The speed with which mobile technology is evolving is beyond remarkable. So much, that you may in fact, be viewing this post on your mobile. Gone are the days when you would have a mobile phone solely for the purpose of connecting with your friends & family. Now, you can connect with 300 million+ users on Facebook, listen to the latest music from Last.fm, view videos on YouTube etc. all using your ‘handheld’ device. The list of can-do’s is endless. What goes on behind the scenes is the collaboration of developer minds, striving to stretch technology, constantly redefining benchmarks to create services & applications that make life a whole lot easier.

While the success of social networking is undeniable, lifestyle & Location Based Services (LBS) have helped users to simplify their needs & achieve them; locally & globally. However, the process of satisfying user needs in a constantly changing environment requires a thoughtful understanding & analysis of the changing trends which has been successfully catered to. There is no doubt that there exists a challenge of providing quality applications to a variable audience with innumerable preferences. We have accepted this challenge, acknowledged the pros & cons & delved into bringing out the best solutions.

The iPhone is known to deliver ‘eye candy’ experience with its UI, having the user to touch & pinch to use applications. Having said that, many applications fail to utilize the potential of the iPhone, unable to handle development challenges. Given below is a little insight into some of these challenges.

Developer’s Eye View:

• The iPhone runs only one foreground application at a time, so launching any other application requires terminating the currently running app.
• Responding to interruptions like incoming calls, messages etc. is important because if the user decides to take a call or reply to an SMS message, the system proceeds to terminate the application.
• Low-memory warnings are critical. If not enough memory is released – perhaps because the application is leaking or still consuming too much memory – the system may terminate the application.
• Being a touch driven device, the controls of the application need to be placed with some thought.
• The iPhone screen is precious as it is the component with which users interact. An application with a crowded screen may deviate the user’s attention much like in a real life market place.
• An applications UI view differs when the iPhone is held in portrait or landscape mode. Tap’s drags, and swipes are simple gestures, typically involving only a single touch. Handling a touch event consisting of two or more touches is a more complicated affair. In addition, the iPhone generates motion events when users move the device in a certain way, such as shaking it. It is necessary to prevent the application from responding in an unexpected (and unwanted) manner in response to such events

Now let’s take a look at how one can avoid getting into the possible sticky situations given above:

• It is imperative that an application should terminate as usual, saving any needed contextual information to return the user to the same place (if required) in the application upon next launch (or re-launch).
• Adhering to Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines saves a lot of confusion & gives well designed interfaces.
• Handling events, implementing event cancellation etc. correctly, prevents the app from being left in an inconsistent state.

These & many more underlying intricacies can very well determine the chances of an app being realized. Adapting to this one button device, we have delivered attractive, feature rich applications that meet App Store standards & have satisfied users looking to be part of changing lifestyle trends.

-Anup D’souza

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