Author: phil

June 28, 2017

You don’t always have to be solving a problem…

TLDR;

You don’t always have to have a stereotypical app. At the end of the day, let your app be an extension of your brand letting your followers and customers know you are who you are and you sure ain’t fake!

Okay, so Pioneer is in the business of making apps. Not like half off apps at Applebees, but like the ones on your phone, and we’re constantly working on ways to make an impact on different industries through developing them.

Now if you ask the average Joe, they’ll say that in order to have good & successful app, you have to be solving a problem. But here’s the thing……Define success. Is it having millions of users? Is it making someone’s workplace more efficient? Is it being ranked #1 in the App Store? Plot twist… You don’t always have to be solving a problem to have a successful app.

First, figure out what your goals are. Whether it be self-ambitions or goals you have for your business. Now take these goals and determine how you can accomplish them with something on someones‘ phone. Lastly, figure out what that something is and who that someone might be, and make it happen!

What’s awesome about phones is that people are on them for over 4 hours a day, which is insane. Think about how many times, a person would see your logo on their homescreen every day. If you think about it, you and your brand own a bit of that person’s life and thoughts whether they realize it or not.

So what do you make? Good news is that you don’t need a stereotypical “App”, to have a presence on someones phone. You just have to be a little creative.

For example, Apple’s Sticker Packs are becoming more and more popular for ways to get business’ brands shared. Something like this lets users do the advertising for you right inside of their messages!

Here’s how Starbucks is using Sticker Packs

Another example of a “not so stereotypical” app is one that we recently created, the Chad Tepper’s Catchphrases app. You can listen to some of his most popular catchphrases with the tap of a finger. This app reached #1 in Entertainment and in the Top 10 Overall Apps within 24 hours!!!

In conclusion, be creative and think outside of the box. Before saying “An app just isn’t right for us, or the business that we do”, think about all of the different options there are. Having a presence on someone’s phone can do wonders for both you and your business, and it’s definitely not something you want to miss out on!

-Phil (Founder/Software Engineer @ Pioneer Mobile Applications)

Want your app made? Contact us at contact@pioneerapplications.com

October 12, 2016

How to Launch a New App

We talk about strategy all the time when it comes to developing an app, but it shouldn’t just stop there. With millions of apps in the App Store and Google Play Store, your app won’t magically become successful. This is why it is important to strategize how you are going to launch your new app. This blog post from ladder.io discusses an App Store Launch Plan that can help get you downloads fast, which is critical when it comes to mobile app marketing.

Overview of Phases:

Phase 1: Make sure everything works

Beta test your app
Build and test a final version
Seed early reviews

Phase 2: Get the word out!

Inform your insiders
Run ads
Make sure your App Store Optimization (ASO) is on point
Social, blog, and press

Phase 3: Keep the momentum

Re-engage your uses
Keep everyone updated when you update

Read it all here

October 3, 2016

Save Money! Design Your App

Having an app developed can sometimes be a little costly. This could become a burden when you have a tight budget. Luckily there are ways to help cut costs! One of these ways is to have a clear understanding of what you want entailed in your app. This includes creating a feature list, branding, and designing wireframes for your application.

Some of you may be great at design, some of you may hate it, but trust me when I say it saves time! You don’t have to be an all start designer to create wireframes and get your idea across. There are websites and apps that actually make this really easy too!

Prototyping

Invison

Get high-fidelity in under 5 minutes. Upload your design files and add animations, gestures, and transitions to transform your static screens into clickable, interactive prototypes.

Marvel

Create screens directly in Marvel or add your images from Sketch or Photoshop. You can even sync designs from your cloud storage!

Pop

Have an app idea? Draw it on paper and use POP to make it come to life on your iPhone & iPad!

Color Schemes:

Coolors.co

Create, save and share perfect palettes in seconds!

Paletton

Logos:

Free Logo Design

99designs

Last, but not least do your homework. It is also crucial to find similar apps out there that have features that you want to include. This will help save time and help ensure that your app stands out!

September 29, 2016

Tips for Getting Investors for Your App

Many of our clients come to us wanting to build an MVP so that they can take it to investors and get funding. Truth is, investors aren’t looking just at how beautiful your app is. This article from Entrepreneur.com explains “5 Things Startup Investors Look for Before Investing”

In summary, investors are looking for:

1. Dynamic market opportunity.

2. Team’s execution capability.

3. Commercial traction.

4. Investor relevance.

5. The X factor.

Read the full article here

September 26, 2016

Essential Apps to keep up with the Presidential Election

If you are keeping up with the Presidential Election, here are some apps that can help you easily get the information you are looking for.

Where to watch the debates:

Most likely, you already have these apps and you can use them to watch the debate live from anywhere for free.

Twitter

Download here

Facebook

DOWNLOAD HERE

YouTube

DOWNLOAD HERE

Where to keep up on news about the candidates:

Election Central

The best 2016 election app! Follow the 2016 Presidential Election with the latest news on debates and candidates. Get the complete 2016 presidential debate schedules with details and push notifications. Also includes a selection of the latest news on all candidates in an objective, nonpartisan format.

Download Here

US Elections 2016 – Trump v Hillary

US Elections! Who will be the most powerful man, or woman in the world? Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Scott Walker or Ted Cruz?
Follow the presidential campaigns all the way, with a non biased feed, without missing a thing! Debates, press releases, media appearances, polls, opinions, analysis and more!
Stay on top of the 2016 US Elections!

Download Here

CNN Politics: Election 2016 data, news and video

Campaign 2016 is the data election, and CNN Politics is telling the story in an entirely new and compelling way with this exclusive experience.

Download Here

Where to support the candidates:

Use these apps to help support your candidate.

America First

This is the official mobile app for Donald J. Trump for President!
Stay up-to-date and always be one of the first to know the latest campaign news and events. Connect with other Team Trump supporters, earn badges and prizes, sign up to vote and much more. Help bring change and Make America Great Again — download the app today!

Download Here

Hillary 2016

With Hillary 2016, you can:
Complete daily challenges to help elect Hillary Clinton
Get rewards (digital and real-life ones!)
Design your own campaign HQ
Test your knowledge and become an expert on the issues
Compete against your friends and other supporters

Download Here

September 21, 2016

RAW by 500px – An interview with the Team Lead Mobile

Every once in a while, we like to reach out to other companies who are doing some awesome things with mobile apps, and ask them about their journey through from idea to launch. This week we got to interview Akbar Nurlybayev, Team Lead Mobile @ RAW by 500px.

Description of app:

RAW by 500px brings a simple and powerful photo capture, editing, and licensing workflow to your phone. Take beautiful photos with the manual camera controls. Process your photos using the fast professional style editing controls. Create and manage model releases and license your photos on the Marketplace.

Screenshots:

Where did you come up with the idea for this app?

The idea for RAW by 500px came from our Growth team and our VP of Design Adam Shutsa. 500px was traditionally at the very end of the creative process — essentially, a platform to publish your best work. With the new app, the goal was to position 500px at the beginning of the creative process. But we didn’t want to build just another app. We wanted to innovate when it came to user experience and design, and we wanted to use the latest iOS10 technologies, including support for RAW images.

What problem is this app trying to solve?

Our photographers are essential to our community. Currently 500px lets them license their work through our M arketplace. We wanted to take that one step further, and within the new product, streamline the process of giving money back to photographers.

How big is your team? What are the positions/experience of each?

The team that built the RAW by 500px app consisted of two developers — and then three developers as we approached the launch date. Design was led by Adam and we had a dedicated product manager who prioritized work and made sure we stayed on course. We also had members of our “data guild” make sure the assumptions we made building certain features of the app were proven by data.

Did you develop this app in house or hire someone else?

To fully control the user experience and overall polish, and to retain intellectual property, the decision was made to build the app in-house.

How long did development take? What factors influenced the development time?

From first commit to the version 1.0 that we shipped to the AppStore, it took 64 days. Since we had a hard deadline, which was the launch of iOS10, we had to stay focused and prioritize things that made it to version 1.0. Having a dedicated product manager to steer course helped tremendously.

Did you have a beta tester process?

We did reach out and recruit members of our community to test out the app and build an initial set of filters. We actually shipped the app with some of these filters.

How are you spreading the word about the app?

We’ve used our social channels and reached out to our media partners. We’ve also asked our influencers to promote the app through their social channels.

What are your future goals and aspirations for this application?

RAW by 500px is our mobile and photographer facing side of our Photography on Demand. This means we will be adding in photography Assignments in the near future. In addition, we are iterating on capture and editing tools so that taking and editing photos will not only be easy but also enjoyable.

Why should people download this app in one sentence?

RAW by 500px brings a simple and powerful photo capture, editing, and licensing workflow to your phone.

Word of advice to people looking to have an app built?

Stay focused and have fun!

You can download the app on Apple’s App Store here!

Have an app that you want featured? Contact us at contact@DiscoverPioneer.com

September 19, 2016

SiriKit Tutorial – Right to the Point (Part 2)

Part 2: Adding and responding to intents

Specify which intents your app supports.

1. In Xcode, select the Info.plist file of your Intents extension.

2. Expand the NSExtension and NSExtensionAttributes keys to reveal the IntentsSupported andIntentsRestrictedWhileLocked keys.

3. In the IntentsSupported key, add a String item for each intent that the extension handles. Set the value of each item to the class name of the intent. (For now, we are going to use the messages intent)

You can view more intents here

Resolving and Handling Intents

Open up IntentHandler.swift

2. Observe the different functions automatically generated. This is where the logic for your Siri intent is.

Custom Vocabulary

If your app has custom vocabulary, such as terms that Siri might not inherently understand should register these terms. Ex: a ride booking app that refers to a specific vehicle type as a “Vroom” could define that term and provide examples of how it might be used.

There are two ways to define your app’s custom vocabulary:

To register terms that are specific to a single user, use the INVocabulary object.
To register terms common to all users of your app, add a global vocabulary file to your iOS app. They must belong to the category of either “Ride Options” or “Workout names”

To register terms specific to a single user:

Creating a Global Vocabulary File

Select New –> File
In iOS –> Resources, select the Property List file Type –> Click Next
Set the name of the file to “AppIntentVocabulary.plist” –> Click Create
Select the AppIntentVocabulary.plist file in your project.

5. Add two keys under the Root element.

Set the name of the first key to ParameterVocabularies. This key defines your app’s custom terms and the intent parameters that apply
Set the name of the second key to IntentPhrases. This key contains examples for invoking your services

Creating an Intents UI Extension

Since we checked off UI Extension when we first added the Intent, we do not have to do anything in terms of adding new files.

Open up IntentsViewController.swift
Under the “configure” function, you can customize your view here <configure image>
In MainInterface.storyboard, you can add UI Elements and hook them up to outlets to customize the appearance

Once you run your app, you will see the updated UI

Disclosure: This is a brief, straight to the point tutorial. The object is not to go in depth, but to give a quick overview of how to get SiriKit up and running. For more information visit developer.apple.com

September 17, 2016

SiriKit Tutorial – Right to the Point

In this tutorial you will learn how to get SiriKit working in your iOS App! To learn more about how SiriKit works behind the scenes, check out this article!

Requirements: Xcode 8, Swift 3 Project (this is what the tutorial is built on)

Part 1. Getting a quick and simple demo running

Create & setup iOS app

Create a new ‘Single View Application’ Xcode Project. For this tutorial, lets use the project name “SiriKitDemo”
Once the project is created and opened up, select your iOS app target in project settings.
Enable the Siri capability under the “Capabilities” tab

Now its time to add the intent files to your project

4. Select File –> New –> Target

5. Select “Intents Extension”

6. Click Next and specify the name of your extension and configure the language and other options. ***For this tutorial, Check “Include UI Extension”***

Request access to Siri

7. Include the NSSiriUsageDescription key in your iOS app’s Info.plist file. The value for this key is a string that describes what information your app shares with SiriKit

8. Open up your ViewController.swift file, import Intents and under viewDidLoad, call the requestSiriAuthorization: class method of INPreferences

Running & Testing

9. Select your iOS app’s target & Run your application

10. Select your Intent Extension and run that by attaching it to your iOS app

11. Activate Siri and say “Search for messages in <appname>” —Siri should respond with what is listed in the IntentHandler.swift file

***Sometimes it takes a few minutes for Siri to process your extension, if it doesn’t work right away, don’t be alarmed***

Want to get a little bit more in depth? Learn how to add more intents, customize the way Siri handles intents, & more in Part 2!

[wpdevart_like_box profile_id=”364745913648633″ connections=”show” width=”300″ height=”550″ header=”small” cover_photo=”show” locale=”en_US”]

September 14, 2016

The importance of your App Store Video

With millions of different apps in the Apple App Store & Google Play Store, it’s becoming more and more difficult to stand out let alone receive downloads for your app. One way to help stand out is by having a preview video on the App Store for your app. Over half of the top 50 grossing apps in iOS and 84% of the top 50 grossing apps in the Android Play store are utilizing app store videos.

By having a preview video, it is possible to increase your download conversion by 20% in the Apple App Store and by 35% on Google Play!

Read the entire article on How Not To F*** Up Your App Store Video: The Ultimate Guide

[wpdevart_like_box profile_id=”364745913648633″ connections=”show” width=”300″ height=”550″ header=”small” cover_photo=”show” locale=”en_US”]

September 8, 2016

Building your app for iOS 10

As the date approaches quickly for the public release of Apple’s iOS 10, it’s important to think of how your app can harness the power of all the new features! Apple has taken a major step, opening up many different SDK’s and libraries. Let’s see how we can take advantage of them!

What’s New:

SiriKit

SiriKit enables your iOS 10 apps to work with Siri, so users can get things done with your content and services using just their voice. In addition to extending Siri’s support for messaging, photo search and phone calls to more apps, SiriKit also adds support for new services, including ride booking and personal payments.

CallKit

CallKit lets VoIP apps integrate with the iPhone UI and give users a great experience. Use this framework to let users view and answer incoming VoIP calls on the lock screen and manage contacts from VoIP calls in the Phone app’s Favorites and Recents views.CallKit also introduces app extensions that enable call blocking and caller identification. You can create an app extension that can associate a phone number with a name or tell the system when a number should be blocked.

Notifications

The notifications framework got an overhaul and you can now make your notifications more custom and rich. With customizing the UI of a notification and integrating 3D touch to add quick actions, your users will be able to interact with notifications like never before.

Integrating with the Messages App

In iOS 10, you can create app extensions that interact with the Messages app and let users send text, stickers, media files, and interactive messages. You can also support interactive messages that update as each recipient responds to the message. You can create two types of app extensions:

A Sticker pack provides a set of stickers that users can add to their Messages content.
An iMessage app lets you present a custom user interface within the Messages app, create a sticker browser, include text, stickers, and media files within a conversation, and create, send, and update interactive messages.An iMessage app can also help users search images that you host on your app’s related website while they’re in the Messages app.

Speech Recognition

This new framework supports continuous speech recognition and helps you build apps that can recognize speech and transcribe it into text. Using the APIs in the Speech framework, you can perform speech transcription of both real-time and recorded audio.

ReplayKit

Record or stream video and audio directly from your app, so that users can share their experiences through email, messages, and social media.

These are just a handful of cool new frameworks that your apps can work with. For more information check out https://developer.apple.com/ios/

Have apps using some of these frameworks and what it featured? Let us know!