Most Effective Tactics To Design Amazing iOS Apps

Designing an amazing iOS app requires more than just functionality and practicality. The user interface, user experience, and overall design play a crucial role in making an app successful and engaging.

This is the era of mobile devices. And in order to build your own intuitive iOS apps, you should know the below basics.

Are you into design an app for iOS platform? Need some inspiration? If yes then here we have prepared some tactics that you should follow while developing your iOS application. However, Apple is Little flexible in comparison to other platforms such as Android.

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Design Principle

  • Simplicity:

Throughout the app, text must be readable, icons should be precise, colors, fonts, and graphics must be soft on eyes. The important contents must be highlighted as applicable to boost interactivity.

  • Accessibility:

It works for users with disabilities, providing alternative text labels for images, icons; including closed captions and audio descriptions.

  • Authentication:

If your app requires authentication, you need to keep the sign-in process quick and easy. Make the apps user friendly and minimize data entry by showing appropriate keyboards.

  • Color to demonstrate interaction:

With the HIG recommendation, you can use tint colours to get the elements that creates interactivity. Tint colours are the ones that are saturated with white and give a lighter appearance.

By adding this feature in your iOS application development, the user will get much easier time distinguishing static elements from interactive elements.

  • Data Entry:

It’s always better to use a picker or drop down menu over a text field, as it’s easier to choose from a list of predefined options.

Also, it’s frustrating to go back and correct mistakes after filling out a lengthy form, validating the values immediately is better. Using placeholders for every field isn’t a bad idea either.

  • Feedback:

Customer feedback provide valuable insights on how you can improve your app in terms of UI/UX, functionalities etc.

  • Requesting Permission:

Just be extra careful to request any personal data only when you clearly need it.

Amazing iOS Apps Design

Visual Design

  • Animation: Use animation and motion effects judiciously. Excessive or want on animation can make visitors feel disconnected.
  • Color: Use complementary colors throughout your app. Avoid using the same color for body and call-to-action (CTA) areas.
  • Layout: Primary contents should always be clear and visible. Also ensure that your app is compatible with portrait and landscape orientations.

Graphics

  • App Icon:

The App icon is the true identity of your app. It has to be beautiful and expressive; period.

  • Images:

iOS uses coordinate system based on measurements in points, which map to the pixels in display.

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As a result, high-resolution displays require images with more pixels.

Once a user is in your app, are a couple of taps good enough to perform anything? If not, it’s time to redesign.
                                                                                  Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO

Wrapping Up…

Designing a successful iOS app requires a combination of user-centered design principles, platform-specific guidelines, and creative ideas that captivate users.

The most effective tactics in designing amazing iOS apps start with understanding your target audience and their needs, conducting thorough research, creating wireframes and prototypes, testing and iterating your designs, and staying up-to-date with the latest design trends and technologies.

Additionally, adopting a user-centric approach throughout the design process can help ensure that your app is easy to navigate, visually appealing, and delivers on user expectations.

Want to know more about designing an app? Talk to our iOS app experts now!

How To Optimize IOS App Performance Using GZIP

Gzip is a popular method of compressing files for faster network transfers. But not many are aware that it can be implemented on iOS apps too. Here’s how it works and how to optimize iOS app performance using GZIP.

Supported OS & SDK Versions

  • Supported build target – iOS 8.4/MacOS 10.10 (Xcode 6.4, Apple LLVM compiler 6.1)
  • Earliest supported deployment target – iOS 7.0/MacOS 10.9
  • Earliest compatible deployment target – iOS 4.3/MacOS 10.6

ARC Compatibility

The GZIP category will work correctly in either ARC or non-ARC projects without modification.

Thread Safety

All the GZIP methods are thread safe. Hence, it’s easy to say that these methods can be called from multiple threads concurrently.

Installation

It’s pretty easy. Just drag the category files (test files & assets not needed) into your project & import the header file into any class where you wish to use the GZIP functionality. No need to include the libz.dylib, as GZIP locates it automatically at runtime.

NSData Extensions

[code language=”html”]
– (NSData *)gzippedDataWithCompressionLevel:(float)level;
[/code]

In this method, the compression level is a floating point value between 0.0 & 1.0. In case a negative value is supplied, the default compression level is around 0.7.

[code language=”html”]
– (NSData *)gzippedData;
[/code]

This is equivalent to calling gzippedDataWithCompressionLevel, with the default compression level.

[code language=”html”]
– (NSData *)gunzippedData;
[/code]

It unzips the compressed data using deflate algorithm & returns the output.

[code language=”html”]
– (BOOL)isGzippedData;
[/code]

This method returns ‘Yes’ if the data is gzip-encoded.

Biggest Advantage:

Quick upload/download of data from server to client & vice versa.

Have you used GZIP Compression before? Did I leave anything out? Share your experiences/feedback/suggestions below.

Top 11 Key Advancements iOS 10

Apple just unveiled iOS 10, the latest version of its iPhone and iPad Operating System set to be released this fall; At its Annual WWDC ’16.

Here are some of the highly awaited features of the OS, which Apple calls ‘The Biggest iOS Release Ever‘.

Raise To Wake

As the name suggests, it wakes up the phone’s lock screen when you lift it; To give you an overview of all the Notifications & Updates.

Widgets For Apps

With Widgets, Apps will get a lot more useful without you having to actually open those in iOS 10.

Siri For Developers

Now you’ll be able to ask things like “send a Whatsapp to Nancy saying I’ll be five minutes late.” All the popular Communication, Travel, Taxi-hailing & VoIP Apps are already on board.

Intelligent Suggestions

Siri now has more contextual awareness. It makes suggestions based on your current location, calendar availability, contact information, recent addresses and more.

New Photos Experience

Based on Deep Learning, the Photos app now adds New Object & Scene Detection for powerful search and sorting on your device. All the AI is local to the device, Apple is keen to stress.

New Maps

Maps is getting an All-new design in iOS. It’s now a lot more proactive like Siri and Photos. The UI is cleaner and includes traffic information too.

Apple Music

Music is getting in on the refresh fun with a redesign from the ground up. It comes with a simpler interface & lyrics as well.

News

The all-new News interface design has some visual affinities with the new Music, showing that Apple is working on a cohesive look across its new apps, with bold, all-caps sans serif titles.

Apple Home

It’s the first major all-new app of this year. It builds on Apple’s HomeKit infrastructure to let you manage & control all your connected and compatible accessories around the home.

Phone App

In iOS 10, it will have voicemail transcriptions so that you can see what messages have been received without having to listen to them.

Messages

Brand new features like rich links, allowing things like videos to play right in line inside the message, three times bigger Emojis & “emojifiable” words are coming with iOS10 this fall.

Source: The Verge, iMore, Apple WWDC Live Webcast

Over To You, Now!

Apple always amazes us every time they come up with something. I know you can’t wait to get your hands on the latest iOS this fall so do I. Share your thoughts if I’ve missed something.

Are you not excited for this one?

How To Get Your IOS App On The App Store

Every iOS application developed for public use must be approved by Apple, before it’s released on the App Store. The process is pretty straightforward, with just a form to be filled up. However, finalizing the launch date has its challenges when you are not sure how long Apple would take to give the green light.

There are three things you must be aware of: the guidelines, available resources and your options.

Reviewing the application guidelines for App Store ahead of time can save you major headaches if your app is rejected due to unnecessary code or incorrect use of the ad framework. Even then, it doesn’t always guarantee acceptance, so be ready to respond quickly to any issues that may arise after the submission process starts.

Make sure you pay attention to the unofficial app review time. New apps take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks for approval. However, updates tend to take longer than the existing versions.

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Expediting the process is an option. However, use this only when necessary. A justifiable expedition request falls into one of the two categories: an urgent bug fix (when a third-party API changes causing your app to crash on launch) or any time-sensitive event. Remember that these requests are taken only at Apple’s discretion.

Apple reviews each & every app against these ever-changing guidelines before approving it for inclusion on the App Store.

Make sure after your app is approved, you need to release it manually to appear on the App Store. Most of the time, this is done to ensure both the Android and iOS versions are available on the same day.

Ref – Willowtree

Conclusion: Converting a great Idea to an awesome iOS App is by no means a tough job. But that’s not all! Deploying it successfully to the App Store is not behind.

With a skilled pool of experienced and innovative folks, we at Andolasoft design, develop and deploy disruptive mobile apps.
300+ apps and counting… We follow agile methodology and help customers with cutting edge solutions to monetize their ideas & improve the return on investment (ROI). If you’re thinking of having an iOS App for your own, we would love to get in touch.

Apple IOS 9.3 Released: Improve Your Experience

Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 9.3, which introduced several new functionalities for built-in apps and for health, news and education users.

The system updates are now available to developers, you can download the beta from the iOS Dev Centre.

Let’s Check Out Some Of The Key New Features In Store:

1. Improved Privacy For Notes

 

notes

 

 

Now you can secure the notes that contain your most personal data with a password or fingerprint. You can also sort notes by date created, date modified, or alphabetically.

 

 

 

 

2. Night Shift

A new ‘Night Shift’ mode will automatically adjust the colors on iPhone and iPad screens when night falls, becoming warmer and less eye-straining so that Apple users won’t be disturbed by interruptions to their sleep caused by harsh blue screen light.

3. Smart Education Upgrades

Education is at the heart of iOS 9.3. In fact so much so Apple has released a dedicated education section on its website just to preview all the changes the update will bring.

Highlights include iPad multi-user support (called ‘Shared iPad’) which enables students to log onto any iPad and get full access to their apps, books, documents and places them exactly where they left off.

‘Photo ID’ will show the student’s picture once they’ve logged in to avoid iPads getting mixed up during the class.

Young students get a more basic version accessed with a simple four digit PIN.

Also breaking new ground is the ‘Classroom’ app which allows a teacher to control all the iPads of the students in their class (for example to open a particular app) and even jump to individual student’s iPads to monitor work (‘Screen View’).

Meanwhile ‘Apple School Manager’ is a hub for teachers to compile courses, purchase class books and apps, track individual iPads and more.

education

4. Improved 3D Touch

iOS 9.3 will come with advanced 3D Touch capabilities, meaning there are advancements to the way users can interact with their Apple device using pressure commands.

These include new ‘Quick Shortcuts’ for the App store, Compass, Health, iTunes Store and Weather.

5. CarPlay

With iOS 9.3, gets enhanced Apple Music support with support for ‘New’ and ‘For You’ music suggestion features.

And the Nearby feature in Maps lets you find gas, parking, restaurants, coffee, and more with a tap.

So you’ll know the best places to stop, whether you’re on your daily commute or an epic road trip. CarPlay is a smarter, safer way to use your iPhone in the car.

car

6. Health

health

 

 

iOS 9.3 will include third-party app recommendations in the Health app, where users will also be able to see move, exercise, stand, and goal data from a paired Apple Watch.

In the individual category pages, Health will highlight apps for tracking specific metrics – such as weight or steps – linking to the app’s product page on the App Store.

 

 

 

 

7. News

Landscape mode has been added on the iPhone along with greater customization options.

News

Our iOS expert at Andolasoft follow agile methodology to deliver cutting edge solutions for your business that standout in the market. Check out our iOS Mobile Applications and Services.

From E-commerce to native mobile apps, we have done it all. Post your needs and comments at or just say hello at info@andolasoft.com.

Check out the Apple info-pages to know more: http://goo.gl/gR4flB, http://goo.gl/lrCOEO, https://goo.gl/eSZtmV

How To Monetize IOS App Through Apple In-App Purchase Integration

What Is In App Purchase?

Apple’s In-App purchase lets you the ability to sell items within your free or paid app which includes premium content, virtual goods, upgrade features and subscriptions. Apple takes 30% of the commission and you receive 70% of the purchase price.

Each purchase is associated with a product type. The product types are:

  • Apple-In-App-Purchase-208x300

    Consumable Products:

Consumables are In-App Purchases that must be purchased each time the user needs that item.

  • Non-Consumable Products:

Non-Consumables are In-App Purchases that only need to be purchased once by the user and are available to all devices registered to a user.

  • Auto-Renewable Subscriptions:

Auto-Renewable Subscriptions allow the user to purchase episodic content or access to dynamic digital content for a set duration time. At the end of each duration, the subscription will renew itself, until a user opts out.

  • Non-Renewable Subscriptions:

Non-Renewing Subscription allow the sale of services with a limited duration. Non-Renewing Subscriptions must be used for In-App Purchases that offer time-based access to static content.

  • Free Subscriptions:

Free Subscriptions are an extension of Auto-Renewable Subscriptions that permit the delivery of free subscription content to Newsstand-enabled applications.

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The Free Subscription In-App Purchase type is implemented in the same way as an Auto-Renewable Subscription, just without any charges to the user. Free Subscriptions do not have expiration, but the user can turn off the subscription at any time.

You can use any one of the above as best suit to your application.

For example, integrating InApp purchase for Non-consumable type product.

In Non-consumable products type, user has to pay only once. Then the content or items will be available to all the device against that user’s apple ID.

What To Do Before Integrating In App Purchase To Your Application?

  1. Connect to iTunes
  2. Then create an unique App ID for your application and enable in-app purchases for that.
  3. Update the app with created bundle ID and code signing in Xcode with corresponding provisioning profile.
  4. Create the app using the AppID you’ve registered. Then goto Manage Applications in iTunes Connect.
  5. Make sure you have set up the bank details for your app as it is necessary for supporting In-App purchase.
  6. Then Add a new non-consumable product for In-App purchase.
  7. Last step is to create a test user account using Manage Users option in iTunes connect page of your app.

Lets write the code

First include StoreKit Framework into the app.Then write the following code in ViewController.h file

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>
#import <StoreKit/StoreKit.h>
 
@interface MyViewController : UIViewController
<SKProductsRequestDelegate,SKPaymentTransactionObserver>
 
{
 
}
-(IBAction)PurchaseButtonClicked:(id)sender;
 
- (void) completeTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction;
- (void) restoreTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction;
- (void) failedTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction;
 
@end 
Write the following code in ViewController.m file
-(IBAction)PurchaseButtonClicked:(id)sender {
    SKProductsRequest *request= [[SKProductsRequest alloc]
initWithProductIdentifiers: [NSSet setWithObject: @"your_product_ID"]];
    request.delegate = self;
    [request start];
}
- (void)productsRequest:(SKProductsRequest *)request didReceiveResponse:(SKProductsResponse *)response
{
   [[SKPaymentQueue defaultQueue] addTransactionObserver:self];
 
   NSArray *myProduct = response.products;
   NSLog(@"%@",[[myProduct objectAtIndex:0] productIdentifier]);
 
   //Since only one product, we do not need to choose from the array. Proceed directly to payment.
 
   SKPayment *newPayment = [SKPayment paymentWithProduct:[myProduct objectAtIndex:0]];
   [[SKPaymentQueue defaultQueue] addPayment:newPayment];
 
   [request autorelease];
}
 
- (void)paymentQueue:(SKPaymentQueue *)queue updatedTransactions:(NSArray *)transactions
{
 for (SKPaymentTransaction *transaction in transactions)
   {
      switch (transaction.transactionState)
      {
         case SKPaymentTransactionStatePurchased:
              [self completeTransaction:transaction];
              break;
         case SKPaymentTransactionStateFailed:
              [self failedTransaction:transaction];
              break;
         case SKPaymentTransactionStateRestored:
              [self restoreTransaction:transaction];
         default:
              break;
      }
    }
} 
 
- (void) completeTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction
{
    NSLog(@"Transaction Completed");
    // You can create a method to record the transaction.
    // [self recordTransaction: transaction];
    // You should make the update to your app based on what was purchased and inform user.
    // [self provideContent: transaction.payment.productIdentifier];
    // Finally, remove the transaction from the payment queue.
    [[SKPaymentQueue defaultQueue] finishTransaction: transaction];
}
 
- (void) restoreTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction
{
    NSLog(@"Transaction Restored");
    // You can create a method to record the transaction.
    // [self recordTransaction: transaction];
    // You should make the update to your app based on what was purchased and inform user.
    // [self provideContent: transaction.payment.productIdentifier];
    // Finally, remove the transaction from the payment queue.
    [[SKPaymentQueue defaultQueue] finishTransaction: transaction];
}
 
- (void) failedTransaction: (SKPaymentTransaction *)transaction
{
    [activityIndicator stopAnimating];
    if (transaction.error.code != SKErrorPaymentCancelled)
    {
      // Display an error here.
      UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"Purchase Unsuccessful"
      message:@"Your purchase failed. Please try again."
      delegate:self
      cancelButtonTitle:@"OK"
      otherButtonTitles:nil];
      [alert show];
      [alert release];
     }
 
    // Finally, remove the transaction from the payment queue.
    [[SKPaymentQueue defaultQueue] finishTransaction: transaction];
}

That’s it, now your app is integrated with the inApp purchase with non-consumable subscription.

Note: Please review Apple Guidelines (https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html) before publishing the app to the app store.

Andolasoft has expertise in iOS application development and other iOS integration.

See Also: E-Signature SDK for iOS App Developer

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