves to share the knowledge and insights she gained along the way with others.    

Creative immersive 3D experiences in Virtual reality setup is the new norm. Tech companies around the world are attempting to perfect these 3D experiences to make them as natural, immersive, and realistic as possible. However, a certain portion of Virtual Reality creators still believe that creating a new interaction paradigm in 3D is actually worse than 2D. One of them is John Carmack, CTO of Oculus VR, the popular Virtual Reality headgear. He has penned a Facebook post highlighting why he thinks 3D interfaces are usually worse than 2D interfaces. Carmack details a number of points to justify his assertion and says that the majority of browsing, configuring, and selecting interactions benefit from designing in 2D. He wrote an internal post in 2017 clarifying his views. Recently, he was reviewing a VR development job description before an interview last week, where he saw that one of the responsibilities for the open Product Management Leader position was: “Create a new interaction paradigm that is 3D instead of 2D based” which made him write this post. Splitting information across multiple depths is harmful Carmack says splitting information across multiple depths makes our eyes re-verge and re-focus. He explains this point with an analogy. “If you have a convenient poster across the room in your visual field above your monitor – switch back and forth between reading your monitor and the poster, then contrast with just switching back and forth with the icon bar at the bottom of your monitor.” Static HMD optics should have their focus point at the UI distance. If we want to be able to scan information as quickly and comfortably as possible, says Carmack, it should all be the same distance from the viewer and it should not be too close. As Carmack observes, you don't see in 3D. You see two 2D planes that your brain extracts a certain amount of depth information from. A Hacker news user points out, “As a UI goes, you can't actually freely use that third dimension, because as soon as one element obscures another, either the front element is too opaque to see through, in which case the second might as well not be there, or the opacity is not 100% in which case it just gets confusing fast. So you're not removing a dimension, you're acknowledging it doesn't exist. To truly "see in 3D" would require a fourth-dimension perspective. A 4D person could use a 3D display arbitrarily, because they can freely see the entire 3D space, including seeing things inside opaque spheres, etc, just like we can look at a 2D display and see the inside of circles and boxes freely.” However, a user critiqued also Carmack’s statement of splitting information across multiple depths being harmful. He says, “Frequently jumping between dissimilar depths is harmful. Less frequent, sliding, and similar depths, can be wonderful, allowing the much denser and easily accessible presentation of information. A general takeaway is that “most of the current commentary about "VR", is coming from a community focused on a particular niche, current VR gaming. One with particular and severe, constraints and priorities that don't characterize the entirety of a much larger design space.” Visualize 3D environment as a pair of 2D projections Camack says that unless we move significantly relative to the environment, they stay essentially the same 2D projections. He further adds, “even on designing a truly 3D UI, developers would have to consider this notion to keep the 3D elements from overlapping each other when projected onto the view.” It can also be difficult for 2D UX/product designers to transfer their thinking over to designing immersive products. https://twitter.com/SuzanneBorders/status/1130231236243337216 However, building in 3D is important for things which are naturally intuitive in 3D. This, as Carmack mentions is "true 3D" content, for which you get a 3D interface whether you like it or not. A user on Hacker News points out, “Sometimes things which we struggle to decode in 2D are just intuitive in 3D like knots or the run of wires or pipes.” Use 3D elements for efficient UI design Carmack says that 3D may have a small place for efficient UI design as a “treatment” for UI elements. He gives examples such as using slightly protruding 3D buttons sticking out of the UI surface in places where we would otherwise use color changes or faux-3D effects like bevels or drop shadows. He says, “the visual scanning and interaction is still fundamentally 2D, but it is another channel of information that your eye will naturally pick up on.” This doesn’t mean that VR interfaces should just be “floating screens”. The core advantage of VR from a UI standpoint is the ability to use the entire field of view, and allow it to be extended by “glancing” to the sides. Content selection, Carmack says, should go off the sides of the screens and have a size/count that leaves half of a tile visible at each edge when looking straight ahead. Explaining his statement he adds, “actually interacting with UI elements at the angles well away from the center is not good for the user, because if they haven’t rotated their entire body, it is a stress on their neck to focus there long, so the idea is to glance, then scroll. He also advises putting less frequently used UI elements off to the sides or back. A Twitter user agreed to Carmack’s floating screens comment. https://twitter.com/SuzanneBorders/status/1130233108073144320 Most users agreed to Carmack’s assertion, sharing their own experiences. A comment on reddit reads, “He makes a lot of good points. There are plenty examples of 'real life' instances where the existence and perception of depth isn't needed to make useful choices or to interact with something, and that in fact, as he points out, it's actually a nuisance to have to focus on multiple planes, back and forth', to get something done.” https://twitter.com/feiss/status/1130524764261552128 https://twitter.com/SculptrVR/status/1130542662681939968 https://twitter.com/jeffchangart/status/1130568914247856128 However, some users point out that this can also be because the tools for doing full 3D designs are nowhere near as mature as the tools for doing 2D designs. https://twitter.com/haltor/status/1130600718287683584 A Twitter user aptly observes: “3D is not inherently superior to 2D.” https://twitter.com/Clarice07825084/status/1130726318763462656 Read the full text of John’s article on Facebook. More insights on this Twitter thread. Google announces Glass Enterprise Edition 2: an enterprise-based augmented reality headset Oculus Rift S: A new VR with inside-out tracking, improved resolution and more! What’s new in VR Haptics?

Today, mobile app development has come a long way, it isn’t the same as it used to be. In earlier days, the development process included only simple decisions such as design, features and the cost of creating the app. But, this scenario has changed now. Nowadays, mobile application development starts with the selection of the right app development framework. There are lots of options to choose from like Flutter, AngularJS, Ionic, React Native, etc. In this post, we are going to compare two powerful mobile app development frameworks: Ionic and React Native, to figure out the best option for your app development needs. React Native - An introduction React native is developed by Facebook using JavaScript which is one of the most popular languages used by mobile developers. React Native allows creating high-end applications for specific operating systems. Developers can reuse the code from this framework and don’t need to build an application from scratch. This is a helpful tool to create applications for Android and iOS operating systems. Features and benefits of React Native As it is reusable across Android and iOS, it saves development time and cost. With virtual-DOM support, it allows viewing changes in real time. There is a huge community of React native developers. Code written by one developer can be read, studied, understood and extended easily by other developers. Once the code is developed,  it can be used on iOS and Android. Issues with React Native apps for Android or iOS can be resolved quickly. It’s consistently improving and with every new release app development becomes interesting and convenient. Ionic - An introduction Ionic is developed by Drifty using TypeScript. It’s an open-source platform for developing hybrid mobile applications using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS technologies. Apps built with the Ionic framework are mainly focused on the UI, appearance, and feel. As it utilizes a combination of Apache Cordova and Angular, Ionic for many developers, is the first choice for app development. It provides tools such as HTML5, CSS, SaaS, etc to develop top-notch hybrid mobile apps to be run on Windows, Android, and iOS. Features and benefits of Ionic Ionic is an open source framework used for developing hybrid mobile applications. It is built on top of AngularJS and Apache Cordova. Ionic Framework comes with a command line interface (CLI) that empowers developers to build and test apps on any platform. It offers all the functionalities that are available with native app development SDKs to allows to develop apps and customize them for the different OS then deploy through Cordova. Apps require one-time development with Ionic and can be deployed on Android, iOS and Windows platforms. Facility to build apps using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript technologies. The apps developed with Ionic are majorly focused on UI to provide the better user experience. It offers a multitude of exciting elements to choose from for development. Ionic 4 is the newest release of Ionic so far. The release is a complete rebuild of the popular JavaScript framework for developing mobile and desktop apps. Although Ionic has, up until now, been using Angular components, this new version has instead been built using Web Components. This is significant, as it changes the whole ball game for the project. It means the Ionic Framework is now an app development framework that can be used alongside any front end frameworks, not just Angular. React Native Vs Ionic: A comparison The following table below shows the difference between these two on different bases. Basis for comparison React Native Ionic Ease of learning Due to a few pre-developed elements, learning takes time. With plenty of pre-developed and pre-designed elements, learning is easier and shorter. Code language JSX (A syntax extension to JavaScript used to optimize code before compilation into JS) TypeScript (A typed superset of JavaScript for compiling clean and simple JS code on any browser) Code reusability It allows using the same code to develop Windows, Android, and iOS mobile apps. Same code can be utilized for creating apps for iOS, Android, Windows as well as web and PWA. Performance It has excellent performance as it doesn’t use WebView. The performance is average because it uses WebView. Community support Strong Strong Ease of development React follows the approach, ‘learn once write anywhere’ Written only once, it can be executed on any platform Phone hardware accessibility To access phone hardware Apache Cordova is used. No third Party tool is required to access phone hardware. Code testing An emulator or real mobile is needed for testing. Apps can be tested on any web browser. Documentation Very basic documentation Quite simple, clear and consistent documentation Developer Facebook Drifty.co By now, you must have obtained knowledge about the basic differences between Ionic and React Native. Both these frameworks are different from each other and they provide distinguishing features. Let us now further investigate both frameworks based on some board parameters Performance Android apps developed with React Native usually have a better performance score than ones developed with Ionic. This is because Ionic uses web-view in mobile app development and this is not the case with React Native framework. Design Ionic comes with plenty of pre-developed elements that allows creating elegant apps with excellent UI. This is what makes Ionic beat React Native when it comes to design. React Native offers a few pre-developed elements as compared to Ionic. Cost Developing apps with Ionic is cheaper than developing with React Native. This is because, in Ionic, the same code can be utilized across different platforms. Final words So which technology you should use? Well, this is not easy to tell. There are several factors you can consider like cost, features, requirements, platforms, and team size when deciding the best app development framework. They both serve different purposes and choosing any of them may be easy. If you a low budget then Ionic can be your choice to build an appealing application with a good performance. On the other hand, React Native lets you build native-like apps but the cost of development may be much than Ionic. Depending on your requirements and preferences, you can decide to choose any of the frameworks. Author-Bio David Meyer is a senior web developer at CSSChopper, a front end, and custom web development company catering customers across the globe. David has a passion for web development and likes to share his knowledge through informative blogs and articles.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when we say “mobile app”? If you are a user, you are probably thinking of, it is something that’s convenient, and eases your life. However, in a business context, an idea that can be converted into an app model and helps boost your profitability. When successful entrepreneurs launch their original idea, they do not just design and develop it for the market; they research, understand the market minutely and more importantly study the users in-depth. One part that leads you to success is the complete understanding of the user. Here, we will try to understand why user behavior analysis is important and how you can best deliver it. Why analyze user behavior? Instead of asking this question, let’s ask the most important question- who are you designing the app for? The users of the app will be members of the target audience, and technically it is for them that you are planning the app layout and coding the all new idea for. In this case, you need to ensure it is usable for them, and they find the app convenient. You need to understand every aspect of user behavior, ranging from an understanding of how they use the app to what engages them. Analysis of user behavior will help you design the UX accordingly, and allows you to deliver effective app solutions. For this, we need to identify the different ways in which you can identify user behavior and what you need to consider, in order to deliver a perfect app solution. 4 Effective ways to analyze user behavior data Here’re four effective ways that will help you to analyze user behavior data to design and develop a mobile app accordingly. The app goal: Whenever the user uses an app, they do it with a specific goal in mind. For instance, when you use Uber, you are choosing travel convenience and avoiding haggling with the driver over the fare. The Uber app allows its users to book their ride with ease and know the amount for the ride beforehand. When you are designing for the user, you need to understand the goal they are attempting to achieve with the app, and how best you can help them achieve it, in the simplest way possible. The mobile usage: While designing an app for the users, you need to understand how they use the mobile phone. What is most convenient for them? For instance, 79% people use their left hand instead of the right hand to cradle their phone or use the apps. Have you considered them while designing the app? Most people prefer the portrait mode for certain apps; however, when they are viewing videos, they prefer to hold it in the landscape mode. If your app does not change the view according to the preferences stated, then you are likely to lose out on the customers. Do users use the thumb to access the buttons on the screen or, do they use their finger? How do they navigate through the screens? Do they hold the phone in one hand or cradle the phone? When you are able to answer these questions, then you have nailed the design strategy You would know just where to place the buttons and how to design the interaction? There are places within the mobile screen which have been marked as inaccessible. If you place the buttons or other clickable elements in that part of the screen, then you are halting the access to the mobile app. Acknowledge feedback: What do users like the most about the mobile app in general, and what are the aspects that frustrate them? For instance, there are mobile app designs that don’t connect well with the user. An app that takes more than 3 seconds to load can be frustrating. If the images don’t load faster, then the app can be discarded immediately. This is true for e-commerce apps, as there are lots of images, and people tend to expect an immediate response from these apps. When the users give you their feedback, make sure you incorporate that into the app. The motivations: Finally, you need to take into account the motivations of the user towards using the app and completing an action. What makes them want to click on the buy now or, the action button in your app? Study your users. For some users, safety plays the predominant motivator while for others, the motivation factor is the value for money the app delivers. Along with the motivators, there are barriers too, which you need to consider in order to design the best user-centric app for the business idea. After identifying different ways to identify user behavior, now, let’s talk about two simple methods that can be used to analyze user behavior data: Questionnaire: Prepare a questionnaire including questions like what do you like the best about our app? Which other apps would you use as our alternative? What do you want us to improve? The questions are endless, but make sure these questions give you insights on your users. Spread this questionnaire among a group of people and based on their answers, you can drive user-behavior data and develop a mobile app accordingly. Mobile App Analytics Platforms: Another method is mobile app analytics platforms. Prepare navigation flow, a flowchart of all the app screens, to submit it on mobile app analytics platforms and identify how users are going from one screen to another. Through this navigation flow of your app, you can identify how users are interacting with screens and how they move through your app. This data will help you to know user behavior. This data helps you make data-driven changes. Conclusion Analyzing user behavior always must be a high priority for businesses who want to make a successful app and grow over time. When it comes to analyzing user behavior, top companies and brands like Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, and Starbucks are using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to provide a personalized experience to their users. Through AI and machine learning, businesses will learn about customer or user behaviors on a deeper level and get help in delivering a better application. The possibilities are endless. The point is - are you utilizing already existing data to optimize the overall process? Author Bio Yuvrajsinh is a Marketing Manager at Space-O Technologies, a firm having expertise in developing Uber-like apps. He spends most of his time researching on the mobile app and startup trends. He is a regular contributor to popular publications like Entrepreneur, Yourstory, and Upwork. If you have any confusion, or question, or need any consultation regarding the mobile app development process, feel free to contact him. 5 UX design tips for building a great e-commerce mobile app 4 key benefits of using Firebase for mobile app development 9 reasons to choose Agile Methodology for Mobile App Development  

Mobile App Development has taken over and completely re-written the healthcare industry. According to Healthcare Mobility Solutions reports, the Mobile healthcare application market is expected to be worth more than $84 million by the year 2020. These mobile applications are not just limited to use by patients but are also massively used by doctors and nurses. As technology evolves, it simultaneously opens up the possibility of being used in multiple ways. Similar has been the journey of healthcare mobile app development that has originated from the latest trends in technology and has made its way to being an industry in itself. The technological trends that have helped build mobile apps for the healthcare industry are Blockchain You probably know blockchain technology, thanks to all the cryptocurrency rage in recent years. The blockchain is basically a peer-to-peer database that keeps a verified record of all transactions, or any other information that one needs to track and have it accessible to a large community. The healthcare industry can use a technology that allows it to record the medical history of patients, and store it electronically, in an encrypted form, that cannot be altered or hacked into. Blockchain succeeds where a lot of health applications fail, in the secure retention of patient data. The Internet of Things The Internet of Things (IoT) is all about connectivity. It is a way of interconnecting electronic devices, software, applications, etc., to ensure easy access and management across platforms. The loT will assist medical professionals in gaining access to valuable patient information so that doctors can monitor the progress of their patients. This makes treatment of the patient easier, and more closely monitored, as doctors can access the patient’s current profile anywhere and suggest treatment, medicine, and dosages. Augmented Reality From the video gaming industry, Augmented Reality has made its way to the medical sector. AR refers to the creation of an interactive experience of a real-world environment through superimposition of computer-generated perceptual information. AR is increasingly used to develop mobile applications that can be used by doctors and surgeons as a training experience. It stimulates a real-world experience of diagnosis and surgery, and by doing so, enhances the knowledge and its practical application that all doctors must necessarily possess. This form of training is not limited in nature, and can, therefore, simultaneously train a large number of medical practitioners. Big Data Analytics Big Data has the potential to provide comprehensive statistical information, only accessed and processed through sophisticated software. Big Data Analytics becomes extremely useful when it comes to managing the hospital’s resources and records in an efficient manner. Aside from this, it is used in the development of mobile applications that store all patient data, thus again, eliminating the need for excessive paperwork. This allows medical professionals to focus more on attending and treating the patients, rather than managing database. These technological trends have led to the development of a diverse variety of mobile applications to be used for multiple purposes in the healthcare industry. Listed below are the benefits of the mobile apps deploying these technological trends, for the professionals and the patients alike. Telemedicine Mobile applications can potentially play a crucial role in making medical services available to the masses. An example is an on-call physician on telemedicine duty. A mobile application will allow the physician to be available for a patient consult without having to operate via  PC. This will make the doctors more accessible and will bring quality treatment to the patients quickly. Enhanced Patient Engagement There are mobile applications that place all patient data – from past medical history to performance metrics, patient feedback, changes in the treatment patterns and schedules, at the push of a button on the smartphone application for the medical professional to consider and make a decision on the go. Since all data is recorded in real-time, it makes it easy for doctors to change shifts without having to explain to the next doctor the condition of the patient in person. The mobile application has all the data the supervisors or nurses need. Easy Access to Medical Facilities There are a number of mobile applications that allow patients to search for medical professionals in their area, read their reviews and feedback by other patients, and then make an online appointment if they are satisfied with the information that they find. Apart from these, they can also download and store their medical lab reports, and order medicines online at affordable prices. Easy Payment of Bills Like in every other sector, mobile applications in healthcare have made monetary transactions extremely easy. Patients or their family members, no longer need to spend hours waiting in the line to pay the bills. They can instantly pick a payment plan and pay bills immediately or add reminders to be notified when a bill is due. Therefore, it can be safely said that the revolution that the healthcare industry is undergoing and has worked in the favor of all the parties involved – Medical Professionals, Patients, Hospital Management and the Mobile App Developers. Author's Bio Ritesh Patil is the co-founder of Mobisoft Infotech that helps startups and enterprises in mobile technology. He’s an avid blogger and writes on mobile application development. He has developed innovative mobile applications across various fields such as Finance, Insurance, Health, Entertainment, Productivity, Social Causes, Education and many more and has bagged numerous awards for the same. Social Media – Twitter, LinkedIn Healthcare Analytics: Logistic Regression to Reduce Patient Readmissions How IBM Watson is paving the road for Healthcare 3.0 7 Popular Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Emerging technologies not only change the way users interact with their devices but they also improve the development process. One such tech where most features emerge is Google’s Android. The Android App Development platform is coming up with new features every year at a neck-breaking pace These are some of the safest Android predictions which can be made for Android development in the year 2019. #1 Voice Command and Virtual Assistants Voice command simply dictates the user’s voice into an electronic word processed document which allows users to operate the system by talking to it and also frees up cognitive working space. It also has some potential drawbacks - it requires a large amount of memory to store voice data files and is difficult to operate in crowded places due to noise interference. What does it have in store for 2019? In 2019, voice search is going to create a new user interface that would be a mandate to take into consideration when developing and designing applications in mobile apps. Voice Assistants are gaining much popularity and we can see every big player has the one such as Siri, Google Assistant, Bixby, Alexa, Cortana. This will continue to grow in 2019. Use Case App: Pingpong Board The use case for voice assistants is to create an application similar to the Ping Pong board. Inside the application, there are two screens: the First screen shows available players with the leaderboard and scores and the second screen displays two players who are playing the game along with their game points. #2 Chatbots Chatbots are trending as they support faster customer service at low labor costs by increasing customer satisfaction. However, simple chatbots are often limited to give a response to the customers which could frustrate them whereas complex chatbots cost more, inhibiting their widespread adoption. What Next? As per the technology experts, it is predicted the whole world is going to introduce their company by Chatbots. The customer support service will be provided efficiently and the customer feedbacks will also be responded quicker to get the better results. Chatbots are a takeaway in this digital world as every application or website wants to provide this facility for the improvised customer support. Chatbots can be taken as the small assistants which are integrated into our applications. We can create our one with the help of DialogFlow which is easy to develop without much coding. Nowadays, facebook messenger is used in spite of being a messaging app as many of the chatbots are integrated into it. Use Case: Allstate chatbot The largest P&C insurer in America developed its own 'ABle' chatbot to help their agents learn to sell commercial insurance products. The bot teaches agents through the commercial selling process and can extract documents and also understands which product an agent is working on and where are they in the process. #3 Virtual and Augmented Reality Augmented Reality systems are highly interactive in nature and operate simultaneously with the real-time environment by reducing the thin line between real and virtual world; enhancing the perceptions and interactions with the real world. It is expensive to develop AR based devices for the desired projects, lack privacy and low-performance level are few drawbacks for the AR compliant devices. What next? The hardware for VR is initially driven by the hardcore games and gadget freaks where the mobile hardware is been caught up in some instances excluding the traditional computing platforms. For the real-world uses with Augmented Reality and sensor into the mobile devices like never before, AR and VR are combined to get much better visibility of applications which seems that virtual reality revolution is finally arriving. Use Case App: MarXent + AR AR is helping professionals to visualize their final products during the creative process from interior design to architecture and construction. By using the headsets enabled by architects, engineers, and design professionals can step directly into their buildings and spaces to look at how their designs might look and can even make virtual spot changes. #4 Android App Architecture Google has finally introduced guidelines after many years to develop the best Android apps. Even you are not forced to use Android architecture components but it is considered a good starting point to build stable applications. The argument about the best pattern for Android - MVC, MVP, MVVM or anything else has turned off and we can trust the solutions from Google which are good enough for all majority of apps. What next? The developers always face confusion implementing the multithreading on Android and to solve these problems, tools like Async Task and EventBus are supporting it. Also, we can choose RxJava, Kotlin Coroutines or Android LiveData for multithreading management. This fetches more stability and less confusion in the developer community. Loads of applications are installed on our mobile devices but we hardly use some of them. For this, Progressive WebApps are becoming popular in e-commerce. #5 Hybrid Solutions Big companies like Facebook is leading in utilizing the cross platforms for most of the part, it is a pragmatic approach where the larger the audience the bigger the market share for advertising and subscription revenues. What Next? The hybrid mobile applications come with the unified development that can substantially save a good amount of money and provide fast deployment through offline support and bridges the gap between other two approaches providing all the extra functionality with very little overhead. The hybrid applications can possibly result in the loss of performance and make the developer rely on the framework itself to nicely play with the targeted operating system. So, escaping out of the traditional hardware and software solutions, the developers have approached the market aiming to offer a total solution or cross-platform solutions. #6 Machine Learning Google switched to AI first from mobile first strategy since some time. This is clearly seen in the TensorFlow and MLKit in the Firebase ecosystem which is gaining popularity for creating simple basic models that do not need expertise in data sciences to make your application intelligent. People are getting more aware of the capabilities of machine learning along with its implementation in Matlab or R for mobile development. What next? Machine learning is used in a variety of applications for banking and financial sector, healthcare, retail, publishing and social media etc. Also, used by Google and Facebook to push down relevant advertisements based on past user search. The major challenge is to implement machine learning by implementing different techniques and interpretation of results which is also complex but important not only for image and speech recognition but also for user behavior prediction and analysis. Machine learning will be utilized in the future for Quantum computing to manipulate and classify large numbers of vectors in high-dimensional spaces. We expect to have better-unsupervised algorithms in building smarter applications that will lead to faster and more accurate outcomes. #7 Rooting Android Rooting Android means to get root access or administrative rights for your device. No matter how much you pay for your device the internals of the device is still locked away. With the help of Rooting Android, several advantages are offered of removing the pre-installed OEM applications, ad-blocking for all the apps which is a great benefit to the user. What next? As the rooting android installs the incompatible application on your device it can brick your device and it is advised to always get your apps from reliable sources. It does not come with a warranty and a wrong setting can move the wrong item which can cause huge problems. The risk with the rooted devices is that the system might not get well updated later which can create errors. Still, It also provides more display options and internal storage along with the greater battery life and speed. It will also make full device backups and have access to root files. Conclusion The year 2019 is going to very interesting for Android app development. We will observe a lot of new technologies emerging that will change the face of mobile development for future use. The developers need to stay up to date with the emerging trends and learn quickly to implement them in designing new products. We can definitely see a bright future by more good quality apps with even more engaging user interactions. We also expect to have more stable solutions to develop applications which result in better products. It becomes important to observe closely the new trends and become a quick learner in mastering these skills that will be the most important in the future. Author Bio Rooney Reeves is a content strategist and a technical blogger associated with eTatvaSoft. An old hand writer by day and an avid reader by night, she has a vast experience in writing about new products, software design, and test-driven methodology. Read Next 8 programming languages to learn in 2019 18 people in tech every programmer and software engineer need to follow in 2019 Cloud computing trends in 2019

Bill Gates is quoted as saying that we tend to overestimate the pace of change over a period of 2 years, but underestimate change over a decade. It’s an astute observation: much of what will matter in 2019 actually looks a lot like what we said will be important in development this year. But if you look back 10 years, the change in the types of applications and websites we build - as well as how we build them - is astonishing. The web as we understood it in 2008 is almost unrecognisable. Today, we are in the midst of the app and API economy. Notions of surfing the web sound almost as archaic as a dial up tone. Similarly, the JavaScript framework boom now feels old hat - building for browsers just sounds weird... So, as we move into 2019, progressive web apps, artificial intelligence, and native app development remain at the top of development agenda. But this doesn’t mean these changes are to be ignored as empty hype. If anything, as adoption increases and new tools emerge, we will begin to see more radical shifts in ways of working. The cutting edge will need to sharpen itself elsewhere. What will it mean to be a web developer in 2019? But these changes are enforcing wider changes in the industry. Arguably, it’s transforming what it means to be a web developer. As applications become increasingly lightweight (thanks to libraries and frameworks like React and Vue), and data becomes more intensive, thanks to the range of services upon which applications and websites depend, developers need to expand across the stack. You can see this in some of the latest Packt titles - in Modern JavaScript Web Development Cookbook, for example, you’ll learn microservices and native app development - topics that have typically fallen outside of the strict remit of web development. The simplification of many aspects of development has, ironically, forced developers to look more closely at how these aspects fit together. As you move further into layers of abstraction, the way things interact and work alongside each other become vital. For the most part, it’s no longer a case of writing the requisite code to make something run on the specific part of the application you’re working on, it’s rather about understanding how the various pieces - from the backend to the front end - fit together. This means, in 2019, you need to dive deeper and get to know your software systems inside out. Get comfortable with the backend. Dive into cloud. Start playing with microservices. Rethink and revisit languages you thought you knew. Get to know your infrastructure: tackling the challenges of API development It might sound strange, but as the stack shrinks and the responsibilities of developers - web and otherwise - shift, understanding the architectural components within the software their building is essential. You could blame some of this on DevOps - essentially, it has made developers responsible for how their code runs once it hits production. Because of this important change, the requisite skills and toolchain for the modern developer is also expanding. There are a range of routes into software architecture, but exploring API design is a good place to begin. Hands on RESTful API Design offers a practical way into the topic. While REST is the standard for API design, the diverse range of tools and approaches is making managing the client a potentially complex but interesting area. GraphQL, a query language developed by Facebook is said to have killed off REST (although we wouldn’t be so hasty), while Redux and Relay, two libraries for managing data in React applications, have seen a lot of interest over the last 12 months as two key tools for working with APIs. Want to get started with GraphQL? Try Beginning GraphQL. Learn Redux with Learning Redux.       Microservices: take responsibility for your infrastructure The reason that we’re seeing so many tools offering ways of managing APIs is that microservices are becoming the dominant architectural mode. This requires developer attention too. That’s not to say that you need to implement microservices now (in fact, there are probably many reasons not to), but if you want to be building software in 5 years time, getting to grips with the principles behind microservices and the tools that can help you use them. Perhaps one of the central technologies driving microservices are containers. You could run microservices in a virtual machine, but because they’re harder to scale than containers, you probably wouldn’t be seeing the benefits you’d be expecting from a microservices architecture. This means getting to grips with core container technologies is vital. Docker is the obvious place to start. There are varying degrees to which developers need to understand it, but even if you don’t think you’ll be using it immediately it does give you a nice real-world foundation in containers if you don’t already have one. Watch and learn how to put Docker to work with the Hands on Docker for Microservices video.  But beyond Docker, Kubernetes is the go to tool that allows you to scale and orchestrate containers. This gives you control over how you scale application services in a way that you probably couldn’t have imagined a decade ago. Get a grounding in Kubernetes with Getting Started with Kubernetes - Third Edition, or follow a 7 day learning plan with Kubernetes in 7 Days. If you want to learn how Docker and Kubernetes come together as part of a fully integrated approach to development, check out Hands on Microservices with Node.js. It's time for developers to embrace cloud It should come as no surprise that, if the general trend is towards full stack, where everything is everyone’s problem, that developers simply can’t afford to ignore cloud. And why would you want to - the levels of abstraction it offers, and the various services and integrations that come with the leading cloud services can make many elements of the development process much easier. Issues surrounding scale, hardware, setup and maintenance almost disappear when you use cloud. That’s not to say that cloud platforms don’t bring their own set of challenges, but they do allow you to focus on more interesting problems. But more importantly, they open up new opportunities. Serverless becomes a possibility - allowing you to scale incredibly quickly by running everything on your cloud provider, but there are other advantages too. Want to get started with serverless? Check out some of these titles… JavaScript Cloud Native Development Cookbook Hands-on Serverless Architecture with AWS Lambda [Video] Serverless Computing with Azure [Video] For example, when you use cloud you can bring advanced features like artificial intelligence into your applications. AWS has a whole suite of machine learning tools - AWS Lex can help you build conversational interfaces, while AWS Polly turns text into speech. Similarly, Azure Cognitive Services has a diverse range of features for vision, speech, language, and search. What cloud brings you, as a developer, is a way of increasing the complexity of applications and processes, while maintaining agility. Adding in features and optimizations previously might have felt sluggish - maybe even impossible. But by leveraging AWS and Azure (among others), you can do much more than you previously realised. Back to basics: New languages, and fresh approaches With all of this ostensible complexity in contemporary software development, you’d be forgiven for thinking that languages simply don’t matter. That’s obviously nonsense. There’s an argument that gaining a deeper understanding of how languages work, what they offer, and where they may be weak, can make you a much more accomplished developer. Be prepared is sage advice for a world where everything is unpredictable - both in the real world and inside our software systems too. So, you have two options - and both are smart. Either go back to a language you know and explore a new paradigm or learn a new language from scratch. Learn a new language: Kotlin Quick Start Guide Hands-On Go Programming Mastering Go Learning TypeScript 2.x - Second Edition     Explore a new programming paradigm: Functional Programming in Go [Video] Mastering Functional Programming Hands-On Functional Programming in RUST Hands-On Object-Oriented Programming with Kotlin     2019: the same, but different, basically... It's not what you should be saying if you work for a tech publisher, but I'll be honest: software development in 2019 will look a lot like it has in 2018.  But that doesn't mean you have time to be complacent. In just a matter of years, much of what feels new or ‘emerging’ today will be the norm. You don’t have to look hard to see the set of skills many full stack developer job postings are asking for - the demands are so diverse that adaptability is clearly immensely valuable both for your immediate projects and future career prospects. So, as 2019 begins, commit to developing yourself sharpening your skill set.

The augmented reality market is developing rapidly. Today, it has a total market value of almost $15 billion; according to Statista,  and this figure could rise to $210 billion by 2022. Augmented reality is having a huge impact on the games industry, but it’s being used by organizations in fields as diverse as publishing and retail.. For example, Layar is an app that turns static objects into live objects, while IKEA’s Catalog app lets you imagine how different types of furniture might fit into your room. But it’s not just about commerce: some apps have a distinctly educational bent, like Field Trip. Field Trip uses augmented reality to help users learn about the history that immediately surrounds them. The best augmented reality apps are always deceptively simple. But to build a really effective augmented reality application you need a diverse range of skills, that span both the domains of software and real-world physics. Let’s take a closer look at location-based augmented reality apps, including what they’re used for and how you can begin building them. How does location-based AR app work? Location-based augmented reality apps are sometimes called geo-based AR apps. Whatever you call them, one thing is important: they collate GPS mobile data and the digital compass to detect the location and position of the device. The application works like this: The AR app arranges queries to be dispatched to the sensor. Once the data has been acquired, the app can determine where it should add virtual information (such as images) should be added to the real world. Location-based augmented reality apps can be used both inside or outside. When inside and it isn’t possible to connect to GPS, the application will use beacons for location data. The best examples of existing location-based augmented reality apps While reading about location-based augmented reality apps can give you a good idea of how they work, to be really inspired, you need to try some out for yourself. Here’s a list of some of the best location-based augmented reality apps out there. Yelp Monocle Yelp Monocle helps you navigate an unknown city. Using GPS, it provides exactly the sort of information you’d expect from Yelp, but in a format that’s fully integrated with your surroundings. So, you can see restaurant reviews, shop opening hours as you move around your environment. Ingress Ingress is an augmented reality gaming app that immerses you in a (semi) virtual world. Your main mission is to find portals that the game ‘creates’ in your immediate environment and open them. Essentially, the game is a great way to explore the world around you and places a new augmented layer on a place that might otherwise be familiar. Vortex Planetarium Vortex Planetarium is an app for aspiring astronomers or anybody else with a passing interest in astronomy. The app detects the user’s location and then provides them with celestial data to better understand the night sky. Steps to create location-based AR app So, if you like the idea of a location-based augmented reality app, you’ll probably want to get started. As we’ve seen, these apps can be incredibly complex, but if you break the development process down, it should become much easier. 1. Determine what resources you need Depending on the complexity of your app, you need to determine what resources are needed - that could be anything from data to other frameworks and services will be required. For example, if you plan to create a game with 3D objects, you’ll need to use Unity to build in that level of functionality and realism. 2. Choose the right augmented reality tool There are a huge number of available augmented reality software development kits out there. However, rather than wade through every single one, here are some of the best to get started with. R SDKs, but we will list the most popular ones that can give you the widest range of possible features. AR Kit by Apple AR kit from Apple features just about everything you’d need to develop an augmented reality application, For example, it has a technology that allows combines both computer vision and camera data to track the user’s environment. AR Kit also is able to adjust the light level in the virtual model, to respond to the level of light in the real world. ARKit 2 recently brought users a number of cool new features. For example, it allows you to build interactivity into your application, and also allows you to build ‘memory’ into your app so it can ‘remember’ the location of augmented reality objects.ARCore by Google In Google’s ARCore you’ll find a mapping tool which is particularly useful for developing of location-based AR apps. ARCore can also track motion and detect vertical and horizontal surfaces. In the latest version of ARCore users can take two gadgets and work with one AR object from different viewing angles. 3. Geolocation data should be added Not all SDKs provide mapping feature. If it doesn’t, it’s essential to make sure you add in geolocation data. Without it, the app wouldn’t work! As we’ve already seen, GPS technology is typically used. It’s convenient and it can detect a user's location anywhere. It can, however, consume a lot of energy. Location services on iOS and Android will help to activate geolocation on the device. 3 augmented reality pitfalls to avoid Developing something as complex as a location-based augmented reality app is bound to lead to some challenges. So be prepared - watch for some of these pitfalls.. Ensure you have proper functionality. When users move with their camera and look for AR objects, these objects should remain static, regardless of the user’s movements. To do this, use SLAM - Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. This is a technique that allows software systems - like robots - ‘understand’ where they are situated in relation to their surroundings. Accuracy. A crucial factor for any AR app is accuracy. When developing your app, it’s essential to consider the user’s position to ensure that the app sends queries to sensors correctly. If it doesn’t the whole experience could seem plain weird for the user. Similarly, the distance between the device and the real world must be calculated correctly - again, if it isn’t your application simply will not work. Get started - build an awesome augmented reality app! Clearly, building a location-based augmented reality app isn’t easy. It requires skill and a commitment to keep going in the face of challenges. You certainly need a team of great developers around you if you’re going to deliver something that makes an impact. But, really, that’s what makes software development exciting, right? Author Bio Vitaly Kuprenko is a technical writer at Cleveroad. It's a web and mobile app development company in Ukraine. He enjoys telling about tech innovations and digital ways to boost businesses. Magic Leap unveils Mica, a human-like AI in augmented reality. Magic Leap teams with Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium Studios to enhance Augmented Reality “As Artists we should be constantly evolving our technical skills and thought processes to push the boundaries on what’s achievable,” Marco Matic Ryan, Augmented Reality Artist

Previously known as eelo, /e/ is an ‘ethical’ operating system for mobile phones. Leading the project is Gaël Duval who is also the creator of Mandrake Linux. Is it a new OS? Well not exactly, it is a forked version of Lineage OS stripped of Google apps, with a focus on privacy and considered as an ethical OS. What’s so good about /e/? The good thing here is that this is a unique effort for an ethical OS. Something different from the data collection of Android or the expensive devices by Apple. With a functional ROM including all functionalities, Duval seems to be pretty serious about this. An OS that respects user privacy does sound like a very nice thing. However, as pointed out by people on Reddit, this is what Cyanogen was in the beginning. The ethical OS /e/ is not actually a new OS from scratch. Who has the time or funding for that today? You have /e/ services instead of Google services, but ummm can you trust them? Is /e/ a trick… or a treat? We have mixed feelings about this one, it is a commendable effort, the idea is right. But with the recent privacy debates everywhere trusting a new OS is tricky. We’ll reserve judgement till it is out of beta and has a name that you can Google search for.

According to Statista, the virtual reality software market is booming. It is projected to reach a value of around 24.5 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. Also, the estimated revenue of the virtual reality market in the year 2021 is3.56 billion U.S. dollars. This would be a huge increase from a very respectable 3.06 billion U.S. dollars back in 2016 This makes virtual reality a potentially lucrative opportunity if you’re a game developer. But it’s also one that’s a lot of fun, with plenty of creative opportunities, and which doesn’t require a load of money up front. Thanks to technological advancements in the VR space, it’s not easier than ever to build a VR game from scratch. But with so many virtual reality tools out there, it can be hard to know where to start. It leaves you stranded with plenty of options but no sense of direction. To help you out, we’ve consolidated a list of what we think are the top 7 tools to help you get started. 1.Unity 3d: the leading game engine at the cutting edge of the industry Developer: Unity Technologies Release date: 2005 Why choose Unity for virtual reality game development? In a nutshell:  it is the easiest way to get started with Virtual Reality development and doesn’t compromise on the quality of the developed game. Unity offers a huge 3D asset store, which is an online marketplace by Unity. In this asset store, you can easily find the 2D, 3D models, SDKs, templates, as well as different virtual reality tools that you can download and import directly to your game. One of the most popular tools that you can find in the Unity asset store is the VR toolkit. So for times, when you don’t want to spend time on building a character model from scratch, you can simply pick one from the asset store. This helps jump-start the game development process. Some of these assets are free, and for some, you have to pay one-time. Moreover, the documentation in Unity consists of vivid examples ( eg; Introduction to VR best practices), video tutorials, as well as live training sessions (eg; VR essentials pack demo). This is not only great news for the experienced game developer but the newbies too as unity makes it easy for you to quickly learn to build games, including the AAA quality virtual reality games. It also has an ever-growing community. So, for times when you get stuck somewhere during the game development process, a solid community will be there to offer you advice on resolving a wide range of issues. Languages Supported: Unity supports three development languages namely, c#, Boo, and UnityScript. Platforms supported: Unity supports all the platforms such as mobile, PC, web and console platforms. The free version supports Mac OS X, Android, iOS, Windows and among other mobile platforms. The paid version further supports  Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation. The free version, however, is more than enough to dive right into the development process. Unity also supports all the major HMDs such as Oculus Rift, Steam VR/Vive, Playstation VR, Gear VR, Microsoft HoloLens, and Google’s Daydream View. Price: Unity has three versions, namely,  personal, plus and pro version. The personal version is completely free, Unity 3D plus is $35 per seat per month, and pro is $125 per seat per month. However, the personal version is more than enough to dive right into the development process. Learning curve: Unity 3d has a flat learning curve. It can be used with ease by both beginners and professionals alike. Learning resources: Unity Virtual Reality Projects - Second Edition                                   Unity Virtual Reality - Volume 1 [Video]                                   Unity Virtual Reality - Volume 2 [Video] 2. Unreal Engine 4: a free game engine with exceptional graphics and capabilities for virtual reality Developer: Epic Games Release Date: 1998 Why choose Unreal Engine for virtual reality gaming? Unreal Engine has powered games with some of the most exceptional graphics and features, so it naturally comes with features catered towards advanced Game development. For virtual reality, Unreal Engine comes with an advanced cinematics system, advanced lighting capabilities, a rendering pipeline offering 90 Hz stereo framerate or faster at high resolutions as well as tools scaling from simple to detailed scenes, environments and characters. Similar to Unity, Unreal Engine 4  also comes with an asset store, which is an online marketplace by Unreal offering animations, blueprints, code plugins, props, environments, as well as architectural visualization. Again, just like Unity’s asset store, some of the assets are paid, and some are free. Documentation provided by Unreal Engine is not as rich as the one offered by Unity and comes with basic guides and live training streams on Virtual reality development. Unreal Engine 4 also has a strong community to guide you through your game development journey. Languages supported: Unreal Engine 4 offers only C++ development language. Platforms supported: UE4 supports all the latest HMDs such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Google VR, and Leap Motion among others. Unreal Engine 4 lets you deploy your VR game projects to Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, AR, VR, Linux, SteamOS, and HTML5. You can run the Unreal Editor on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Moreover, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch console tools and code are also available at no additional cost to registered developers for their respective platform(s). Price: The great thing about UE4 is that it is very cost-effective for all the game nerds out there, as it's free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products. Learning Curve: Unreal Engine 4 has a steep learning curve and is suited mostly for professionals. Learning resources: Exploring Unreal Engine 4 VR Editor and Essentials of VR [Video]                    Unreal Engine 4: The Complete Beginner's Course [Video]                      3. CryEngine: a game engine with a powerful range of assets for virtual reality games Developer: Crytek Release Date: 2002 Why choose CryEngine for virtual reality game development? Similar to Unity and Unreal Engine, CryEngine also offers an asset store, offering tools and assets across different domains such as 3D modeling, scripts, sounds, animations, etc. The documentation offered by CryEngine is not as rich as Unity, which makes it difficult to approach for the beginners. However, it does have an online forum which can guide the experienced developers during their virtual reality game development journey. CryEngine also includes CE# Framework, new Sandbox Editor, Improved Profiling, Reworked Low Overhead Renderer, DirectX 12 Support, Advanced Volumetric Cloud System, new particle system, FMOD Studio support, and Visual Studio 2015 Support, which all collectively can amp up the virtual reality game development process. Languages supported: It supports languages such as C++, Flash, ActionScript, and Lua. Platforms supported: CryEngine supports Windows, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Oculus Rift, OSVR, PSVR, and HTC Vive. Mobile support is currently under development. Price: CryEngine is free but takes five percent of the revenues generated by each game built with CryEngine - after the revenues have passed $5,000. Learning curve: CryEngine has a steep learning curve as for anything other than basic games, you need to have strong command on languages such as C++, Flash, ActionScript, and Lua. Learning resources: CryENGINE Game Programming with C++, C#, and Lua                                  CryENGINE SDK Game Programming Essentials [Video] 4. Blender: an accessible tool for building exceptional graphics and animations Developer: Blender Foundation Release Date: 1998 Why choose Blender for virtual reality? Blender, a modern 3D graphics software is not only great for 3D modeling but supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline such as rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, motion tracking, video editing, and game creation. It also comes with a built-in powerful path-tracer engine called Cycles that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering, real-time viewport preview, PBR shaders & HDR lighting support as well as VR rendering support. It also has a solid community of developers and offers tutorials, workshops, and courses on character modeling, character animation, and blender fundamentals. Blender comes with add-ons for VR such as BlenderVR that supports CAVE/VideoWall, Head-Mounted Displays (HMD) and external rendering modality engines. It helps with the cross-platform development of virtual reality applications as well as porting of scenes from one VR platform configuration to another without any requirement to edit the actual scene. Platforms supported:  Blender supports Windows, Mac OS, and Linux Price: Blender is free to use. Learning Curve: Blender has a flat learning curve and can be used with ease by both beginners and professionals alike. Learning resources: Building a Character using Blender 3D [Video]                                     Blender 3D Basics                            5. Amazon Lumberyard: an accessible and fast tool for building virtual reality games Developer: Amazon Release Date: 2015 Why choose Amazon Lumberyard for virtual reality game development? Bases on CryEngine’s architecture, Amazon Lumberyard, is a powerful cross-platform game engine comprising of tools that help you create the highest-quality games, and connect your games to the vast storage of the AWS Cloud, and engage fans on Twitch. Lumberyard's professional tools such as its virtual reality system use Lumberyard’s Gems, self-contained packages of assets and features that can be added within your game. In fact, these gems act as templates for you to build your own gems and supports all the VR devices without requiring any engine code editing. Lumberyard is also integrated with Amazon GameLift, which is an AWS service meant for deploying, operating, and scaling dedicated game servers for session-based multiplayer games. Lumberyard also speeds up virtual reality development with the new VR Preview function. This full VR preview function is in the editor, which you can click to see in VR right away. This lets the game developers make VR-specific adjustments and level the designs right in the editor, which is quite convenient and saves a lot of time. Platforms supported: Lumberyard supports HMDs such as Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR). It offers support for  PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS (iPhone 5S+ and iOS 7.0+), and Android (Nexus 5 and equivalents with support for OpenGL 3.0+). Lumberyard also offers support for dedicated servers on Windows and Linux. Price: Amazon Lumberyard is free, with no seat licenses, royalties, or subscriptions required. You only need to pay the standard AWS fees for the AWS services that you choose to use. Learning curve: Lumberyard has a flat learning curve and is easy to use for both novices as well as professionals. Learning resources: Learning AWS Lumberyard Game Development 6. AppGameKit -VR (AGK): an easy way to build games for beginners Developer: The Game Creators Release Date: 2017 Why choose AppGameKit-VR for virtual reality game development? AppGameKit-VR lets anyone quickly code and builds apps for multiple platforms with the help of AGKs BASIC scripting system. It adds easy to use VR commands to the core AppGameKit Script Language, which delivers immersive VR experiences. It also allows full development control for SteamVR supported head-mounted displays, touch devices, and Leap Motion hand tracking. AGK does the majority of the work for you, so it makes it super easy to code, compile and export the apps to each platform. You mainly need to focus on your game/app idea.  AGK-VR offers 60 VR commands ranging from diagnostic checks on the hardware and SteamVR, Initialising the HMD, creating standing or seated VR experiences, rendering a 3D scene to the HMD, etc. AGK also offers demos on how to how to get started with using these commands in your games. It also has an online forum where you can ask questions, learn and interact with other users. The details of the AGK script is also fully documented. Platforms supported: AGK VR offers support for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS Android (inc Google, Amazon & Ouya), HTML5, Raspberry Pi (free from TGC website). Price: AGK is available for $29.9 Learning curve: AppGameKit VR has a flat learning curve, which is ideal for beginners and makes the VR game development quick for the experienced. 7. Oculus Medium 2.0: software designed with virtual reality in mind Developer: Oculus VR Release Date: 2016 Why choose Oculus Medium for building virtual reality games? Oculus Medium is a great tool that brings sculpting, modeling, painting and creating objects for the virtual reality world all together in a single package. It's a very handy tool to have during the character designing process. It lets you sculpt and create a variety of 3D objects to include within your VR game with the help of Oculus Touch controllers alongside the Oculus Rift. It comes with features such as grid snapping, increased layer limit, multiple lights, and 300 prefabricated stamps.  It is quite simple to use, and anyone, be it a newbie or an experienced game developer can use this tool. The rendering engine in Oculus Medium uses Vulkan, which results in smoother frame rates and better memory management when building higher resolution sculpts. Other than that, Oculus Medium offers tutorials for you to quickly get hang of different features in the tool. It also has an online forum where different VR artisans and developers discuss tips, information, and videos to share with others. Price: Oculus Medium 2.0 is available for $30 which is quite affordable for novices and professionals alike. Learning curve: Oculus Medium has a flat learning curve as its pretty approachable for novices as well as professionals.                                 Each of the tools mentioned above brings something unique in terms of their abilities and features. However, keep in mind that selecting a tool solely based on its technical features is not the best idea. Rather, figure out what works best for you, depending on your experience, and requirement. So which tools/tool are you planning to use for VR game development? Is there any tool we missed out? Let us know! Game developers say Virtual Reality is here to stay What’s new in VR Haptics? Top 7 modern Virtual Reality hardware system

Over 6,000 mobile apps are released on the Google Play Store every day. This breeds major competition among different apps that are constantly trying to reach more consumers. Spoilt for choice, the average app user is no longer willing to put up with lags, errors, and other things that might go wrong with their app experience. Because consumers have such high expectations, developers need to find a way to release new updates, or deployments faster. This means app developers need to keep the deployment time low without compromising quality. The world of app development is always evolving, and any new deployments come with a risk. You need the right strategy to keep things from going wrong at every stage of the deployment process. Luckily, it’s not as complicated as you might think to create a workflow that won’t breed errors. Here are some tips to get you started. 1. Logging to catch issues before they happen An application log is a file that keeps track of events being logged by a software, which includes vital information such as errors and warnings. Logging helps in catching potential problems before they happen. Even if a problem arises, you’ll have a log to show you why it might have occurred. Logging also provides a history of earlier version updates which you can restore from. You have two options for application logging: creating your own framework or utilizing one that’s already readily available. While it’s completely possible to create your own, based on your own decision about what’s important for your application, there are already tools that work effectively that you can implement for your project. You can learn more about creating a system for finding problems before they happen here: Python Logging Basics - The Ultimate Guide to Logging. 2. Batching to identify errors/breakdowns quickly Deploying in batches gives developers much more control than releasing all major updates at once. When you reduce the amount of change taking place in every update, it’s easier to identify errors and breakdowns. If you update your app with large overhauls, you’ll spend countless hours hunting where something went wrong. Even if your team already utilizes small batch updates, you can take steps to make this process easier through automation using tools like Compuware, Helpsystems or Microsystems' Automation Batch Tools. Writing fresh code every time you need to make a change takes time and effort. When you have an agile schedule, you need to optimize your code to ensure time isn’t spent on repetitive tasks. Automated batching will help your team work faster and will fewer errors. 3. Key Performance Indicators to benchmark success Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPIs anticipate the success of your app. You should identify these early on so you’re able to not only recognize the success of your app but also notice areas that need improving. The KPIs you choose depend on the type of app. In the app world, some of the most common KPIs are: Number of downloads App open rate New users Retention rate Session length Conversion rate from users to customers Knowing your KPIs will help you anticipate user trends. If you notice your session length going down, for example, that’s a good sign it’s time for an update. On the other hand, an increase in downloads is a good indicator that you’re doing something right. 4. Testing Finally, you’ll want to set up a system for testing your app deployments effectively. Testing is important to make sure everything is working properly so you can quickly launch your newest deployment without worrying about things going wrong. You can create sample tests for all aspect of the user experience like logins, key pages, and APIs. However, you’ll need to choose a method (or several) of testing that makes sense based on your deployment size. Common application testing types: Functionality Testing: This is to ensure the app is working on all devices. Performance Testing: With this test, several mobile challenges are introduced like poor network coverage, and less memory that stress the application’s server. Memory Leakage Testing: This step checks for optimized memory processing. Security Testing: As security becomes a greater concern for users, apps need to be tested to ensure data is protected. The good news is much of this testing can be done through automated tools. With just a few clicks, you can test for all of the things above. The most common automated testing tools include Selenium, TestingWhiz, and Test IO. 5. Deployment tracking software When you’re continuously deploying new updates for your app, you need to have a way to track these changes in real-time. This helps your team see when the deployments happened, how they relate to prior deployments, and how they’ve affected your predetermined KPIs. While you should still have a system for testing, automating code, and tracking errors, some errors still happen since there is no way to prevent a problem from happening 100% of the time. Using a deployment tracking software such as Loggly (full disclosure, I work at Loggly), Raygun or Airbrake will help cut down on time spent searching for an error. Because they identify immediately if an error is related to newly released codes, you can spend less time locating a problem and more time solving it. When it comes to your app’s success, you need to make sure your deployments are as pain-free as possible. You don’t have time to waste since competition is fierce today, but that is no excuse to compromise on quality. The above tips will streamline your deployment process so you can focus on building something your users love. About the Author Ashley is an award-winning writer who discovered her passion in providing creative solutions for building brands online. Since her first high school award in Creative Writing, she continues to deliver awesome content through various niches. Mastodon 2.5 released with UI, administration, and deployment changes Google App Engine standard environment (beta) now includes PHP 7.2 Multi-Factor Authentication System – Is it a Good Idea for an App?

A powerful backend solution is essential for building sophisticated mobile apps. In recent years, Firebase has emerged to prominence as a power-packed Backend-as-a-Solution (BaaS), thanks to its wide-ranging features and performance boosting elements. After being acquired in 2014 by Google, several of its features further got a performance boost. These features have made  Firebase quite a popular backend solution for app developers and other emerging IT sectors. Let us look at its 4 key benefits for cross-platform mobile app development. Unleashing the power of Google Analytics Google Analytics for Firebase is a completely free solution with unconstrained reporting on many aspects. The reporting feature allows you to evaluate client behavior, report on broken links, user interactions and all other aspects of user experience and user interface. The reporting helps developers make informed decisions while optimizing the UI and the app performance. The unmatched scale of reporting: Firebase analytics allows access to unlimited reports on as many as 500 different events. The developers can also create custom events for reporting as their need suits. Robust audience segmentation: The Firebase analytics also allows segmenting the app audience on different parameters and grounds. The integrated console allows segmenting the audience on the basis of device information, custom events, and user characteristics. Crash reporting to fix Bugs Firebase also helps to address performance issues of an app by fixing bugs right from its backend solution. It is also equipped with robust crash reporting feature. Its crash reporting helps to deliver intricate and detailed bug and crash reports to address all the coding errors in an app. The reporting feature is capable of grouping together the issues in different categories as per the characteristics of the problem. Here are some of the attributes of this reporting feature. Monitoring errors: It is capable of monitoring fatal errors for iOS apps and both fatal and non-fatal errors for Android apps. Generally, reports are initiated as per the impact caused by such errors on the user experience. Required data collection to fix errors: The reports also enlist all the details concerning the device in use, performance shortfalls and user scenarios concerning the erroneous events. According to the contributing factors and other similarities, the issues are grouped in different categories. Email alerts: It also allows sending email alerts as and when such issues or problems are detected. The configuration of error reporting: The error reporting can also be configured remotely to control who can access the reports and list of events that occurred before an event. It is free: Crash and bug reporting is free with Firebase. You don't need to pay a penny to access this feature. Synchronizing data with real-time database With Firebase you can sync the offline and online data through NoSQL database. This makes the application data available on both offline and online states of the app. This boosts collaboration on the application data in real time. Here are some of its benefits. Real-time: Unlike the so-called HTTP requests that work to update the data across interfaces, the Real-time Database of firebase syncs data with every change thus helping to reflect the change in real time across any device in use. Offline: As Firebase Real-time Database SDK helps save your data in local disk, you can always access the data offline. As and when connectivity is back, the changes are synced with the present state of the server. Access from multiple devices: The Firebase Real-time Database allows accessing application data from multiple devices and interfaces including mobile devices and web. Splitting and scaling your data: Thanks to Firebase Real-time Database, you can split your data across multiple databases within the same project and set rules for each database instances. Firebase is feature rich for futuristic app development In addition to the above, Firebase is fully empowered with a host of rich features required for building sophisticated and most feature-rich mobile apps. Let us have a look at some of the key features of Firebase that made it a reliable platform for cross-platform development. Hosting: The hosting feature of Firebase allows developers to update their contents in the Content Delivery Network (CDN) during production. Firebase offers full hosting support with a custom domain, Global CDN, and an automatically provided SSL Certificate. Authentication: Firebase backend service offers a powerful authentication feature. It comes equipped with simple SDKs and easy to use libraries to integrate authentication feature with any mobile app. Storage: Firebase storage feature is powered by Google Cloud Storage and allows users to easily download media files and visual contents. This feature is also helpful in making use of user-generated content. Cloud Messaging: With Cloud Messaging, a mobile app powered can easily send a message to users and indulge in real-time communication. Remote Configuration: This feature of Firebase allows developers to incorporate certain changes in the app remotely. Thanks to this, the changes are reflected in the existing version, and the user does not need to download the latest updated version. Test Lab: With Test lab, developers can easily test the app in all the devices listed in the Google data center. It can even do the testing without requiring any test code of the respective app. Notifications: This feature gives developers a console to manage and send user-focused custom notifications to the users. App Indexing: This feature allows developers to index the app in Google Search and achieve higher search ranks in app marketplaces like Play Store and App Store. Dynamic Links: Firebase also equips the app to create dynamic links or smart URLs to present the respective app across all digital platforms including social media, mobile app, web, email, and other channels. All the above-mentioned benefits and useful features that empower mobile app developers to create dynamic user experience helped Firebase achieve such unprecedented popularity among developers worldwide. No wonder, in a short time span it has become a very popular backend solution for so many successful cross-platform mobile apps. Some exemplary use cases of Firebases Here we have picked two use cases of Firebase, respectively for one relatively new and successful app and one leading app in its niche. Fabulous Fabulous is a unique app that trains users to dispose of bad habits and get used to good habits to ensure health and wellbeing. The app by customizing the onboarding process through Firebase managed to double the retention rate. The app could incorporate custom user experience for different groups of users as per their preference. Onefootball This leading mobile soccer app OneFootBall experienced more than 5% increase in user session time thanks to Firebase. The new backend solution powered by Firebase helped the game app engage the audience more efficiently than ever before. The custom contents created by this popular app can enjoy better traction with users thanks to higher engagement. Author Bio: Juned Ahmed works as an IT consultant at IndianAppDevelopers, a leading Mobile app development company which offers to hire app developers in India for mobile solutions. He has more than 10 years of experience in developing and implementing marketing strategies. How to integrate Firebase on Android/iOS applications natively. Build powerful progressive web apps with Firebase. How to integrate Firebase with NativeScript for cross-platform app development.

In this article, we will talk about the Android Model particularly the Linux Kernel layer, over which Android is built. We will also talk about Android's security features and offerings and how Linux plays a role to secure Android OS. This article is taken from the book Practical Mobile Forensics - Third Edition by Rohit Tamma et al. In this book, you will investigate, analyze, and report iOS, Android, and Windows devices. The Android architecture Android is open source and the code is released under the Apache license. Practically, this means anyone (especially device manufacturers) can access it, freely modify it, and use the software according to the requirements of any device. This is one of the primary reasons for its wide acceptance. Notable players that use Android include Samsung, HTC, Sony, and LG. As with any other platform, Android consists of a stack of layers running one above the other. To understand the Android ecosystem, it's essential to have a basic understanding of what these layers are and what they do. The following figure summarizes the various layers involved in the Android software stack: Android architecture Each of these layers performs several operations that support specific operating system functions. Each layer provides services to the layers lying on top of it. The Linux kernel layer Android OS is built on top of the Linux kernel, with some architectural changes made by Google. There are several reasons for choosing the Linux kernel. Most importantly, Linux is a portable platform that can be compiled easily on different hardware. The kernel acts as an abstraction layer between the software and hardware present on the device. Consider the case of a camera click. What happens when you take a photo using the camera button on your device? At some point, the hardware instruction (pressing a button) has to be converted to a software instruction (to take a picture and store it in the gallery). The kernel contains drivers to facilitate this process. When the user presses on the button, the instruction goes to the corresponding camera driver in the kernel, which sends the necessary commands to the camera hardware, similar to what occurs when a key is pressed on a keyboard. In simple words, the drivers in the kernel command control the underlying hardware. The Linux kernel is responsible for managing the core functionality of Android, such as process management, memory management, security, and networking. Linux is a proven platform when it comes to security and process management. Android has taken leverage of the existing Linux open source OS to build a solid foundation for its ecosystem. Each version of Android has a different version of the underlying Linux kernel. The Marshmallow Android version is known to use Linux kernel 3.18.10, whereas the Nougat version is known to use Linux kernel 4.4.1. Android security Android was designed with a specific focus on security. Android as a platform offers and enforces certain features that safeguard the user data present on the mobile through multi-layered security. There are certain safe defaults that will protect the user, and certain offerings that can be leveraged by the development community to build secure applications. The following are issues that are to be kept in mind while incorporating Android security controls: Protecting user-related data Safeguarding the system resources Making sure that one application cannot access the data of another application The next few sections will help us understand more about Android's security features and offerings. Secure kernel Linux has evolved as a trusted platform over the years, and Android has leveraged this fact using it as its kernel. The user-based permission model of Linux has, in fact, worked well for Android. As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of specific code built into the Linux kernel. With each Android version release, the kernel version has also changed. The following table shows Android versions and their corresponding kernel versions: Android version Linux kernel version 1 2.6.25 1.5 2.6.27 1.6 2.6.29 2.2 2.6.32 2.3 2.6.35 3.0 2.6.36 4.0 3.0.1 4.1 3.0.31 4.2 3.4.0 4.2 3.4.39 4.4 3.8 5.0 3.16.1 6.0 3.18.1 7.0 4.4.1 The permission model As shown in the following screenshot, any Android application must be granted permissions to access sensitive functionality, such as the internet, dialer, and so on, by the user. This provides an opportunity for the user to know in advance which functions on the device is being accessed by the application. Simply put, it requires the user's permission to perform any kind of malicious activity (stealing data, compromising the system, and so on). This model helps the user to prevent attacks, but if the user is unaware and gives away a lot of permissions, it leaves them in trouble (remember, when it comes to installing malware on any device, the weakest link is always the user). Until Android 6.0, users needed to grant the permissions during install time. Users had to either accept all the permissions or not install the application. But, starting from Android 6.0, users grant permissions to apps while the app is running. This new permission system also gives the user more control over the app's functionality by allowing the user to grant selective permissions. For example, a user can deny a particular app access to his location but provide access to the internet. The user can revoke the permissions at any time by going to the app's Settings screen. Application sandbox In Linux systems, each user is assigned a unique user ID (UID), and users are segregated so that one user cannot access the data of another user. However, all applications under a particular user are run with the same privileges. Similarly, in Android, each application runs as a unique user. In other words, a UID is assigned to each application and is run as a separate process. This concept ensures an application sandbox at the kernel level. The kernel manages the security restrictions between the applications by making use of existing Linux concepts, such as UID and GID. If an application attempts to do something malicious, say to read the data of another application, this is not permitted as the application does not have user privileges. Hence, the operating system protects an application from accessing the data of another application. Secure inter-process communication Android offers secure inter-process communication through which one's activity in an application can send messages to another activity in the same application or a different application. To achieve this, Android provides inter-process communication (IPC) mechanisms: intents, services, content providers, and so on. Application signing It is mandatory that all of the installed applications are digitally signed. Developers can place their applications in Google's Play Store only after signing the applications. The private key with which the application is signed is held by the developer. Using the same key, a developer can provide updates to their application, share data between the applications, and so on. Security-Enhanced Linux Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a security feature that was introduced in Android 4.3 and fully enforced in Android 5.0. Until this addition, Android security was based on Discretionary Access Control (DAC), which means applications can ask for permissions, and users can grant or deny those permissions. Thus, malware can create havoc on phones by gaining those permissions. But, SE Android uses Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which ensures that applications work in isolated environments. Hence, even if a user installs a malware app, the malware cannot access the OS and corrupt the device. SELinux is used to enforce MAC over all the processes, including the ones running with root privileges. SELinux operates on the principle of default denial: anything that is not explicitly allowed is denied. SELinux can operate in one of the two global modes: permissive mode, in which permission denials are logged but not enforced, and enforcing mode, in which denials are both logged and enforced. Full Disk Encryption With Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has mandated Full Disk Encryption (FDE) for most devices, provided that the hardware meets certain minimum standards. Encryption is the process of converting data into cipher text using a secret key. On Android devices, full disk encryption refers to the process of encrypting all user data using a secret key. This key is then encrypted by the lock screen PIN/pattern/password before being securely stored in a trusted location. Once a device is encrypted, all user-created data is automatically encrypted before writing it to disk, and all reads automatically decrypt data before returning it to the calling process. Full disk encryption in Android works only with an Embedded Multimedia Card (eMMC) and similar flash devices that present themselves to the kernel as block devices. Staring from Android 7.x, Google decided to shift the encryption feature from full-disk encryption to file-based encryption. In file-based encryption, different files are encrypted with different keys. By doing so, those files can be unlocked independently without requiring an entire partition to be decrypted at once. As a result of this, the system can now decrypt and use files needed to boot the system, and open notifications without having to wait until the user unlocks the phone. Trusted Execution Environment Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is an isolated area (typically a separate microprocessor) intended to guarantee the security of data stored inside it, and also to execute code with integrity. The main processor on mobile devices is considered untrusted and cannot be used to store secret data (such as cryptographic keys). Hence, TEE is used specifically to perform such operations, and the software running on the main processor delegates any operations that require the use of secret data to the TEE processor. Thus we talked about the Linux Kernel layer, over which Android is built. We also talked about Android's security features and offerings and how Linux plays a role to secure Android OS. To learn more about methods for accessing the data stored on Android devices, read our book Practical Mobile Forensics - Third Edition. The kernel community attempting to make Linux more secure. Google open sources Filament – a physically based rendering engine for Android, Windows, Linux and macOS Google becomes a new platinum member of the Linux Foundation