Why Startups Should Choose Flutter For Mobile App Development?

Flutter is a modern platform in the tech world that is driving revolution in the growing world of business. The Google-supported platform has everything that will back you up with the best tools to make incredible mobile applications. Based on Dart, the in-house Google Programming Language, Flutter comes with a lot of features that have never been seen before in a cross-platform ecosystem. It provides a strong framework for mobile app development. So it has the ability to act as the perfect choice to develop good and powerful applications. As we all know, the tech world is moving ahead and is not limited to just two operating systems, it needs more platforms to be served. The cross-platform abilities of new technologies made it possible for applications to serve multiple platforms with a single development phase. Flutter has key advantages that pull in entrepreneurs as app developers to choose this structure. Before proceeding towards the reasons to choose flutter for mobile app starters, let us see advantages of Flutter.

Advantages Of Flutter-

• Open-source- Dart and Flutter, both are open source and free to use. It provides extensive documentation and community support to help with any issues that may arise.
• Fast And Simple Development- One of the most important features of Flutter is hot reload that lets you to immediately view the changes made in code on emulators, simulators and hardware. Within a second, modified code is reloaded when the app is running without need of restart. It is great for building UIs, adding features and bug fixing. Also flutter claims that it is so easy that no prior programming knowledge is required for development. Having an experience with object-oriented language is helpful but non programmers can made flutter apps.
• Great Performance- Dart compiles into native code and there is no requirement to access OEM widgets because Flutter has its own. Means less mediated communication between app and platform. Flutter is the only mobile SDK which provides reactive views without need of a JavaScript bridge. All this helps at fast app startup times and less performance issues.
• High Productivity- As Flutter is cross-platform, one can use the same code base for ios and android apps. This saves your valuable time and resources.
• Compatibility- As widgets are part of the app and not the platform, you’ll experience less or no compatibility issues on various OS versions. Means need to spend less time on testing.

Why Startups Should Choose Flutter For Mobile App Development?

1. Developer’s Productivity Increases By 10 Times-

Regardless of whether you are a startup or an entrepreneur, we all majorly concerned about money. Also, in application development, time is money. The higher the time your application development will take, the more costlier it will be. If startups choose Flutter for mobile apps development, they will save a lot of time and money. Why?

Flutter is developed with stateful “Hot Reload” feature which enables developers to make rapid changes in the backend and eliminates the need of recompilation which lowers the mobile app development time.  With this feature, developers can make changes in real-time.

Also know details at- Why Flutter development is possible with reduced cost?

2. Powerful Design Experience-

The reason behind great user experience is a good partnership between material design and Flutter. It gives a smooth and zero learning curve experience that users expect from native apps. Flutter has customized widgets for Android and iOS, which helps to get a feel of native app. There is a wide variety of widgets available and you can choose as per your requirement. 

3. Overcomes The Limitations Of Taking The Cross-platform Route-

Mobile app developers wanted to develop a genuinely bespoke cross-platform product that is generally restricted to native application development. With popular tools like react native and ionic, there is a big difference in user experience of native and cross platform apps. And is a complete disappointment for these popular frameworks.  

But flutter is different from this. With the use of native UI elements of both Android and iOS, flutter app development  carries something that community has been waiting for- a true code approach that creates powerful native experience.

You can know the details at- Why choose Flutter for cross platform app development?

4. Integration With Google’s Firebase-

Firebase is Google’s mobile platform which provides major services like cloud storage, cloud functions, real-time database, hosting and more at one place. This makes the app development process rapid and easy. Using Firebase, startups can create their app infrastructure serverless, scalable and redundant. When developers build an app, there is need to build some tools themselves for the backend support, but if developers will combine the firebase with other tools, they can automate the app development process. 

5. Different Themes For Android/iOS Apps-

Flutter helps you to develop multiple applications with a single code base. But what in case of- you want different themes for different apps? 

Flutter offers you a different choice of themes for different applications to ensure excellent user experience on different operating systems.

6. Rapid Development And Less Testing-

Flutter app development companies can reuse app codes, meaning that, they need to translate codes in different programming languages instead of writing from scratch. And this saves a lot of time and efforts of writing codes for different apps. Written codes can be used with different plugins and this saves development time. Furthermore, to the extent the Quality Assurance of the application is concerned, a single deep QA is enough to test the features, functions, and programs of the cross-platform application developed with Flutter.

7. Fuchsia, Will Use Flutter-

Many market researchers believe that Fuschia will be the base of augmented reality and virtual reality. The upcoming operating system will bring together Chrome and Android while being the heart of a million internet of things devices which we hope to come into the business existence in the future. Regardless of what Fuschia looks like, the impact that will create is uncontested. Also, the way that it is based on Flutter makes the cross-platform tool extremely important as well. Due to these advantages or USPs many startups demands flutter to save the development time while being futuristic. 

8. Perfect Choice For MVP Development-

If you have a low budget due to startup and thinking to develop an app, then Flutter will be your great choice. It will help you to develop a mobile app in real-time regardless of low budget, limited resources and time.

Flutter has a wide range of UI Native widgets, Hot reload feature, support 2D GPU accelerated APIs, that makes all the UI animations more attractive and seamless. The set of these features including widgets and versatile UI makes Flutter an outstanding choice of developers and improves the customer’s experience. You can also know more details at- Flutter Is Ideal For The MVP Development- Is That True?

Final Words-

With the lot of emerging companies, it is very challenging to make your brand and stand apart in this tech world especially when there are low budgets and limited resources. If you’re thinking of developing an app without affecting  your budget, then Flutter is the one for you. You can also consult with Solace experts. We are here to assist you with consultation and development. You can also hire flutter developers of Solace team for an effective development. Connect with Solace and get a free quote for pocket friendly flutter app development. We will be happy to help you.

A Guide To Develop Real Time Apps With Node.js

We have been using lots of mobile applications to carry out day to day tasks. So building applications that users can interact with in real-time has become a standard for many developers. The applications that today we use whether they are mobile, web or desktop apps have at least one real time feature. Mostly real-time messaging and notifications are the commonly used real-time features that we use in applications. 

What Do Real Time Applications Do?

As mentioned before, real time applications functions within a time frame the user feels it is occurring in real time. Within real-time applications or real-time computing, the latency is set under a defined value, typically estimated in seconds.

Know the important points to consider while developing real time apps at- What To Consider While Developing Real Time Applications?

Role Of Node.js In Real-Time Applications-

Node js helps with its non-blocking I/O and event-driven features to the applications where speed and scalability are constant focus. Nodejs gives continuous two-way connections to applications like social media, forums, ad servers, or stock exchange software.

1. Reusing And Sharing-

Nodejs supports microservices architecture and it allows developers to reuse the library code package and share it in various projects. It not only saves development time and increases productivity.

2. Scalable And Rapid-

As Node Js is javascript based, it executes rapidly like JS. So an application with event loop easily handles multiple client requests.

3. Event Based Server-

Real time apps handles a large number of real-time users. Node.js development supports response based on the event-driven server that supports non-blocking functioning.

4. Proxy Server-

Node js will be your best choice where intermediary administrations are necessary. To use node.js server as a proxy server, a developer needs to add a code of 20-line, and your application will turn into an ideal fit to support streaming information from numerous sources.

5. SEO Friendliness-

The backend rendering by Node.js gives the website more visibility and engagement too. The applications get more speed and user experience as well as a get performance that is required to rank according to SEO prospects defined by Google.

Building A Real-Time Chatroom With Node.js-

Here we’ll see how to build a simple chatroom that users can use to communicate  with connected users. With this, multiple users can connect to the chatroom and users can send messages that will be visible to all users connected to the chatroom.

Features of simple chatroom-

• Change the username of the user
• Send messages
• Show if another user is currently typing a message

Application Environment Setup-

1. Create directory
2. Run the npm init to set up package.json file.

Install Dependencies-

Here we’ll use express, ejs, socket.io and nodemon packages to build app.

• Ejs- It is a well known JS template engine

Command to install ejs- npm install express ejs socket.io –save

• Nodemon- This package restarts the server every time we make any change to the application code. Due to the use of Nodemon you don’t need to manually stop and start the server every time when you make change. Command to install Nodemon–

npm install nodemon --save-dev

Add a start script to your package.json file to start the application with nodemon. 

"scripts": {
"start": "nodemon app.js",
 },

Use the following command to start app-

npm run start

Set Up The Application Structure-

With all the Dependencies that will need for this project installed, build app project structure. For this, you have to create some directories. Get that done so that your app structure look like

|--app.js
|--views
|--node_modules
|--package.json
|--public
|--css
 |--js

• app.js: file we will use to host our server-side code
• views: folder containing the views (ejs)
• node_modules: where we installed our dependencies
• package.json npm configuration file
• public: directory we will use to store our assets, like css files, javascript files (for the client side), and images.

Step 1: Build Server-

It is necessary to get express up and run. For this open app.js file and paste the code as follows:

const express = require('express')
const socketio = require('socket.io')
const app = express()
app.set('view engine', 'ejs')
app.use(express.static('public'))
app.get('/', (req, res)=> {
    res.render('index')
})
const server = app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000, () => {
    console.log("server is running")
})

Now start working on the sockets.io initialization. Add the following code at the end of app.js file.

//initialize socket for the server
const io = socketio(server)

io.on('connection', socket => {
    console.log("New user connected")
})

If you now run your server with npm start you will have the option to receive new socket connections. So let’s build a front-end.

Step 2: Build Front-End-

Create a template in views folder, and for this create index.ejs file and paste the below code:

<head>
    <title>Simple realtime chatroom</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.5.0/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="container">
        <div class="title">
            <h3>Realtime Chat Room</h3>
        </div>
        <div class="card">
            <div class="card-header">Anonymous</div>
            <div class="card-body">
                <div class="input-group">
                    <input type="text" class="form-control" id="username" placeholder="Change your username" >
                    <div class="input-group-append">
                        <button class="btn btn-warning" type="button" id="usernameBtn">Change</button>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="message-box">
                <ul class="list-group list-group-flush" id="message-list"></ul>
                <div class="info"></div>
            </div>
            <div class="card-footer">
                <div class="input-group">
                    <input type="text" class="form-control" id="message" placeholder="Send new message" >
                    <div class="input-group-append">
                        <button class="btn btn-success" type="button" id="messageBtn">Send</button>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/2.0.4/socket.io.js"></script>
    <script src="/js/chatroom.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Note how we have included the script of the client-side socket.io library and the custom javascript file we are going to use in this code.

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/socket.io/2.0.4/socket.io.js"></script>
<script src="/js/chatroom.js"></script>

We have added a button with ID messageBtn to send a new message and button with ID usernameBtn to submit new username. All user messages will appear in the unordered list with ID message-list. If a user is typing a message, it will appear inside the div with class info. Now the buttons are static. Let’s connect the front-end to the server.  Create a new Javascript file named chatroom.js inside the js folder of the public directory. Inside Javascript file, we have to connect the socket from front-end.

(function connect(){
    let socket = io.connect('http://localhost:3000')
})()

Step 3: Send Message-

Now we implement the send message feature. First, we will set up the front-end to emit a new_message event when a new message is submitted. Since the client-side should also be configured to get new messages other users send from the server, the application should also listen to receive_message events on the front-end and show the new message on the web page properly.

We can get done both these tasks using the following code-

let message = document.querySelector('#message')
let messageBtn = document.querySelector('#messageBtn')
let messageList = document.querySelector('#message-list')
messageBtn.addEventListener('click', e => {
    console.log(message.value)
    socket.emit('new_message', {message: message.value})
    message.value = ''
})
socket.on('receive_message', data => {
    console.log(data)
    let listItem = document.createElement('li')
    listItem.textContent = data.username + ': ' + data.message
    listItem.classList.add('list-group-item')
    messageList.appendChild(listItem)
})

Each time the receive_message event occurs on the client side, we change our DOM to deliver the message into the screen. On the back-end side, when you receive a new_message event, you have to emit a new event to all clients. For this, use io.sockets.emit().

Change connection event in app.js file as follows:

io.on('connection', socket => {
    console.log("New user connected")
    socket.username = "Anonymous"
    socket.on('change_username', data => {
        socket.username = data.username
    })
    //handle the new message event
    socket.on('new_message', data => {
        console.log("new message")
        io.sockets.emit('receive_message', {message: data.message, username: socket.username})
    })
})

At the time of handling new_message event, server emits a receive_message event to connected users.  This event is received received by all users connected to the server, so that new messages are displayed on their chatroom interfaces.

Step 4: I’m typing-

For this, we add new event listener to the message input box to emit typing event when a keypress occurs. As keypress occurs on the message input box, it indicates user is typing a message, the typing event tells server that user is typing a message. The client side also listens to typing events emitted by the server to know whether another user is typing a message and show it on the UI.

Inside the connect function in chatroom.js, we add the following code.

let info = document.querySelector('.info')
message.addEventListener('keypress', e => {
    socket.emit('typing')
})
 
socket.on('typing', data => {
    info.textContent = data.username + " is typing..."
    setTimeout(() => {info.textContent=''}, 5000)
})

How Mobile Apps Drives Digital Transformation Of Your Business?

Since 2 months, due to covid-19 pandemic, we have experienced a lot of transformation in our day to day life. Businesses are facing a lot of issues to operate in than those that were operational a few decades prior. Also the market was not competitive as it is now and hence business owners need to go with digital transformation. Business’s digital transformation could be in any way. It can be with the use of mobile apps and its capabilities. Before we start the discussion about the role of mobile apps in digital transformation, let us see What digital transformation means?

What Is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a process of using digital technologies to transform existing or creating new business processes, customer experience and culture to meet changing market and  market needs. This changing nature of business in the digital age is digital transformation. It starts and ends with how you and your business interacts with customers. As you moved from paper to spreadsheets to smart applications is a kind of digital transformation that you are going through. Mobile applications came up with a solution to effectively engage your customers.

Tips To Consider While Implementing Digital Transformation-

1. Define Your Goals And Objectives-

The methods that are beneficial to your competitors doesn’t mean that they are beneficial for you too. So before proceeding further, it is necessary to define the goals and will solve the particular problem. Defining goals will help you to transform digitally by considering the requirements.

Without specified goals you’ll end up with the technologies that are complicated to not only implement but also to access for organization. So get the answers of- Why you are going with digital transformation? And What kind of problems do you want to solve?

2. Define Digital Marketing Strategy-

It is not sufficient to set rough goals and objectives to implement a great digital transformation to your business. You need to analyse thoroughly and accordingly set the targets in detail, so that you can know what needs to be done. You should specify the way through which employees can easily access information, engage and collaborate with each other. Knowing all these details will help you to decide the framework for digital transformation.

3. Assess And Select Technologies-

Once you’re done with digital transformation strategy, it is time to select technologies that you want to use. Also keep in mind that, however every company will need a mobile app, the functionalities you integrate into the application vary according to the type of business and customer requirements.  

Building a successful strategy for digital transformation of business will be a challenge because it impacts on your company structure and strategic positioning. 

ROI For Business-

Small Scale Businesses-

The ROI of digital transformation for startups could be higher because they focus more on improving customer experience and less on operations and management. Building lifetime customers for every new business is important for every new business and can be achieved with the improved UI/UX of mobile apps. Digital transformation can bring these requirements with much lesser than the lifetime value. So high ROI can be expected for small businesses or startups.

Medium Scale Business-

For medium scale businesses, digital transformation strategy can be complicated, because you want the best to satisfy employees and customers requirements. Mobile apps are the most vital solution for medium scale businesses. The ROI for digitalization of medium scale businesses can be high but more important is the value added to the business. Both customer and employees get advantage of digital transformation for better results and can help you to keep updated with the modern activities. Considering all these factors, you should plan accordingly but we suggest focus more on customer’s needs 

Large Scale Businesses-

Implementing digital transformation strategy needs more efforts and in some cases are not effective when you consider it within a short time span. But it is the time until your number of users and employees reaches to thousands. Each advantage of using mobile apps in your digital transformation strategy is the same but the cost may vary according to the strategy and requirements.

For better implementation you need a dedicated app development company to help you  through development and consultation.

Mobile Apps For Digital Transformation-

Mobile Apps For Digital Transformation

There are many components that can make an excellent digital transformation strategy but Mobile app is one of the most important one. The rise of mobile devices and the internet changed the face of many industries. There are 5 important ways in which mobile applications help advance digital transformation for businesses

• Better customer experience
• Reach improvement
• Easier engagement
• Workforce management
• Enterprise mobility

Let us see each one in detail-

1. Better Customer Experience-

A business with a mobile app can effectively drive sales and increase profits by delivering an enhanced user experience. Mobile app development trends are changing and focusing to improve user’s experience with easing the business processes.

2. Reach Improvement-

It is not necessary to go through a website for what you want. These days, you can get anything with just a single click, and is possible due to the large number of mobile apps available at the app store. Nearly 141 billion more apps were downloaded in 2020. This kind of reach for businesses is possible with just a use of mobile apps. With the use of mobile apps, one  can target relevant audience groups and gain much higher ROI in a shorter time span.  

3. Easier Engagement-

Mobile applications are fruitful to increase engagement especially. You can target the audience as per your product type by focusing on the age group and interest for better engagement. You can also embed appealing functionalities within the app interface such as instructions and tutorials.

One of the best examples of engagement is Poshmark app that provides users an opportunity to buy and sell clothes, shoes, accessories etc. Because of limitations of app store, developers cannot create push notifications for coupons, deals and promotions. Poshmark has discovered a cunning solution- encouraging quotes and inspirational sayings. Each notification reminds the user about the brand. Using GPS technology, apps can target the audience in specific geographic areas. 

Beacon technology is another one that works with mobile apps and GPS for higher reach and engagement. With these opportunities, you can know the use of mobile app to engage new and existing customers.

4. Workforce Management-

Mobile apps came with a lot of ease to manage the workforce. It can help the management team to track the performance and attendance of employees. It not only saves time but also brings accuracy to the management irrespective of organization’s size. 

5. Enterprise Mobility-

We have seen, how customers benefit from mobile apps, but what about organizations? What kind of advantages mobility brings to companies? Here are statistics –

• Organizations that invest in enterprise mobile apps experience 35% of business ROI. 
• Till 2022, the enterprise mobility market will reach $2.2 billion
• 67% of CIOs and IT professionals states that enterprise mobility has a great impact on their business.

Enterprise apps allow employees to complete tasks and monitor business processes remotely from mobile devices. Such apps introduces remote working options and flexible schedules. Also users can access and share content at any time, any where and hence employees can get real time updates. Apps can track the status of tasks completed by team. Also with custom mobile apps, enterprises can access a dashboard that controls systems, users and approvals. 

Final Words-

Here you have seen the importance of mobile apps in digital transformation and varying ROI for different scale businesses. The cost of app implementation for various businesses may vary according to the type of business. If you are looking for a best app development company that help you for digital transformation of business, then you are at the right place. Experts at Solace are well  proficient to help you through development. You can hire android or ios developers of solace team to develop a winning app for your business. Connect with solace and get a free quote for app development. We will be happy to help you.

Most common mistakes to avoid when creating a react native app

Applications have taken over our lives. According to Statista, more than 204 billion applications have been downloaded in 2019. It means the application industry is thriving, and many states that it will keep growing later on also!

As an ever increasing number of individuals use smartphones and thus applications, the industry has become a quiet advantageous opportunity for new entrepreneurs. Many wish to become wildly successful in the sector by developing the best application out of the lot.

But, application development is easier said than done!

The primary choice you should make as a developer is which programming tool to use to create a smooth and glitch free application. One alternative you should think about is to use React Native.

Why React Native?

React Native is a mobile application development framework that is developed by Facebook. It is an open-source platform that was launched in 2015.

Compared with all different cross-platform application development frameworks, React Native has proven to be the most preferred by many developers. This is because it allows developers to create an excellent quality application for the iOS and Android simultaneously!

Here are some basic advantages related with React Native:

• It uses JavaScript which almost every developer knows inside and out
• The React Native Framework has a very straightforward installation process
• The live reload feature of the platform allows for a rapid application development
• It is a cross-platform, in this way allowing developers to create solutions that can be adapted to Android, iOS, VR devices, smart TVs, and so on.

Also know- How you can create PWA with React Native?

Mistakes to Avoid When Developing React Native App-

Here are the most well-known mistakes that an application developer can make when developing an application using React Native.

1. Wrong estimation- 

Layout for iOS and Android version – there will be various reusable components, however there could also be various layouts. Actually, the insignificant structure of an application page can be totally different on iOS and Android.

Forms – you should estimate the validation layout too. At the point when you create an application in React Native, you should write more codes compared to when you create a Hybrid application on suppose Cordova.

If creating Web application – You should check all the various endpoints which are offered by the backend. Also, because you should deal with the logic in the application, it should all be coded accurately. You should understand the database structure, how the entities are connected, and so on.

2. Wrong redux store planning-

Read more at- 

http://b.link/react61-src_blogger