Why Co-Founders Should Learn Basic Coding Skills
If you ever take a look at Hacker News comment threads or the Reddit startup community, you’ll notice a consistent trend: non-technical founders desperately seeking technical co-founders. This trend holds true in real-life mobile app development circles around Silicon Valley (and Silicon Beach for that matter). The difficulty with finding a technical co-founder isn’t entirely […]
Founder Problems: Mobile Advertising Is Fundamentally Broken
Have you surfed the web on your iPhone or Android without an ad blocker lately? I certainly hope not — it’s a dark, cluttered place. For those not using ad blockers, driving down the Internet superhighway feels more like hitchhiking on a shady dirt road. iPhone app developers haven’t had to deal with this problem […]
Startup Blockai Tackles a Big Problem: Copyright Control
If you’re a photographer, artist, or writer, there’s only one way to stop people from ripping off your copyrighted material online: don’t share it with anyone… ever. This is a big problem for startup founders and iPhone app developers, because content is one of the most expensive — and hard to replicate — parts of […]
Alleged NSA Leak Raises Alarms over Digital Security
While users often think of their phones and laptops as digital safe deposit boxes, the truth is that data is frequently more vulnerable than we’d like to think. In the wake of security contractor Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, a group of hackers claims to have obtained even more critical NSA data this past week, and […]
How to Make an App Your Users (and the App Store) Will Love
Submitting apps to the Apple App Store is the scariest part of mobile app development. Apple is notoriously selective about the apps they allow into the iTunes ecosystem, meaning that only carefully-vetted iPhone and iPad app developers ever see their products reach end users. When it’s all said and done, around 30% of apps are […]
Social Networking App Developers: Go Niche, or Go Home
Instagram for photos. Snapchat for goofing off. Facebook for letting Mom know you’re still alive. Social network startups have changed a lot since the days of MySpace, and the trend for app developers is clear: niche services win out over all-purpose networks. The “social network-ization” of popular music video sharing apps like Thriller and Music.ly […]
New Film Explores the Cultural Effects of Mobile Technology
Mobile is entering adulthood. More than 60% of US adults own smartphones, and virtually everyone connects to the Internet daily. iPhone app developers launch around 1,000 apps every day. Everyone from grandmothers to children use smartphones to communicate and network. So, it’s a fitting time for a film by renowned documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog to […]
App Developer Input Could Make MedTech Mainstream by 2019
It’s been a big year for MedTech, and mobile app developers building medical products are partly responsible. The healthcare industry has been one of the slowest to adapt to our digital times, but ACT The App Association and other developer groups are confident that the pressure put on legislators to update medical systems will soon […]
How to Monetize Mobile Gaming Apps Without Churning Users
Remember Angry Birds? Then you probably also remember the annoying, repetitive ads for the ill-fated Windows Phone. Angry Birds was easily one of the biggest mobile app development stories ever, but the story might be different if they’d launched today instead. Today’s users are much more averse to blatant advertising — particularly among gamers, some […]
Facebook Algorithm Change Is Opportunity for Digital Brands
Facebook recently made another major update to their News Feed algorithm, penalizing news sources responsible for headlines like “You’ll Never Look At Your Friends The Same… Once You’ve Searched This Site!” For many brands on Facebook, updates to the algorithm spell disaster. Impressions on existing page fans are at an all-time low, and Facebook is […]