Tag Archives: App

Mobile Game Developers Rejoice: Apple Increases App Store Size Limit to 4 GB

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Apple recently announced they would increase the size limit of mobile app packages on the Apple App Store from 2 GB to 4 GB.

They experimented first by releasing Disney Infinity: Toy Box 2.0 for free in late January. Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0 is a gaming app developed using Metal. The app is similar to Minecraft in the way it allows players to create their own world using pre-made characters. It weighs in at a massive 3.8 GB when downloaded from the App Store. The additional space is utilized in the expansion of their cast of characters. Disney Infinity Toy Box 2.0 features not only Disney characters, but many superheroes from the Marvel universe, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Incredibles.

Check out this awesome iOS preview of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm7iF5l-ZcA

Although the app is available for free on iTunes, in-app purchases start at $0.99 and reach as high as $59.99. Only three characters are available for free. These free characters rotate, giving users a taste of what they are missing, as well as reason to keep checking the app. The rest of the characters can be purchased in stores like Best Buy, Walmart, etc. It is sure to be a profitable endeavor given the pre-existing fan-bases of the many characters in the mobile game.

The Apple App Store’s increased app size limit will most certainly bring about an influx of large-scale apps like the Disney Infinity Toy Box, although one thing hasn’t changed: apps which are being downloaded by a cellular network still have a 100 MB size limit. Apps above 100 MB must be downloaded using a Wi-Fi network.

While there are obvious advantages to giving users the ability to download an app wherever they have cellular service, large-scale apps are often less dependent on impulse downloads. Many developers will no doubt be excited to put the new limit to work via higher quality graphics and longer games.

The move seems consistent with Apple’s strategy of making the development process easier for app developers. Last year, Apple released Swift (for information on Swift, check out our previous post: Swift Execution: Apple’s New Programming Language Shakes Up Tech Community) and  Metal, a low-level, low-overhead graphics API which we wrote about when it debuted with iOS 8 in our post Bite the Apple: Maximize iOS 8 to Vanquish Your Competition. Both releases, along with the increased app size limit, seem to be power moves dedicated to drawing more developers to the iOS platform.

As we detailed in App Store Optimization Part 5: Key Differences Between Apple Vs. Google Play App Stores, the main difference between the Apple App Store and Google Play is Apple’s emphasis on curation. Although good ASO processes for the Apple App Store are shrouded in secrecy, it’s known that Apple focuses on promoting discovery through curation. Apple requires all apps to be approved by their team of curators before allowing them to be displayed in the App Store. Increasing the app size limit gives developers the freedom to create more intricate, high-production value games for the Apple App Store curators to promote.

If there’s one broad conclusion to be drawn from the move, it’s that mobile gaming is evolving, and Apple wants to spearhead the movement.

Mystic Media is an iOS and Android app development, web design, and strategic marketing firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact us today by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Samsung and Microsoft Team Up for Galaxy S6–What It Means for Apple, Android, and Windows

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Samsung is looking to step up its smartphone game.

Recently, there have been reports that the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge devices will come pre-packaged with Microsoft apps despite running on the Android OS. Coming only a few weeks after the two tech titans settled a royalty dispute out of court, the move is sure to raise eyebrows–especially those at Android.

At the Mobile World Congress, Samsung revealed the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will come bundled with Skype, OneDrive, and OneNote applications preinstalled in a “Microsoft Apps” folder. The Galaxy S6 also comes with 115GB of free OneDrive storage for two years as part of a new partnership with Microsoft. It’s possible Samsung may also include Microsoft Office mobile with their phones, but they did not reveal this during the demo.

Windows Central alleges Samsung is looking to make more phones on the Windows OS in 2015. They have had limited success doing so in the past, but perhaps the reputation for efficiency of the Windows OS is drawing them to expand their repertoire, or perhaps they intend to create more affordable hardware on Windows.

Samsung has been attempting to reduce their reliance on the Android OS for some time now. They created Tizen, their own operating system, back in with the intent of competing with Android, iOS, and Windows. After several delays, Samsung recently launched their first smartphone utilizing Tizen: Samsung Z1, to middling results.

For Apple, the move certainly increases stock in Samsung’s direct iPhone 6 and 6 Plus competitor, but regardless, there’s no denying Samsung is shamelessly playing catch-up. The S6 features an updated fingerprint scanner and Samsung has recently announced their Apple Pay competitor: Samsung Pay.

For Microsoft, this is a huge win. The move represents Microsoft’s first time striking a deal with a non-Windows phone to preload any of its apps.

If you’re an Android fanboy, this cannot be pleasing. Although plenty of iPhones receive installs of Google Maps and other Google apps, they do not come prepackaged. Microsoft effectively poached a major Android device, and there’s virtually nothing Google can do about it.

Of course, we won’t know the ultimate impact until the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are released in April. Until then, we’ll chock it up to a win for Microsoft.

Mystic Media is an app development, web design, and strategic marketing firm located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact us today by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Not Too Pushy: 5 Rules for Pushing App Notifications Without Annoying the User

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An application can do great things for a business. It’s a gateway into a digital experience catered to a brand, an opportunity to ingrain a brand into the user’s daily life. Push notifications allow applications to send messages with pertinent information to the user. Some are silent and simply light up the phone screen with a notification, while others vibrate to physically notify the user of more important, time-sensitive information.

The problem is: push notifications are… well… pushy. They can be annoying. It takes a mere Twitter search to prove that when users get annoyed, they take to social media, which is bad for business.

And yet, studies show when push notifications are turned on, they average 88% more launches than those with push notifications disabled. Some studies show up to a 540% increase in daily app opens.

Thus the conundrum becomes: how does one balance between being overly pushy, and not pushy enough? Although each case is subjective, we put together some guidelines for app developers and businesses looking to boost app usage without alienating customers.

1. Make Them Customizable

This is easily the cardinal rule. Do not push your push notifications on the user. Allow them to choose both whether and which push notifications to receive. Give the user options for how frequently they wish to receive notifications and/or what prompts them. There’s no excuse for an overly pushy app and it will be uninstalled.

2. Silent Notifications Work Too

Silent push notifications light up the phone screen with neither a sound nor a vibration. They are great for games, a tempting little offer which may catch the user’s eye when it lights up and lingers on the screen until the smartphone is next unlocked. Diversifying your notifications only makes for a more tolerable digital experience.

3. Analyze Customer Data

App developers have a host of awesome data at their disposal which ought to be utilized in tweaking their apps. If you notice customers often opting out of certain types of notifications, do them a favor and get rid of them. Or make them sign-up for them rather than giving them the work of having to opt-out. As they say, the customer is always right.

4. Geo Detection Is Your Friend

Geo Detection technology allows retailers to detect when a customer last visited their store or when a customer is nearby. Retailers can use Geo Detection technology to put out blasts to all customers in the area of special offers and coupons. For more information on Geo Detection notifications, check out this awesome article.

5. Offer Value

Seamless and GrubHub offer silent push notifications which, when swiped, give the user a discount on their order. Customers are more likely to read push notifications if they know there’s something in it for them. Push notifications are your friend, make sure they are your customer’s too.

Mystic Media is a web and software development company with expertise in iOS and Android application development and strategic marketing. Follow us today on Twitter (@mysticmediasoft), like us on Facebook, and contact us with any questions by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Shaken Not Stirred: Apple Watch’s Anticipated Impact on Wearable Platform

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Last year was huge for Apple products. The company announced and released a number of very important advancements, including iPhone 6, iOS 8, OS Yosemite, and Swift. The one product Apple announced but didn’t release could prove to have the most significant impact: Apple Watch.

Wearables are the next big platform for app development. While they’ve already caught on in Toronto, wearables aren’t predicted to receive mass adoption in the US until Apple Watch begins shipping in April. The function of wearables in the user’s daily life isn’t widely understood by the public. As with tablets, until consumers have the opportunity to use the devices and experience first-hand what the fuss is about, they will remain skeptical and the technological and market potential of wearables will remain untapped.

With the release and impact of Apple Watch looming, a surge in relevancy for wearable devices is imminent. As an app developer, wearables present a major opportunity upon which to capitalize: a brand new platform with new rules and plenty of room for innovation.

While the iPad acted as a bridge between the laptop and the smartphone, Apple Watch will have the smallest screen, functional for receiving information and sending out responses via voice memo and dictated text. The screen-size and lack of keyboard mean the controls are extremely simple. One would imagine very few practical applications which would work, however, this summary of the Apple Watch announcement shows how much app developers can do within the simple control scheme: The Verge Apple Watch Announcement in 6 minutes

The Honeywell application allows you to control the temperature of your home. Lutron allows you to control the lighting. Keep up to date on the latest sports scores, check text messages on the go without losing your train of thought. One of the cliche jokes about smartphones revolves around how we use them to avoid eye-contact. They disintegrate our social interactions because we’re constantly getting pulled away from conversations and sucked into the digital world. Apple Watch represents an intermediary device which will allows us to complete the bare essentials of digital communication without losing a step. The user can subtly process information sent to them without appearing rude for pulling out his/her phone.

The simplicity of Apple Watch weeds out overly-complicated unproductive applications to emphasize ways in which technology can aid the user in their day-to-day. The purpose of a watch is to help its owner have a better sense of time and time management. Apple Watch will no doubt see a host of new productivity apps released exclusive to the platform. The ability to set reminders with subtle notifications will allow professionals with busy schedules to stay focused on the task at hand without missing a beat.

Apple Watch presents a potential breakthrough for healthcare apps. Fitness tracks your daily movements and Workout allows users the ability to set goals for themselves and change their habits. Apple Watch will track glucose levels for diabetics. The ability to track heart-rate and movement also offers a host of uses for clinical applications detailed in this report.

About 35 million people reportedly want to buy an Apple Watch within a year of its release, according to Business Insider. It’s expected to be the biggest Apple release of the year and will likely initiate the widespread adoption of wearable devices. With its release looming, we can only speculate and await anxiously the future of wearable devices.

Mystic Media is an app development, web design, and strategic marketing firm located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact us today by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Apple Vs. Google: Who Will Win 2015?

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With 2015 off to the races, we take a look ahead at what’s in store for the top tech companies this year.

APPLE

They say it’s not over until it’s over, however, Apple, the biggest tech powerhouse in the world, is unmerciful. Apple announced the first week of January broke their record for weekly billings with over half a billion dollars spent in the App Store on apps and in-app purchases.

2014 was a huge year for Apple. They released the iPhone 6, iOS 8, OS Yosemite, and, perhaps most important when we look forward at the coming year, Swift, a programming language designed specifically for iOS.

As we detailed previously in our article Swift Execution, Swift is the most beginner-friendly programming language and, as is custom with Apple products, received widespread adoption both by developers and tech curriculums. 2015 will be the year we see the beginnings of Swift’s impact and what developers are capable of doing using the language.

On the hardware side of things, there are rumors Apple will release a larger-screened iPad, a retina-displayed MacBook Air, and even potentially a new model of iPhone; however, one product is for sure: Apple Watch.

Apple Watch represents the first new Apple product since the iPad. It’s their first foray into wearables, along with the first wearable device expected to receive widespread adoption. We will cover this subject in-depth next week when we explore wearables. For now, what matters is that surveys say 18% of iPhone 6 owners will definitely buy the Apple Watch when it’s released, a number which will grow when the functionality of the device is better known. Shipments were recently announced to begin in April.

If any of this is any indication, 2015 will be a great year for Apple. It’s going to be tough for the competition to keep up.

GOOGLE

Google has its work cut out for them. Expect the release of a new OS, however, it’s more likely it will be an update for Lollipop than a major upgrade considering the impact of material design.

One of the big projects Google has coming in some form in 2015 is Project Ara, a product development concept in which the owner of a smartphone can upgrade specific parts of the phone, such as the camera, or processor. PC Advisor likens it to Legos. Although there’s no set release date, Google has said they plan on introducing in some stage in 2015.

Google recently announced they are pulling Google Glass from the market in its current form. While many are trying to spin this into a failure (specifically this hilarious C-NET article), Google insists the withdrawal is actually the next step of the Google Glass program. They have held steady Google Glass was in a beta stage are still developing the product. One cannot deny the potential impact of a year’s worth of usage on the research process. Though no official date has been released, the new product will likely compete with the Apple Watch either later this year, or early next year.

Aside from Project Ara and Google Glass, expect new Android TV, Android Auto, and Android Wear. Android TV, announced last year at Google I/O, will bring all the apps connected to Android smartphones and tablets and bring them to the TV platform.

Android Wear will likely expand to support more devices and become more widely-adopted when Apple Watch releases.

Overall, unless the Apple Watch release proves to be a major failure, it’s unlikely Google will overcome Apple in the mobile hardware and software department. With widespread adoption of wearables looming, it’s going to be a very exciting year for technology.

Mystic Media is an iOS and Android application development, web design, and strategic marketing firm. Please take a moment to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Contact us today by clicking here, or by phone at 801.994.6815

Top Productivity Apps and How They Can Change Your Business

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Productivity Apps are on the rise. They represent a growing vertical which reaps profit off of creating apps which enhance technology use to ensure one gets the most out of their devices. Entrepreneurial app developers are looking to capitalize. Here’s a list of the market trends and some the best productivity apps within each niche.

EMAIL APPS

Hundreds, sometimes thousands of unnecessary emails make it difficult to decipher which emails are important and which still need responses. A bevy of productivity apps are aimed at helping users organize their inboxes, as well as redefining the way we collaborate.

Mailbox is designed by the makers of Orchestra To-Do, the 2011 Productivity App of the Year, in collaboration with Dropbox. Mailbox allows you to prioritize emails and tasks, instantly snooze them, and reminds you later of their existence while you focus on what’s important.

Check out this awesome video to see Mailbox in action:

http://vimeo.com/54553882

Similar to Mailbox, Boomerang works with Gmail to allow users to draft messages and schedule them to be sent later. It reminds the user if they don’t hear back from important emails. It also allows the user to temporarily clear out distracting emails and return to them later.

TIME MANAGEMENT APPS

One of the big sectors of opportunity for productivity apps is time management. The importance of a daily routine has been well-documented by a plethora of innovators. A large portion of productivity apps are dedicated toward maximizing one’s time through calendar integration.

Eternity Time Log gives users the ability to completely record and time their activities. It allows them to create a hierarchy in their priorities, to review their daily logs, analyze reports and understand where they may be losing time.

Timeful is a calendar app which learns how the user gets things done and helps to hone their habits by suggesting how to build new habits and work more efficiently.

Sunrise is a free app which streamlines activities—it can automatically dial-in to scheduled conference calls, as well as import photos of your contacts from social media.

COLLABORATION APPS

Some apps are dedicated to making for collaboration seamless no matter the distance between collaborators. Quip, created by Facebook’s former CTO, allows users to create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations and allows them to collaborate easily on blog posts, projects, or even with one’s family on grocery lists.

Slack eliminates the need for an internal email system with a streamlined communications app designed specifically for professionals.

Yammer is a private social network designed specifically for the office. It not only allows employees to share information faster and more efficiently, it makes that information easily accessible to the people who need it who might not necessarily be CC’d on the thread. Yammer also integrates with Microsoft Office 365 to further enhance the work integration and collaboration experience.

MISCELLANEOUS APPS

A number of productivity apps defy traditional labels in their unique quest to maximize one’s time.

Networking is a major part of any business. Humin acts as a digital butler which remembers details about how and where you meet your business connections.

Noisli generates background sounds and colors based on the user’s activity designed to improve focus, whether you’re working or relaxing.

f.lux automatically adjusts the colors of the user’s phone or computer backlight to the time of day. If it’s late, the app filters out blue light which is known to disrupt sleep patterns, replacing it with an amber glow, making for a more efficient sleep.

Productivity apps represent an opportunity to dramatically improve the efficiency of one’s daily routine through technology. With the right app developer, finding a niche in which an app could potentially make life easier and more productive will result in not only a positive human contribution, but a profitable one as well.

At Mystic Media, we’re always looking for the next big vertical. Our experience in both iOS and Android app development as well as strategic marketing gives us the know-how to execute application development projects and shepherd them to success. Learn more by clicking here or contacting us by phone at 801.994.6815

How Material Design Redefined Android App Aesthetics

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In the ongoing war of the operating systems, the front-runners are undeniably iOS and Android. As we detailed in our Android L Vs. iOS 8 article, Apple took the latest battle; however, Android Lollipop represents a major step forward for the platform as it introduced the aesthetic concept of Material Design. We’ve covered the principles of flat design in Impervious Appeal: How to Design Jaw-Dropping iOS Apps, but we’ve never gone in-depth on Material Design because it’s fairly complicated. In this article, we’ll detail what Material Design is and why it represents a huge step forward for app design aesthetics.

What is Material Design? It defies a simple explanation. It is similar to flat design in that it emphasizes negative space, bright color schemes, and an emphasis on intuitive UI. Material Design differs from flat design in the way in which it evolves the concept.

Material Design takes the visual aesthetic of flat design and asks the developer to create a realistic digital world with physical rules within the UI. Material Design offers designers the help of two skeuomorphic concepts: depth and shadow.

Depth and shadow both play a big part in how the user interprets what’s clickable and what’s not. The buttons themselves interact with the touch. The whole concept plays off our ability as humans to recognize depth and perceive information hierarchies organized in the dimension of depth.

Below is a great video featuring Material Design in practice.

UI designers love Material Design because the addition of depth and shadow gives them more tools to convey purpose, meaning and order. It effectively evolves the concept of flat design. Grace LaRosa, senior experience designer at R/GA, said to VentureBeat:

“What’s newest and most of note, in my opinion, is how well documented and systematic the language is. After a long era of designers and developers creating Android experiences that often feel renegade or pieced together, Google have undoubtedly stepped up their efforts to standardize and improve the UI and UX across their app ecosystem.”

The problem with Material Design lies not to its aesthetic concepts, but the practicality of executing it within the Android platform. Android allows third-party companies to create hardware based in the OS, which creates device fragmentation. Not all Android devices run on the latest OS (Lollipop), in fact, some devices go back as far as four previous versions of the Android OS. Due to this vast discontinuity in Android devices, the adoption of material design will likely be a gradual, unlike the nearly instantaneous switch to the latest OS and OS aesthetics for iOS users.

As Grace LaRosa said above, Material Design does set-up a standardized UI/UX for Android developers to use across the app ecosystem, which will hopefully bring about more unity on the platform. Material Design is thus only a part of the solution to the problem which will ultimately limit its impact. It is designed to make for more consistent UI/UX across Android apps, but it won’t be adopted uniformly and thus won’t  single-handedly be able to transcend the device inconsistency in order to solve the unity problem.

Jon Wiley, one of the creators of Material Design, recently said in an AMA:

“I think a big challenge with Google Search in terms of experience is that it has often felt like a series of jump cuts in what is actually continuous. Material design gives us a framework we can use to do something closer to a scene change in a play, continuously moving from one state to the next. This can make it feel much faster and can also provide cues as to what happened when you touched something in the UI. It’s another step towards removing any speed bumps along the way to getting a good answer.”

Interesting to note that both iOS and Android seem to be striving for a more fluid sense of continuity in improving their platforms. For iOS, it’s functional device continuity, for Android, it’s aesthetic UX continuity.

Ultimately, it seems likely Apple will leapfrog past Android by building upon (or conforming to) the Material Design aesthetics in an upcoming iOS, which will then receive mass adoption as is the precedent with Apple OS’s.

For more information on Material Design, check out these awesome, in-depth videos from Google I/O 2014: Material Witness: How Android Material Applications Work and Material Design in Google Play.

At Mystic Media, we’re constantly engaged in various app design projects. Our expertise reaches across all facets of the industry, be it iOS design, Android design, web design, strategic marketing and more. Contact us today by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Android Lollipop Vs. iOS 8: The Battle of the Operating Systems

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It’s been a good year for operating systems.

Back in June, Google announced their new operating system “Android L,” which has since been dubbed Android Lollipop. In our post  Android L Beta Preview: First Impressions of the Latest OS, we covered what we knew about the OS based on the announcement at the Google I/O 2014.

On the iOS side of the equation, this year saw Apple release iOS 8, which Apple hailed as the biggest iOS release ever. iOS 8 didn’t reinvent iOS aesthetics, rather it pushed forth the flat design introduced with iOS 7 and added a host of new features, including Apple Pay, Touch ID, and Device Continuity.

Both platforms represent dramatic technological advancements. The question now becomes: iOS 8 or Lollipop?

AESTHETICS

Steve Jobs majored in calligraphy at Reed College before dropping out. Jobs always held aesthetic design to be among the top priorities in his vision of Apple products, and Apple has always held a strong edge over Android in the aesthetic department.

iOS 7 saw Apple straying from Jobs’ skeuomorphic ideology in favor of Flat Design: a more stylized, minimal, bright look. iOS 8 refines Flat Design with more consistent iconography and UI. It also makes better use of gestures including swiping left to go back and double tapping the home screen to slide the screen down, allowing for better reachability on the large screens of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

While Apple refined their current look, Android elected to enact a complete aesthetic overhaul. They may have shaken up the OS aesthetic game with Material Design.

Material Design is not an easy concept to grasp and can better be explored in practice. The idea is that the digital world should have its own intuitive physical rules. Buttons must react specifically to the touch, there must be multiple easily decipherable UI layers, animations must trigger and unfold in a specific, consistent manner. All Material Design aesthetics are in favor of creating the most intuitive, easily understood experience for the user.

Material Design is much more intricate than Flat Design. It’s both showier and more practical. It’s a more evolved, complex version of Flat Design. Thus, Android has taken the crown with regard to aesthetics. It’s likely Apple will follow suit and copy Material Design aesthetics for their next iOS overhaul.

Check out this video demonstrating the ideas of Material Design posted by Google Developers Youtube account.

FEATURES

Both Lollipop and iOS 8 offer new features, in addition to minor UI tweaks, for their devices. Most of these features either mirror their competitor’s counterpart, or replicate a past feature of their competitor.

Lollipop and iOS 8 both push to integrate with cars with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Both offer integrated navigation systems, hands-free calling and texting, and control of entertainment; however, neither will have a major impact until they are adopted by a greater number of cars.

Lollipop and iOS 8 both feature health apps (Google Fit and Health respectively). Both function similarly with certain apps offering exclusive partnerships. The big factor could be whether/which major health apps make the commitment to either Lollipop or iOS 8. The anticipated forthcoming popularity surge in wearables could be a game-changing variable in health apps. At the moment, neither app has a major edge over the other.

iOS 8 now offers Apple Pay combined with Touch ID, a replication of Google Wallet which was introduced in 2011. While Google Wallet is the older system, Apple Pay currently has the momentum. Both offer touch payments via Near Field Communications, but Apple Pay refuses to store physical credit card details, making it the safer system. The popularity of Pay could cause a resurgence of Google Wallet, but at the moment, Apple Pay has a definite edge.

Aside from the aesthetics, perhaps the biggest differentiator between iOS 8 and Lollipop is Apple’s push for the concept of device continuity embodied in Handoff. We covered device continuity in both Climbing Yosemite and Bite the Apple: Maximize iOS 8 to Vanquish Your Competition. Handoff allows the user to easily complete tasks while transitioning  between Apple devices seamlessly. Instant Hotspot, one of the coolest features of iOS 8, allows users to connect to their iPhone’s cellular network when no other Wi-Fi networks are available. Lollipop comes up empty in this department and Android will surely be playing catch-up when they release their next OS.

BATTERY

iOS bolsters a reputation for retaining a more efficient battery than Android. With Project Volta, Android has made a strong attempt to optimize their OS to defeat this notion.

Lollipop features a built-in task manager designed to prevent unnecessary operations from waking the phone up, running app house-cleaning necessities in batches when plugged in, and preventing network requests from Android and third party apps in spots without network connectivity. Lollipop also has “Battery Historian,” an analytics tool designed to track and tweak battery consumption.

iOS 8 did not make any dramatic attempts to improve it’s battery life, but still competes with Android with an extremely efficient standby mode: leaving an iPhone 6 or 6 plus unplugged overnight will only lose 1-2% charge.

Overall, the OS battery competition is fairly neck-and-neck, which is a big improvement for Android considering in the past they have gotten smoked in this department.

Check out this video Introduction to Project Volta from Google I/O 2014 for more information.

AVAILABILITY

One of the major factors which elevates iOS 8 over Lollipop is the limited availability of the OS due to device fragmentation.

Google allows third-party developers to build hardware for the Android OS. This causes device fragmentation, in which the variety of hardware makes it harder to optimize software for each device. As a result, different devices will have access to Lollipop at different times. Lollipop is currently available on Google’s Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 phones with a staggered launch planned for other Android phones.

Device fragmentation is also troublesome for app developers as it means there’s no way to optimize directly for all the hardware considering the diversity.

iOS’s iPhone exclusivity means it runs well across devices and updates are immediately accessible on Apple hardware. The user is guaranteed at least three years of upgrades. App developers can optimize for each platform which remains relevant.

BOTTOM LINE

Overall, iOS 8 is the more practical operating system. While Material Design represents an exciting leap forward in software aesthetics, iOS 8’s device continuity features trump all of Lollipop’s functional additions. The widespread availability of iOS 8 and lack of device fragmentation makes it the better optimized package.

While iOS 8 wins this battle, it will be exciting to see how the platforms influence one another in the next round of OS updates. Expect Apple to adopt Material Design aesthetics and Android to begin a push for their own version of device continuity.

At Mystic Media, we’re constantly engaged in various app design projects. Our expertise reaches across all facets of the industry, be it iOS design, Android design, web design, strategic marketing and beyond. Contact us today by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Swift Execution: Apple’s New Programming Language Shakes Up Tech Community

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In July 2010, Chris Lattner, at the time a Senior Manager and Architect for Apple, began working on a brand new programming language. He developed it at night and on weekends and told no one, not even his closest friends and colleagues. After a year and a half, he had outlined the basics of the new language and proceeded to reveal his creation to the top executives at Apple. Initially impressed, they gave him a few seasoned engineers to help on the project. After 18 months, it became a “major focus” for the company with a huge team of developers working with Lattner. Little did Lattner know in July 2010, he had begun a project which would potentially change the world of app development.

Swift is Lattner’s creation: a new programming language developed and marketed by Apple designed specifically for iOS and OS X development. Companies have created programming languages before, such as Go, a language created by legendary designers Ken Thompson and Rob Pike for Google, but Swift is a different beast. Wired says “[Swift] could achieve mass adoption with unprecedented speed.”

What exactly makes Swift so groundbreaking? For one, it’s designed specifically for iOS. App developers are constantly designing apps for Apple products, be it iPhones, iPads or MacBooks. Apple is at the forefront of the tech revolution and every year pushes the industry forward into the future. Swift offers a language which caters directly to iOS and OS X development. It will soon become the premiere language on which to develop iOS and OS X apps.

Swift is also more approachable than previous counterparts. “It’s more of a helpful language. It understands what you’re doing a little bit better and allows the computer to help you figure it out a bit better,” says Mike Ash, a programmer for Plausible Labs, in Wired. Swift hopes to appeal to the average programmer and make the process of coding not only easier, but more interactive.

One of the most innovative and exciting features in Swift is PLAYGROUND. Playground allows developers to code on one side of their computer screen, while watching the results appear on the other side. It makes coding not only more fun, but more interactive.  At the Apple World Wide Developers Conference, Lattner demonstrated the feature by making real-time changes to an animated circus game while the crowd watched.

Check out the video of Lattner’s demonstration via YouTube. (Note: the video opens with Apple’s initial introduction of Swift featuring a bunch of great, specific info for iOS developers. Lattner’s presentation begins at 3:30).

Playground was designed with the hopes that “By making programming more approachable and fun, we’ll appeal to the next generation of programmers and to help redefine how Computer Science is taught.” says Lattner on his homepage. Objective-C forced developers to wait for their project to compile and run before allowing them to test any code changes, a time-consuming process. The instant feedback of Playgrounds makes the process of coding less daunting and more fun for neophytes.

Swift aims to replace Objective-C, which is the most prominent coding language (and will remain so until Swift [presumably] seizes the crown). Swift doesn’t aim to replace Objective-C off the bat. As mentioned in the Apple Developers Conference, Swift can work concurrently with Objective-C to fit into an app originally developed using Objective-C, however, the hope is that when Swift gains popularity Objective-C will become obsolete for iOS Developers.

Objective-C and Swift are different in a number of ways. As we’ve discussed, Swift is more accessible to new developers. The abbreviated syntax makes for easier and more intuitive coding, at the expense of being less verbose (easy to read) than Objective-C. Switching over to Swift, experienced developers will have a bit of an adjustment period before they can read it with ease, but it’s a minor set-back considering Swift’s potential impact on the developer community.

For more on the differences between Objective-C and Swift, check out this awesome run-down via fastcolabs.com

While only time will tell what Swift’s ultimate legacy in the developer world will be, the immediate impact is undeniable. Swift has already been thrust into computer science curriculums across the country. The interactivity in the app development process created by Playgrounds makes coding more accessible and will surely draw a lot more people into app development. The big question is whether Swift will convince non-Apple developers to migrate.

For more first-party information on Swift, check out Apple’s Swift Developer Guide. Also, stay informed on the latest updates by checking Apple’s Swift Blog.

Mystic Media is an app development and marketing firm with vast experience in iOS and Android application development. Learn more by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815

Climbing Yosemite: Apple’s New OS Reaches New Heights

Apple recently released the long awaited OS X Yosemite. In Bite the Apple: Maximize iOS 8 to Vanquish Your Competition  and Tilting the Playing Field: iPhone 6 Technology Expands Possibilities for iOS App Developers, we covered  some of the highly-anticipated features in Yosemite, including a host of opportunities for cross-device Continuity. This week, we take an in-depth look at OS X  Yosemite and what it means for developers.

AESTHETICS

You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but when it comes to operating systems, aesthetics matter (check out our article Impervious Appeal: How to Design Jaw-Dropping iOS Apps). Yosemite’s UI remains consistent with Apple aesthetics and makes an effort to push the concept of flat design further. It’s even more minimal; the icons are flatter; the windows are more translucent. A great example of the evolution from Mavericks to Yosemite is a comparison between their Calendar icons:

Yosemite Calendar Icon

Mavericks Calender Icon

 

 

(left is Yosemite, right is Mavericks)

via Apple Developer Library

Whereas Mavericks had a more skeuomorphic design on its Calendar icon, Yosemite is flat. The texture seems impossibly smooth. There’s a minor depth and shadow, but no effort to enumerate the pages, nor a two-hole binder holding the pages together. The Yosemite icon represents the calendar as a digital block. The colors are brighter and the text is crisper and more symmetrical throughout the Yosemite UI. The font is an optimized version of Helvetica Neue used throughout Yosemite, a big switch over from Lucida Grande of the past. Developers, take note and utilize these aesthetics to create apps which integrate seamlessly into the Yosemite environment.

SWIFT

iOS 8 and the iPhone 6 arrived with Metal, a graphics layer for iOS development. Yosemite launches with Swift, a multi-paradigm, compiled programming language optimized for iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite app design. Swift has been in development over the past four years and may replace Objective-C as the main language for app design on Apple’s OS X and iOS platforms. Several apps have already been built with Swift, including LinkedIn and Yahoo Weather.

Programmers, learn more about Swift over at The Guardian.

CONTINUITY

OS X Yosemite begins Apple’s push toward complete device Continuity. The concept of Continuity entails one should be able to switch devices and complete the same tasks on any Apple device without hassle. So if I’m writing an email on my MacBook, I should be able to go into another room and seamlessly finish it on my iPad without having to save or close the message. One of the simpler, but more effective ways in which Apple introduces this concept is allowing users to answer calls on their MacBooks when their phones are within a certain radius.

Another major push for Continuity in Yosemite is the Instant Hotspot feature. Instant Hotspot allows MacBooks to connect with the cellular network on their iPhones when no other Wi-Fi network is available. It also conveniently shuts down inactive iPhones when in-use. The big advancement for Continuity, however, is the application Handoff.

Handoff is among the most exciting new features of Yosemite and the major aspect of Apple’s push for Continuity. Once you get through the confusing set-up, Handoff proves to be a practical application of the concept. When you’re working on a task on your MacBook, an icon appears on your iPhone/iPad lock screen which allows you to immediately pick up whatever task you were working on using the MacBook without losing a beat. It also works the other way, with the Handoff icon appearing to the left of the Dock on your MacBook when you’re switching over from an iPhone/iPad. With Continuity, devices are constantly communicating to better serve the user. Continuity represents a major advancement designed to get users completely consumed in the world of Apple devices. Although Handoff has its kinks, it effectively executes the Continuity concept and ultimately proves to be the biggest, most exciting advancement in OS X Yosemite.

CONCLUSION

Overall, OS X Yosemite is a major step forward for Apple products and aesthetics. It retains a cool look, intuitive functionality, and its steps toward complete device Continuity are clearly indicative of technology of the future. Apple has already put together a featured list on their App Store of Great Apps for OS X Yosemite, it will be exciting to see how app developers follow Apple’s lead and take advantage of the latest OS to enhance their apps.

Mystic Media is an app development and marketing firm specializing in both iOS & Android development, and more. Learn more by clicking here or by phone at 801.994.6815.