Will Windows Phone 8 Be a Success ?

With a complete overhaul of its operating systems across PCs, Laptops, Tablets and Smartphones Microsoft seems to be gearing to make an impact and gain some lost ground in the industry which will matter the most in the future – Smartphones. With the sale of PCs seeing a sharp decline and the ubiquitous use of smartphones the success of Windows phone 8 development becomes highly critical for the company. Developers generally look towards platforms which have a mass appeal and share and the users in turn look to those which offers them a high value proposition i.e operational convenience variety of apps . When Apple started the App store and offered the Software Development Kit for apps for the developers, the users had already been mesmerized with the design and interface. What followed subsequently is about 700000 apps and still counting. It is not surprising to notice what changes in terms of fortunes and brand value it has brought to the company. The android platform clicked because it was open source and it offered products in different sizes, unlike apple. The growth has been so phenomenal that it is currently the holder of the highest market share in the smartphone industry.

The goal of becoming the third player in the smartphone industry is not going to be an easy one and Microsoft is taking measured steps towards achieving it. It has dominated the personal computer space for decades now . It is from here that it wants to draw its strength and hence the idea of a common platform. Thus the same apps which run on a PC can also run on a tablet or a smartphone, which greatly widens the reach of users for developers. This level of versatility is quite unique and helps in making it a strong contender to draw the attention of the developer community. There are approximately some 670 million Windows 7 users who are expected to upgrade to Windows 8.

Since from an operating system perspective it is one of the best , it wants people to get used to the new platform interface. Once such a thing is achieved, getting them to adapt to phones and tablets will be easier. This seems to be their broad underlying intent. In addition to this, Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to providing a viable ecosystem around their new mobile OS. They have made it possible to use more programming languages to develop apps. In addition to the conventional languages such as C#, C++, and Visual Basic, they also include certain web development languages like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. This variety of language options is bound to give them an edge over the more rigid iOS , which limits developers to using Objective C and Android which supports Java. By doing this MS is expanding the pool of developers it wants to reach out to . The attempt does not stop here. The annual build developer conference saw the company going that extra yard, by giving away new surface tablets and smartphones and some free cloud storage , to get developers to come onboard . The App store current has more than 700000. To become a strong contender and to be looked upon as a valid alternative for the users, the app numbers have get somewhere close to it . Besides, Microsoft also has promised to increase the amount which developers earn from selling apps if it crossed the $25000 mark.

If you have the idea of a brilliant app or are looking for a reliable offshore partner for your Windows Phone 8 development services , we are ideally suited, given our exposure and expertise, to meet your requirements . To know more about our expertise in Custom Windows Phone 8 development services and outsourcing your mobile app development requirements, please contact us at sales at mindfiresolutions.com or call 1-248-686-1424. We will be glad to help you. To know more about Windows phone app development company or Hire windows phone app developer for fulfill your testing requirements, please contact us at sales[at]mindfiresolutions[dot]com or call 1-248-686-1424. We will be glad to help you.

Cool Apps Development On The BlackBerry 10 OS Platform

The BlackBerry faithful have something really big coming their way early next year. If Research In Motion is true to their words and comes up with their brand new BlackBerry-10 line of smart phones then there is a lot of work at hand for all the BlackBerry developers and mobile app development companies. So what do they do first? They start developing cool apps based on the BlackBerry-10 OS platform. This process of apps development is further encouraged by RIM whose famous developer guru Alec Saunders promised attendees in a BB Jam developer event that their BlackBerry 10 applications will earn $10,000 in the first year they are made available in App World. In the case, the app doesn't earn $10,000, Research In Motion will refund the app developer a check for the unearned balance. The app however, has to meet a few requirements. The first requirement is that it has to be a certified BlackBerry-10 app, the criteria for which will be released in the later part of this year. The second requirement is that the app has to earn at least a minimum of $1,000 on their own effort after having been put up in the BlackBerry App World, in order to qualify for the $10,000 prize. Hence free and sub-standard apps are definitely not running for the prized $10000.

This carefully crafted move is targeted to lure both prodigal as well as novice BlackBerry app developers to create great apps for Research In Motion's much hyped BB-10 platform. It is common knowledge that it would be suicidal to release a smartphone that is bereft of a substantial number of applications. This was one of the biggest contributors for the untimely demise of WebOS. While WebOS had other insurmountable odds against it, lack of apps proved to be fatal. For instance, WebOS App Catalog could never garner the much needed developer support that was crucial for the platform to succeed.

It is believed that Research In Motion already has approximately 99500 listed on the app world out of which one quarter was written solely for the PlayBook. Hence RIM already starts off with a base of approximately 25000 apps. Since the rest 75000 is based on the previous BlackBerry operating systems, they do not hold any relevance for the BlackBerry-10 line of devices. In such crucial scenario an apprehensive RIM will need a good number of apps as soon as BlackBerry 10 devices launch or else face some serious criticism from the mobile community.

So if you are an apps development company and want to cash in on this situation and thus would like to outsource your apps development requirements to a reliable mobile apps development company then look no further than Mindfire Solutions. A 13 year old company that has more than 8 years of mobile apps development experience which also includes BlackBerry App development, will surely help you develop stunning apps for the soon-to-be released BlackBerry 10 line of devices.

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What Makes PhoneGap App Development so Attractive?

PhoneGap is a free open source cross-platform mobile app development framework. Originally created by Nitobi Software, PhoneGap was acquired by Adobe in October 2011. PhoneGap enables app developers to create mobile apps for seven popular mobile platforms – iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Palm WebOS, Symbian, and Bada – using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.

Although HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are used to create a PhoneGap app, the final product is a binary app archive (containing IPA file for iOS, APK for Android, XAP for Windows Phone, etc.) which could then be distributed through their “native” app store ecosystems – just like “native” apps. PhoneGap offers PhoneGap-Build as a cloud service which enables developers to build and compile mobile apps fast without the need for additional SDKs, compilers, or hardware.

Since PhoneGap app development are created using open web standards (and not device-specific languages such as Objective-C), it enables you to not get locked into a proprietary vendor platform. The PhoneGap development framework enables web developers using a single code base of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to natively target seven popular smartphone platforms. PhoneGap does this by enabling a foreign function interface to an embedded WebView / Webkit on the smartphone.

PhoneGap apps are more like hybrid apps. PhoneGap apps are not truly native: They use web views (not native UI frameworks) for layout rendering. PhoneGap apps are not purely web-based either: Unlike just web apps, they have access to native device APIs and are packaged as apps for distribution. PhoneGap is not the only cross-platform mobile development framework for creating hybrid apps like above, but it is arguably one of the most popular and most used cross-platform mobile dev frameworks in the world today.

PhoneGap APIs enable developers to access native operating system features using JavaScript. With PhoneGap, you can get access to powerful native features such as accelerometer, camera, compass, contacts, file, geolocation, media, network, notifications (alert, sound, vibration), and storage. developers can also take advantage of PhoneGap’s JavaScript-to-native communication mechanism to create custom “native plugins” for use within PhoneGap apps. The release of PhoneGap 2.0 brings a number of new features like support for Windows Phone 8, an overhauled JavaScript library stack, Cordova WebView, etc.

The cross-platform mobile dev landscape has a number of players: PhoneGap, Titanium, RhoMobile, Sencha, etc. Though all of these share the same goal (cross-platform mobile development), there are differences in the manner in which each goes about achieving this goal. Depending on the context, you may have a narrower consideration set of cross-platform mobile dev frameworks and one of these may be the clear winner.

Companies like Mindfire Solutions provide expert cross-platform app development services using PhoneGap, Titanium, RhoMobile, etc. The dedicated PhoneGap, Titanium, and RhoMobile teams at Mindfire have a strong track record of developing powerful and engaging cross-platform mobile apps for global clients across diverse industry domains. If you want to hire PhoneGap Developers do cool PhoneGap / Titanium / RhoMobile apps and need some development help, get in touch with Mindfire today – call +1 248-686-1424 or email sales[@]mindfiresolutions[.]com – to leverage the strong track record and solid experience of Mindfire’s PhoneGap app development / Titanium / RhoMobile experts to bring your cool mobile app ideas to life.