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Archive for the ‘Mobile Apps’ Category

Whether you’re a marathon runner, a cyclist or simply enjoy long walks, there’s something new on the market that covers all levels of exercise.  The Trimble AllSport GPS Mobile App has just what you’re looking!  This just released app has integrated more than 20 statistics for the fitness enthusiast.  Not only does it allow you to plan ahead by giving you real time weather reports, but you can also search and view maps and parks using the Pro app.  This app makes it easy for the user to create a customized training program that provides data on the calories burned at any given time.  These are the types of amenities you would expect to see on a dedicated piece of GPS sport equipment.

According to Rich Rudow, General Manager for Trimble Outdoors, “When Trimble set out to create the next generation of our Android app, we first paired active athletes with our Trimble Outdoors Android engineers.

Together, they collaborated on design and features. Next, we invited hundreds of people to test-drive the app in a closed beta for three months. The result is an AllSport GPS that’s fine-tuned to the specific needs of outdoor fitness fans and the fastest growing smartphone market in the U.S.”

In other words, before its launch, this app was seriously road tested by a mixture of athletes representing various types and styles of exercise regiments.  For more than three months, researchers had 350 users putting the app through its paces.  Over the three month period, the researchers recorded 1,800 activities of all types.  More than 17,000 miles had been clocked and approximately 9 million calories were burned in all.  Listed below are some of the features included with this app.

• Keep track of weekly workout out data.  Compare and chart your progress directly on the phone, or go to allsportgps.com.

• Chart your workouts on maps so you will always know your location and routes.  This is available to all users whether biking, running or walking.

• Monitor cardio statistics during your workout – including distance, calories, speed and time.

• Share your workout training progress with friends on Facebook by using your online account.

• The Allsport GPS Trimble Outdoors app is free to download
Both apps are available in the android market, so you can download them onto your iPhone, BlackBerry and other select feature phones offered by Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

The widespread adoption of smartphones has already revolutionized our everydy behavior and, in particular the way we communicate. We read on smartphones, play on smartphones, reserve our dinner or movie tickets on smartphones and, sometimes, we even use them to call people. In fact, it was recently reported that the use of smartphone applications is exceeding that of text messaging, voice calling and web browsing.

What does all this mean for customer care channels? Invoking a branded icon on the touch screen of a smartphone — which already knows who we are and can provide the best personalized solution to our service problems — is no doubt a more pleasant experience than interacting with an automated call menu or waiting for the next available representative. However, building a smartphone application that’s able to deliver a superior customer care experience is more complicated than just porting a mobile version of your FAQ.

Here are a few points that every company should consider when deciding to develop a mobile customer care solution.

Create a Platform-Agnostic App

One of the main issues with the development and maintenance of smartphone applications lies in the fragmentation of the device base. Fortunately, most, if not all, smartphones can be grouped according to the four most common mobile operating systems: iOS (iPhone), BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone 7. Even so, maintaining four versions of the same application can be prohibitively expensive for some brands.

In that case, you might want to consider using cross-platform mobile frameworks in the construction of your app. They’re not perfect, but they can be cost-effective. Additionally, advances in modern web standards like HTML5 and CSS3 mean that mobile web apps are functioning more and more like native mobile apps. If you can build a great mobile site, it would function well on most modern mobile devices.

Ensure the App Integrates Into the Overall Customer Care Strategy

In moving toward mobile customer care strategies, service providers have to consider that while the adoption of smartphone applications will continue to increase, the need for traditional care — agents, automated phone applications, the web — will still exist, even if at a reduced level. Thus the integration of smartphone self-service applications with traditional channels is essential.

For instance, as the result of a transaction on a smartphone, the application can decide to transfer the user to the right agent for the requested task or schedule a callback, while providing the target agent with information about the subscriber’s issue and interaction history. Or, if the user decides to access support on the desktop website, the interface there should be able to get the same historic information about the user as the smartphone app does.

In a nutshell, you need to make sure one hand of your customer care strategy knows what the other hand is doing to ensure a cohesive, effective system.

Develop Intelligent Notification Capability

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The “always available, always connected” property of smartphones is a uniquely new channel for pushing notifications in a non-intrusive and highly personalized manner. Targeted notification, such as information concerning a local outage, new features or promotions, will not only improve the customer experience but will be instrumental in avoiding further issues and calls to agents and will increase the loyalty of valuable customers. The notification feature can also be used for outbound survey campaigns and the solicitation of customer feedback.

Create Personalized Experiences

Leveraging the highly personalized smartphone environment is another powerful way to ensure great user experiences. With the precise identification of each device, and thus the subscriber who owns it, companies can now decide not only to present highly personalized information but also keep track of the history and usage patterns of each individual. This behavior can also be enriched by leveraging capabilities such as location services and near-field communication (NFC).

Take Advantage of New User Interface Capabilities

Finally, it is important to realize that smartphones offer the ability to reach customers in a variety of ways. They can interact with a mobile application either by touch, type or talk. Touch has always been critical, but the growing implementation of voice search (most notably by Google on the Android platform) has opened new frontiers for app developers. Free-form text and voice input, when complemented by powerful natural language processing systems, can provide superior search and help users bypass long and often counter-intuitive hierarchical menus.

While the adoption of smartphones continues to grow exponentially and the emergence of new and personalized customer care mobile applications comes into the mainstream, vendors need to make sure they design and build applications that are at least as smart as the phones that host them and leverage all properties and features of this new medium. If vendors keep this in mind, smartphones can truly become the next frontier for customer care.

Days are over when iPhone applications were ruling the highest market share for mobile applications and smartphone users. With the release of Android OS by Google, millions of people across the world have started opting for Android based mobile phones. The reason behind the popularity of Android OS is its open source in nature and hence to integrate it and develop third party application is comparatively easy and cheaper as of developing for iPhone OS. With growing trend of more and more people switching to Android based smart phones; there is a tremendous demand of Android app development in the market.

Reaching customers directly on their handset is the most effective way for marketing ones products and services. Android app development is widely adopted as a tool which is used to do direct application selling or promotions to the millions of worldwide Android users who download Android apps from Android market (an online market for Android apps owned by Google). Android developers can help in customized Android app development that can meet specific business requirement.

Nowadays there are various innovative Android apps are launched referring the needs of different business types like Business oriented applications, document readers, Android game apps, multimedia applications, Social networking applications, entertainment applications, Android OS competent websites, security applications, GPS tracking, travel applications, Utility apps, etc. Some well experienced Android app development companies have experienced Android developers who are proficient enough to migrate the application of other mobile OS to Android OS compatible application. Experienced Android developers have capability to create applications that can give high performance and meet your taste and preferences.

Android App Development is a smarter way to access worldwide audience. Android OS platform itself has versatile features and benefits that can be used for improving the business profitability. Below listed are some of the advantages of Android that can be best leveraged by experienced Android developers to develop an exception android app:

1) Android is an open source mobile operating system which is the most unique characteristics that makes Android app development highly cost effective.

2) Android developers can best utilize the Android SDK for building innovative and comprehensive application programming.

3) A vast library of 2D/3D graphics for traditional layout creation is available and can be used for creating compelling graphics.

4) Java programming language is used for Android app development. Hence a well experienced Java programmer can easily learn and work on Android apps.

5) The data storage is done in a structured way using the SQLite. An Android app is easy to install and run.

6) Android developers can do rapid application development is possible using same codes and hence the development time can be reduced.

7) Supports connectivity technologies including GSM/EDGE, CDMA, IDEN, EV-DO, UMTS,  Wi-Fi, LTE, Bluetooth, and WiMAX.

Android OS has additional hardware support for GSM based mobile, Wi-Fi, EDGE, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G, accelerometer, Camera and compass.

9) The Android OS has multitasking capabilities.

There is a team of self enthusiasts who keep developing and adding new firmware for Android OS and share it as an open source with Android developers. Such new amendments are very useful and advantages in quick Android app development.

As Cricket World Cup 2011 progresses, users will find it increasingly difficult to keep up with all that’s happening on the field. To stay in touch with the World Cup all the time, here are some useful apps that won’t make you feel like you’re far away from the stadium.

Cricbuzz Cricket Scores and News

This is among the best apps for Android users to remain in tune with what is happening in the World Cup. Match scores are updated on a real time basis so that users know what’s happening on the field almost instantly. Cricbuzz also provides ball by ball commentary, which is the next best thing to watching the match live. Furthermore, analysis and latest news from the cricketing world will give you a comprehensive experience of the cricketing extravaganza.

Xplore Cricket WC2011

Xplore Cricket WC2011 is an Android app for die-hard cricket fans who are traveling from one venue to another to watch matches. It provides details such as maps, directions, and restaurants around the match venue. Add to this the latest news and live scores, something that cricket bugs always crave.

Official ESPN Cricinfo app

ESPN Cricinfo app provides ball-by-ball commentary, updated news, as well as audio and video features, including push notification. However, some users are angry with this app because it works well on some handsets and not so well on others.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 App

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 App from Apple’s iTunes Store allows access to live scores, continuous commentary, exclusive videos, match photos and player statistics. Venue details and match schedules are also available on it, and since it comes from Apple’s iTunes store, the app is completely safe.

Tracking users is all the rage. A battle is being waged over our data, and there are several parties involved in this fight. We voluntarily offer our data to various companies, only to discover that they are using it in ways that we never anticipated.

Smartphones have become almost an extension of ourselves. They are as integral to our lives as clothing. I have mine clipped to my suit when I’m working, jeans when I’m shopping, and pajamas when I’m lounging. And then, of course, it’s on the nightstand when I’m sleeping. It’s even right outside the shower.

And then there are the applications. Most people spend more time navigating their apps than actually making or receiving calls.

The Wall Street Journal found that many app developers haven’t been upfront with their intentions:

“An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders. The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them.”

One developer of online ads and mobile apps declared, “We watch what apps you download, how frequently you use them, how much time you spend on them, how deep into the app you go.” The motivation here is money. The more they know about you, the more targeted ads they can deliver, and the more likely you are to buy.

So what to do? Privacy concerns are justified, but what can be done with this data, other than ad targeting? Not much. I don’t see any fraud or identity theft happening as a result of this. They aren’t going to try to sell you anything by cold calling you, and hopefully they’ll refrain from emailing sales pitches.

If you want to cleanse yourself of this type of tracking you can delete and avoid apps, or you could provide false information, but that could violate terms of service, and might even be a useless tactic.

The best you can do is try to understand what you are giving and what you are getting in return, and make conscious decisions as to whether the tradeoff is worth it to you.