Mobile devices are here to stay since they help us connect and engage
with our family, friends, and business associates while on the move as
well as help us educate and gather information on products and companies
online.
In the DeveloperWeek 2014 Conference + Event Series, the
hot topic of discussion was related to the importance of mobile
development. The mobile app development market is not only driven by
money although according to the various industry experts, by 2015, there
will be around $400 billion additional spending on the mobile market.
Most
of the mobile development companies invest a lump sum amount of money
to develop something unique and innovative and create new relationships
between things, tasks, and locations.
Although to any normal
person it may seem the different technologies for mobile including the
database, business logic, HTML 5 or JavaScript, app tools, ad networks,
and so on would be the same for both web and mobile world. In reality,
the mobile developer world is taking enormous advantages of such
high-end features including multi-device compatibility, phone-specific
actions and events, geo-focused advertising, new mobile development
technologies, etc.
Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (mbaas) companies
participated at this year's DeveloperWeek with speakers from such
well-known companies like Built.io, Kii, Telerik, Sencha, and Parse
which is acquired by Facebook.
You can assume mbaas to be the
"Heroku for mobile apps". Many of the above mentioned mobile development
companies who attended the event let mobile app developers instantly
use mobile functionalities such as texting or push notifications or
"code once for multiple devices". In other words, mbaas allow mobile
developers to do less coding.
The mobile app analytics and app
testing industry is found to be growing by leaps and bounds with lots of
new companies adding to the list. Mention can be made of companies such
as Appurify, Sauce Labs, and Optimizely which provides A/B testing for
web as well as mobile app development.
There are also a large
number of mobile-only advertisement networks and monetization tools
represented at DeveloperWeek 2014 such as the Millennial Media,
AppFlood, and Zample to name just a few.
Let's now have a look at the main points discussed in the 2014 DeveloperWeek Conference.
API User Experience is Advantageous
According
to the ProgrammableWeb Executive Editor, Mr. David Berlind, mobile
developers are expert problem-solvers; thus for them maybe the API user
experience is not that important. The mobile application developers are
smart enough to scrap data out of an AOI if they need to do so. However,
you cannot altogether ignore the fact that if a person gives the
developers instant access to a similar data source via an API, all
developers will jump to get the same. Industry pioneer such as PayPal's
Jason Harmon states we need to focus both on external and internal user
experience developer engagement to access and share information in an
effective fashion.
Lack of iOS Developers
At
the DeveloperWeek Conference, the lack of iOS developers became
evident. According to some attendees, not having enough iOS developers
is keeping the Native app vs. HTML5 argument still alive.
Lack of Catering Service and Coffee
The
2014 DeveloperWeek did not have proper catering service, and to get
coffee, an attendee has to walk at least two blocks from the main event
venue. Developer crusader Tony Blank of Context.IO quickly set up a
coffee stall at the venue arranging two large containers of prepared
Starbucks coffee. He soon found a long queue of developers outside his
stall waiting only to learn about his company's API over coffee!
Some other notable mobile app development points discussed at the DeveloperWeek are as follows:
- When releasing an API, you have just one chance to get it right.
- Internet of Things is equal to Internet of APIs.
- No separate sessions were held to debate about security issues covering mobile development and developers.
- Want to encourage developers to know more about your API? Tell them a story.
By
Carrie Miller
Freelance Xamarin developers who are good at what they do can earn quite a lot of money compared to full-time jobs, especially where there's a shortage of skilled talent in certain areas of technology. You also have more control over your income because you can turn down projects if they aren't worth as much as others that you could take on instead.
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