Facebook Messenger Opens Native Payments to Bot Developers

There’s been a lot of chatter about the “bot revolution” the past few months, but the spread of bot app usage among mainstream mobile app users has been slow at best. Part of the reason behind that, at least on go-to messaging platform Messenger, is the limitation on payments. Specifically, in order to make a […]

Google Analytics Come to Cards for Mobile App Developers

Google’s Analytics suite has been growing steadily larger on the back end, adding new features and functions to help websites and app developers understand their products better. The biggest problem, though, has been information overload. When you can know everything about what visitors to your site are doing, how can you decide what information is […]

What the Last.Fm Security Breach Says about Mobile Privacy

“We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user passwords. This follows recent password leaks on other sites, as well as information posted online. As a precautionary measure, we’re asking all our users to change their passwords immediately.” This statement was released way back in 2012, but it’s just this week that the full […]

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 […]

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 […]

Baidu Betting Big on Augmented Reality as Mainstream Feature

Baidu has announced that they’ll soon be launching DuSee, an augmented reality platform, to join their fleet of mobile services. While Baidu’s image recognition software is known for being somewhat rough around the edges and early previews of DuSee have some rough edges of their own, the fact that a major Chinese company is launching […]

Outsourcing App Development: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

“Go ahead and outsource.” People are always surprised when we tell them this. We get dozens of questions about offshoring every week, and the people asking always expect us to steer them away from it. After all, we’re an LA-based app development company — why would we encourage someone not to work with us? The […]

Strong Tech Q2 and Successful IPOs Prove Mobile Can Grow

Alphabet just released their Q2 earnings report, lifting shares 5%. GrubHub stock jumped an even more impressive 26% based on a record-breaking $120 million revenue claim. Amazon posted over $30 billion. Clearly, the environment for tech is good and getting better — contrary to worry among tech media in the past year that declining ad […]

Should Startup Founders Split Equity Equally?

Equity feels imaginary for some early stage startups. Far from splitting up potential shares, the prospect of turning a profit is daunting enough. Many founders opt to avoid conflict and simply split equity evenly, allowing them to commit 100% of their talent to the project without feeling cheated or left out. The question for iPhone […]

Internet of Things Will Bring UX Principles to Public

Self-driving cars. Wearable MedTech devices. IoT appliances that communicate and react to users. UX design isn’t just applicable to mobile app development anymore — increasingly, as mobile app developers tackle “real-world” applications and physical interactions, UX design will grow to encompass civic design and urban planning. Are app developers ready? When it enters the public […]