Getting an app just right, getting it to work across all possible devices, with different OS versions, display resolutions, chipsets and other hardware characteristics, and making the user experience smooth across all possible configurations, is a challenging task. In this article, Ville-Veikko Helppi will look at what’s available for testing React Native apps. He’ll explain some key features of React Native, before looking at how to implement these tests, and then he will categorize testing methods and frameworks on three levels, providing examples for each.
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Many people think localization is as simple as translating in-app content and app store pages. It’s more complex than that. In this article, Bruce Wong and Anna Pratskevich will look at the top Chinese apps, including local market leaders such as Dianping, the Yelp of China, and the few US apps that are successful in China, such as the NBA app and Uber, and discuss how content, graphics and tone can make or break an app’s success, providing you with a few valuable tips to get you started on the right path.
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Currently, GitHub Pages doesn’t offer a route-handling solution; the Pages system is intended to be a flat, simple mechanism for serving basic project content. GitHub does provide one morsel of customization for your project website: the ability to add a 404.html file and have it served as your custom error page. Turns out that many folks have experienced the same issue with GitHub Pages and liked the general idea. However, the problem that some folks on Twitter correctly raised was that the 404.html page is still served with a status code of 404. The gauntlet had been thrown down, and in this article, Daniel Bauchner decided to answer — and answer with vigor!
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PWAs take advantage of the latest technologies to combine the best of web and mobile apps. Think of it as a website built using web technologies but that acts and feels like an app. In this article, Kevin Farrugia will look into recent advancements in the browser and the opportunities you, as developers, have to build a new generation of web apps. This is merely an appetizer for progressive web apps. You could do a lot more to create that app-like experience users are looking for, whether by supporting push notifications with the Push API, making the app re-engageable, or using IndexedDB and background syncing to improve the offline experience.
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In the previous article, Clayton Anderson showed you how React Native can help you make iOS and Android apps with a shared code base, without sacrifices in quality. But what about the web? React Native for Web is intended to let you write a single app that runs in a browser using standard web technologies, or on iOS and Android as a real native mobile app. While I don’t think the project is ready for production use yet, its potential success could mark a massive change in how large multi-platform applications are built. Let’s jump in!
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Nic Raboy is an application developer that has been developing mobile applications as a hobby for the past five years. In this article, Nic is going to tell his story about mobile application development. He will look at some of the common problems with developing mobile applications, both native and hybrid, and how NativeScript by Telerik fills the gap. He’ll proceed to develop a NativeScript Android and iOS application from scratch, and then convert the same application to use the bleeding-edge Angular 2 JavaScript framework.
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DAU (noun) Daily active users. Hip-hop (noun) If you got to ask, you ain’t got it. In this article, Benjamin Hersh will talk about the unique challenges of designing a hip-hop app as he led design for one of the few successful apps in that space. Benjamin will share insights from his research and design process, and the lessons he and his team learned about the DAU of hip hop. This is not strictly an article about technical innovations. Benjamin’s focus is how an awareness of complex cultural issues can be critical for good app design.
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Studies reveal that 90% of all downloaded apps are used only once and then eventually deleted by users. Sometimes, when people finally download an app, they feel abandoned. You must clearly show users why they need your app. In this article, Anton Kosolapov will show you that for users to give your app a second chance, they need to understand a few things. The best way to communicate the purpose of your app is through an engaging onboarding experience.
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Melody Jams may not have made the creators millionaires, but it’s with no doubt an incredibly successful project. Since Melody Jams’ launch Jamie Kosoy and his team overcame massive technical, mental and physical challenges to produce something that is of really high quality. A certain kind of ruthlessness was required with the number of features they wanted to create. They had to go well out of their way to prove their trust to one another. And they had to constantly be making stuff to show each other, rather than just talking about what they were going to make.
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If you’ve ever written an iOS app beyond a trivial “Hello world” app with just one screen and a few views, then you might have noticed that a lot of code seems to “naturally” go into view controllers.
Because view controllers in iOS carry many responsibilities and are closely related to the app screens, a lot of code ends up being written in them because it’s just easier and faster that way.
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