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Mobile

Weekly recap: Digital technologies a top CIO priority, do you need a custom app, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on a recent CIO survey, the need for custom mobile apps, and more. I hope you find them useful:

5 new smartphone OS’s bet on HTML5 and improved UIs
Did you know that 5 new smartphone operating systems are scheduled for release this year? Will any of them become the next iOS or Android? Perhaps a better question: If your business is building native mobile apps, how many of these new operating systems do you plan to support? …

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4 essential questions to ask before building a mobile business app (Part 1)

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EducationIn 2012, Gartner estimates that smartphone and tablet sales reached 821 million, accounting for approximately 70% of all devices sold in the last year. In 2013, they expect those sales numbers to reach 1.2 billion.

If it feels like the mobile trend is growing faster than other trends in recent history, you’re right. According to a report published by MIT, mobile computers (smartphones/tablets) are on track to saturate markets in the U.S. and the developing worlds in record time. In other words, smartphones and tablets are spreading faster than any other technology in history.

How are businesses responding? A 2012 Accenture survey found that 78% of CIOs consider mobility a “top 5 priority”. Businesses understand the importance of mobile, and are rushing to take advantage of this trend.

That’s where the problems arise. As businesses rush to build mobile apps, they often dive into the project without proper planning, or without an adequate understanding of their mobile app options.

As you might imagine, this causes problems. First, it produces mobile apps that the company doesn’t really need. Second, without proper guidance, some companies build the wrong type of mobile app–wasting time and money in the process.

To help your company avoid these problems, I’ve created a list of questions you should ask before building a mobile app. Hopefully, these questions will keep you from building an app that fails, or from building the wrong type of mobile app. Before you build your mobile app, here are 4 questions to answer: …

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Weekly recap: How IT can keep its strategic role in 2013, Ubuntu on smartphones, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on how IT can keep its strategic role in 2013, linux on smartphones, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Ubuntu on smartphones: What you need to know
The popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu, recently announced that they’re creating a smartphone OS, which should be released this year. Mozilla also recently made news with the announcement that they are also working on a smartphone OS. What does this mean for business? If your company has built mobile web apps, you’re in the clear. Mobile web apps work across all operating systems, both now and in the future. …

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Weekly recap: 9 ways to improve user experience in mobile design, mobile BI, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on mobile app user experience, CSS3 transitions, and more. I hope you find them useful:

9 ways to improve user experience in mobile design
Developing applications for use on mobile devices is a whole new world for traditional web developers. You must build applications for a touch-based interface on a small screen, and that isn’t easy. This article gives some great tips for developers who want to create better mobile interfaces.
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3-Language, cross-platform mobile apps in 3 days

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ProductivityMobile apps have dominated the news for the last year, with seemingly every development software vendor adding mobile capabilities. With so many vendors offering mobile apps, how can any company know which option to choose?

The organizers of the annual IBM International Power event in the UK decided to help companies with this problem. They recently organized a “Data Challenge”, giving mobile app software vendors a chance to put their money where their mouth is.

The rules were simple: Participating vendors had one week to build a mobile application over the same sample database. At the end of the time, each vendor presented their mobile app to the event’s attendees. …

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Top 7 mobile app mistakes to avoid

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What do television, personal computers, the radio, electricity, and the internet have in common? A couple of things actually: First, each one represents a major technology shift. Second, each one was adopted at a slower pace than smartphones have been adopted in the U.S.

That’s right. According to these statistics, smartphone adoption is faster than any other major technology shift in the U.S.

Now you see what all the mobile app fuss is about.

Businesses aren’t just rushing towards the latest trend, they’re rushing to take advantage of the fastest growing technology shift in history. But, be careful. Mobile app development isn’t something you should approach blindly. Understand your options and the pros and cons of each approach before you begin, and you’ll avoid a heap of problems.

What kind of problems? Mobile app mistakes could leave you with expensive maintenance, security breaches, user adoption issues, and more. How can you avoid these problems? If your company is considering mobile apps, here are 7 big mistakes to avoid: …

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How mobile will revolutionize inventory tracking

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Save MoneyMobile is about to change inventory tracking as you know it. Before I show you how, let’s take a quick look at current inventory tracking methods. Right now, inventory is typically tracked in one of two ways:

1. Manually: This involves employees manually logging inventory on paper, and then entering that information into their system. This is the cheapest option, but also the most time consuming.

2. Barcode scanners and software: This involves employees scanning inventory with barcode scanners, which automatically update the system. This is certainly much faster than tracking inventory by hand, but purchasing all of the scanning equipment and software can get expensive.

How will mobile change this? Mobile provides an inexpensive, yet efficient method to track inventory that can easily replace expensive barcode scanners.

Here’s a great story that illustrates this point: A medical supply distributor needed a better way to track incoming inventory. Rather than purchase expensive scanning equipment, they used mobile apps running on standard smartphones that automatically update inventory levels in their system. The result: They nearly automated inventory logging while using inexpensive, off-the-shelf parts. That’s just a quick summary, but you can read the whole story right here.

Weekly recap: 10 strategic CIO priorities for 2013, concerns with BYOD, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on CIO priorities, BYOD concerns, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why you’d be stupid to bet against HTML5
If your company is considering mobile apps, what approach are you taking? Native, mobile web, or hybrid? While each approach has its benefits, this article explains the big reason why the mobile web approach is so useful for business. …

Weekly recap: 10 strategic CIO priorities for 2013, concerns with BYOD, and more…Read More »

Weekly recap: 10 hot IT skills for 2013, the data-less iPad, and more…

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EducationEvery week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on hot IT skills, small data, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Implement the data-less iPad
Do you want to know the simplest way to ensure that a lost mobile device doesn’t cause a data breach? Don’t store any data on the mobile device. How is this possible? It’s possible with web apps, which access data that’s securely stored on your database, but not on the device itself. And don’t forget that m-Power makes building web apps a breeze. …

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3 great ways other companies are using mobile apps

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EducationMobile apps. They’ve taken the business world by storm. They’re helping businesses become more efficient, boost sales, improve customer satisfaction, and much more. The fact is, mobile apps offer all types of benefits to all types of businesses…yet many companies still hesitate to jump on board.

Why is that?

In my experience, companies hesitate for one of three reasons: They’re not sure exactly how mobile apps can help their business, they’re not sure how to build mobile apps, or they lack adequate resources.

Today, I’d like to take a look at each of these issues. First, let’s examine how mobile apps can help businesses. However, rather than explain all the different ways mobile apps can help a business, let’s look at some real-life examples. I’ve picked 3 great examples of ways that other companies are currently using mobile apps: …

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