1. Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Windows 7
2. Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Windows 10
3. Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Download

Richard Harris in iOS Thursday, October 18, 2018

Aug 04, 2017  In this presentation we will examine the pros and cons of the different types of mobile apps that you can build. We will look at web, native and hybrid mobile apps and compare things like. Develop rich native experiences for Android, macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS with first-class support for Xamarin. Your apps will look and feel native, because they are. Apps built using Xamarin leverage platform-specific hardware acceleration, and are compiled for native performance.

There are many differences between responsive apps, native apps, and eve web apps. Most of them start with the hardware layer and what's available for a developer to use when building an application. Follow this guide to dive deeper.

Even in 2018, years past the origional question, the debate rages on across the land, in office spaces and conference rooms every day - should we build a full-blown native mobile app, or is distributing over the web good enough?

By now everyone knows the “mobile-first” mentality because statistics like 50% of web searches being done from a mobile device, consumers spending more than 5 hours a day on their smartphones, and almost 60% of all Internet traffic being done from a mobile device are hard to ignore.

Sp picking a platform for your app isn’t really as hard as it sounds because unless you have a good reason not to, you should be using as many distribution channels as you can to help with traction.

We recently caught up with Abs Girdhar, CEO of Appy Pie to get his thoughts on the debate - along with some other tips on designing interfaces, and an outlook on mobile for the coming years.

ADM: What is the difference between a native mobile app design and responsive web design? Why do we need both?

Girdhar: A native app is designed to run on a specific mobile operating system. It won’t run on other mobile operating systems. The biggest advantages to native apps are that they can access all the functionality of the chosen device and are more likely to run smoothly.

A responsive website can deliver similar functionality to an app, and with a little creativity, the differences can be minimized. Responsive websites are developed using HTML 5 and JavaScript.
The decision to develop a mobile app, responsive website or both should be driven by compelling business needs not “because everyone else is doing it.”

Ask yourself:

• What do my mobile customers need to do that they can’t do on the regular website?
• What features of the mobile platform can I take advantage of that would improve the user experience?
• What’s my expected cost savings or return on investment with either approach?

Of course, to really ensure all bases are covered, you can do both responsive web and mobile app. As an example, consider the strategy of any large bank. Most bank websites enable users to check their balances, pay bills, and transfer funds on their regular websites. The same functionality is also offered on their mobile-friendly websites, which implement a completely different user experience. But these banks also offer mobile apps, which include not only all the website functionality but additional neat mobile-only features such as depositing a check by taking a photo of it.

ADM: What is the best way to improve user experience without completely changing the app interface?

Girdhar:

1. Focusing on “Usable Architecture”
2. Removing Unvalidated Features
3. Including a smooth Onboarding Experience
4. Offering Customer Support
5. Taking a Consultative Approach
6. Periodic Testing and Monitoring
7. Integrating Social Media
8. Using Customer Surveys

ADM: For users with little to no coding experience, what are some best practices to follow when designing an app?

Girdhar: Some of the best practices that users with little to no coding experience can follow to design their apps include:

1. Build Apps for Bigger Screens
2. Take Personalization Several Notches Up
3. Keep Your UI Simple
4. Make Your App Voice Enabled
5. Offer Multiple & Innovative Navigation Options Within the App
6. Let Your App Users Go Cashless
7. Give Way to Fresh Color Palettes
8. Make Smart Use Of Scalable Typography
9. Offer An Emotional Experience Through Your App
10. Offer an Augmented Reality App Experience
11. Brand Storytelling
12. Video Content Takes the Crown
13. Simplify the User Journey
14. Let Users Experience the Full-Screen Effect
15. Swiping Rules the Roost Among Gestures

ADM: Push notifications are quite popular in apps today. Why are they so important?

Girdhar:

Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Windows 7

• Stimulates user engagement
• Re-engages/retains users
• Increases conversion rates
• Targets the right users
• Tracks actionable metrics
• Enhances brand consistency
• Reduces efforts in the customer journey

ADM: Tell me about a few things that mobile applications are currently lacking. How can the industry go about improving and innovating?

Girdhar: List hereunder are the most common mobile application pitfalls:

• Bad data storage practices
• Unauthorized access
• Lack of encryption
• Data leaks from syncing

Ways industries can avoid these pitfalls include –

• Secure app’s code from the ground up
• Develop Mobile Security Standards - And Apply Them
• Secure network connections on the back end
• Perform Design/Architecture Reviews with Threat Modeling
• Put identification, authentication, and authorization measures in place
• Be careful about the security of customer data and implement a good mobile encryption policy
• Have a solid API security strategy in place
• Test your app software—then test again

ADM: Apple’s most recent event shed light on the tech giant’s new technology features in its phones and watches. How will its new technology affect mobile applications and what they can accomplish?

Girdhar: Apple announced three new iPhones and improved health features for its watches during its recent event. You would be forgiven for not paying too much attention to the handsets - after all, the tech giant launches new devices every year and the tweaks this year were not dramatic. However, the new iOS sure is!

The iOS 12 comes with time management and digital wellness features that can help users monitor the time they spend on their smartphones, in a bid to tackle tech addiction.

It also features a new Measure app, which uses augmented reality to measure from point-to-point, and ARKit 2 with real-time multi-users experience.

Apple has also enhanced the capabilities of its voice assistant, Siri. With new Siri shortcuts, you can easily create multi-step customizable workflows that can use first-party apps, third-party apps, and Apple services and settings, which ultimately leads to a huge number of possibilities for tasks that can be streamlined and simplified.

If that’s not enough, Apple also brings the brand new design to the app store in general and also new app product pages, in-app payments, and functionality.

With these new technologies, such as Siri shortcuts and ARKit 2.0, we can expect to see some great apps in the future coming to App Stores that showcases augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and greatly advanced capabilities.
On the other hand, with Apple’s strong focus on wearables, it’ll be great to see whether the wearable apps dominate the app market in the future or not.

ADM: How can VR and AR change mobile app development for the better?

Girdhar: In the last two years, VR/AR has gathered the attention of both investors as well as entrepreneurs. These two mini-giants have the incredible potential to impact how people work, learn, play, exercise, communicate, transact, socialize, and consume content.

With the launch of VR and AR, it is believed that by 2026 the way mobile apps & games work will also change. It is noticed that people are shifting from the computer to these two mini-giants which will definitely show some advancement in trading, booking of tickets, mind-games, watching, etc. As technology is shifting to an entirely new era of the 4D world, we believe that the big names in the Mobile App development will also change to adapt to and include AR/VR functionality.

The following are some of the ways in which the advent of AR/VR make a difference to the mobile apps of the future

• Improved Learning Experience
• Enhances Business Efficiency
• Unbeatable Virtual Experience
• Improved User Engagement
• Enhanced Brand Loyalty
• Mobility
• Enhanced Mode of Communication

Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Windows 10

ADM: How do you see mobile app development advancing in the next five years?

Girdhar: Mobile application development is driven by advancements in technology which requires businesses to have a vision for the next few years. Below are some of the trends which will determine the future of mobile application development.

1. Artificial Intelligence
2. Internet of Things and Mobile-connected Smart Objects
3. Augmented Reality
4. Chatbots
5. Wearable devices
6. Motion and Location Sensing
7. Innovative Mobile User Experience Design

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The App Center SDK uses a modular architecture so you can use any or all of the services.

Let's get started with setting up App Center React Native SDK in your app to use App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes.

1. Prerequisites

Before you begin, please make sure that the following prerequisites are met:

• You are using a React Native project that runs React Native 0.34 or later.
• You are targeting devices that are running on Android Version 4.1/API level 16 or later, or iOS version 9.0 or later.
• You are not using any other library that provides Crash Reporting functionality on iOS.
• For iOS, the default way to use the SDK requires CocoaPods. (If you haven't installed CocoaPods, please follow the CocoaPods Getting Started to do so). Nonetheless, it is possible to link the SDK manually.

2. Create your app in the App Center Portal to obtain the App Secret

If you have already created your app in the App Center portal, you can skip this step.

1. Head over to appcenter.ms.
2. Sign up or log in and hit the blue button on the top right corner of the portal that says Add new and select Add new app from the dropdown menu.
3. Enter a name and an optional description for your app.
4. Select the appropriate OS (Android or iOS) and select React Native as the platform.
5. Hit the button at the bottom right that says Add new app.

Once you have created an app, you can obtain its App Secret on the Settings page on the App Center Portal. At the top right hand corner of the Settings page, click on the triple vertical dots and select Copy app secret to get your App Secret.

3. Add the App Center SDK modules

The default integration of the SDK uses CocoaPods for iOS. If you are not using CocoaPods in your app, you need to integrate the React Native SDK manually for your iOS app.

Open a Terminal and navigate to the root of your React Native project, then enter the following line to add App Center Analytics and Crashes to the app:

In case you prefer yarn over npm, use the following command to install App Center:

The App Center SDK uses a modular approach, where you just add the modules for App Center services that you want to use. appcenter-analytics and appcenter-crashes make sense to add to almost every app, as they provide value with no additional setup required. appcenter provides general purpose App Center APIs, useful for multiple services.

3.1 Integrate the SDK automatically for React Native 0.60

3.1.1 Integrate React Native iOS

1. Run pod install --repo-update from iOS directory to install CocoaPods dependencies.

2. Create a new file with the name AppCenter-Config.plist with the following content and replace {APP_SECRET_VALUE} with your app secret value. Don't forget to add this file to the Xcode project (right-click the app in Xcode and click Add files to ...).

3. Modify the app's AppDelegate.m file to include code for starting SDK:

   • Add these lines to import section
   • Add these lines to the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method

3.1.2 Integrate React Native Android

1. Create a new file with the name appcenter-config.json in android/app/src/main/assets/ with the following content and replace {APP_SECRET_VALUE} with your app secret value.

Note: If the folder named assets does not exist, it should be created under 'project_root/android/app/src/main/assets'

2. Modify the app's res/values/strings.xml to include the following lines:

3.2 Integrate the SDK automatically for React Native lower than 0.60

Note

If you have your React modules linked using relative path inside your Podfile but not referenced in the project, the linking script will fail because it links App Center using static pod versions. You will either have to follow the steps from the React Native troubleshooting section if you have already run the linking script, or link it yourself

1. Link the plugins to the React Native app by using the react-native link command.

   For iOS, it will try to download the App Center SDK for iOS and macOS from CocoaPods, if you see an error like:

   Please run the following command:

   And then retry running react-native link.

   Note

   App Center SDK does not set up mocks automatically for App Center modules during the linking process. If you are using Jest test framework in your application and experience errors caused by the App Center SDK while running tests with Jest, add the following to the jest section of package.json file (include only modules in use):

   Note

   Whether processing of crashes is automatic or triggered by Javascript methods, crashes are always processed after the restart of the application. Crashes cannot be processed at the time the application crashes.

2. Edit the project's android/app/src/main/assets/appcenter-config.json and replace the YOUR_APP_SECRET placeholder value with your App Center project's application secret.

3. Edit the project's ios/{YourAppName}/AppCenter-Config.plist file, and replace the YOUR_APP_SECRET placeholder value with your App Center project's application secret. If AppCenter-Config.plist already exists but not part of your Xcode project, you must add it to the Xcode project manually (right-click the app in XCode and click Add files to ...).

3.3 [iOS only] Integrate the SDK manually for React Native without react-native link or CocoaPods

Do this integration, if you don't want to use CocoaPods.We strongly recommend integrating the SDK via CocoaPods as described above. Nonetheless, it's also possible to integrate the iOS native SDK manually.

Note

The latest App Center React Native SDK doesn't necessarily depend on the latest App Center iOS SDK, because the iOS SDK is updated and released before the React Native one.

Native Microsoft Apps Vs Native Macos Apps Download

The consequence is that you have to know which version of the iOS SDK the React Native SDK depends on.

1. Download the App Center SDK for React Native frameworks provided as a zip file and unzip it.

2. You will see a folder named AppCenterReactNativeShared which contains a single framework for the required React Native iOS bridge.

3. Download the corresponding App Center SDK for iOS frameworks provided as a zip file and unzip it.

4. You will see a folder called AppCenter-SDK-Apple/iOS that contains different frameworks for each App Center service. The framework called AppCenter is required in the project as it contains code that is shared between the different modules.

5. [Optional] Create a subdirectory for 3rd-party libraries.

   • As a best practice, 3rd-party libraries usually reside inside a subdirectory (it is often called Vendor), so if you don't have your project organized with a subdirectory for libraries, create a Vendor subdirectory now (under the ios directory of your project).
   • Create a group called Vendor inside your Xcode project to mimic your file structure on disk.

6. Open Finder and copy the previously unzipped AppCenter-SDK-Apple/iOS and AppCenterReactNativeShared folders into your project's folder at the location where you want it to reside.

7. Add the SDK frameworks to the project in Xcode:

   • Make sure the Project Navigator is visible (⌘+1).
   • Drag and drop the AppCenter.framework, AppCenterAnalytics.framework, AppCenterCrashes.framework and AppCenterReactNativeShared.framework files from the Finder (in the location from the previous step) into Xcode's Project Navigator. Note that the AppCenter.framework and AppCenterReactNativeShared.framework files are required to start the SDK, make sure they are added to your project, otherwise the other modules won't work and your app won't compile.
   • A dialog will appear, make sure your app target is checked, then click Finish.

8. Link AppCenter React Native plugins projects to your app's project:

   • Make sure the Project Navigator is visible (⌘+1).

   • For each AppCenter React Native plugin navigate to the folder containing source code. Paths respectively will be

     • /node_modules/appcenter/ios
     • /node_modules/appcenter-analytics/ios
     • /node_modules/appcenter-crashes/ios
     • /node_modules/appcenter-push/ios

   • Drag and drop .xcodeproj files from the Finder into Xcode's Project Navigator. Typically under Libraries group.

9. Link libraries for AppCenter React Native plugins.Open your project settings and under General tab in the Linked Frameworks and Libraries section add new items referencing target libraries added on the previous step:

   • libAppCenterReactNative.a
   • libAppCenterReactNativeAnalytics.a
   • libAppCenterReactNativeCrashes.a
   • libAppCenterReactNativePush.a

10. Modify Header Search Paths to find headers from the AppCenter React Native plugins projects.Open your project settings and under Build Settings tab in the Header Search Paths section add new locations for header files:

• $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/appcenter/ios/AppCenterReactNative
• $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/appcenter-analytics/ios/AppCenterReactNativeAnalytics
• $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/appcenter-crashes/ios/AppCenterReactNativeCrashes
• $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/appcenter-push/ios/AppCenterReactNativePush

11. Modify the app's AppDelegate.m file to include code for starting SDK:

    • Add these lines to import section
    • Add these lines to the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions method

12. Create new file with the name AppCenter-Config.plist with the following content and replace {APP_SECRET_VALUE} with your app secret value. Don't forget to add this file to the XCode project (right-click the app in XCode and click Add files to ...).

Note

The next two steps are only for the apps that use React Native 0.60 and above.

13. Disable autolinking for React Native 0.60 and above:

    • Inside the node_modules folder in each App Center package open react-native.config.js and set dependency.platforms.ios to null:

14. Modify Header Search Paths to find React Native headers from the App Center React Native plugins projects:

    • Make sure the Project Navigator is visible (⌘+1).
    • For each AppCenter React Native plugins project that you have added to the Libraries group in step 8:
      • Select the project and under Build Settings tab in the Header Search Paths section add new locations for header files with a recursive option: ${SRCROOT}/../../../ios/Pods/Headers

3.4 [Android only] Integrate the SDK manually for React Native lower than 0.60 without react-native link

Integration steps without the react-native link command.

1. Open android/settings.gradle file and insert the following lines. Include the dependencies that you want in your project. Each SDK module needs to be added as a separate dependency in this section. If you want to use App Center Analytics and Crashes, add the following lines:

2. Open the project's app level build.gradle file (android/app/build.gradle) and add the following lines into dependencies section:

3. Modify the app's MainApplication.java file to include code for starting SDK:

   • Add these lines to the import section
   • Add AppCenter packages to the List<ReactPackage> getPackages() method

4. Open strings.xml file (android/app/src/main/res/values) and add the following lines inside <resources></resources> tags:

5. Create a new file with the name appcenter-config.json in android/app/src/main/assets/ with the following content and replace APP_SECRET_VALUE with your app secret value.

3.5 If you use auto-backup to avoid getting incorrect information about device, follow the next steps:

Note

Apps that target Android 6.0 (API level 23) or higher have Auto Backup automatically enabled.

Note

If you already have a custom file with backup rule, switch to the third step.

a. Create appcenter_backup_rule.xml file in the android/app/src/main/res/xml folder.

b. Open the project's AndroidManifest.xml file. Add the android:fullBackupContent attribute to the <application> element. It should point to the appcenter_backup_rule.xml resource file.

c. Add the following backup rules to the appcenter_backup_rule.xml file:

4. Start the SDK

Now you can build and launch your application either from command line or Xcode/Android Studio.

4.1 Build and run your application from command line

You may build and launch your iOS application by the following command:

Tip

You can launch it on an iOS simulator or iOS device by specifying the iOS device name in react-native run-ios --device 'myDeviceName'.

You may build and launch your Android application by the following command:

Tip

You can launch it on an android emulator or android device by specifying the device id in react-native run-android --deviceId 'myDeviceId' (deviceId from adb devices command).

4.2 Build and run your application from Xcode or Android Studio

For iOS, open your project's ios/{appname}.xcworkspace or ios/{appname}.xcodeproj file in Xcode and build from there.

Note

If you linked App Center automatically via react-native link (as in step 3.1), you should open the project's ios/{appname}.xcworkspace file in Xcode. Because App Center CocoaPods dependencies only works with xcworkspace not xcodeproj, and the ios/{appname}.xcodeproj file won't have App Center CocoaPods dependencies linked.

For Android, import your android project in Android Studio and build from there.

You are all set to visualize Analytics and Crashes data on the portal that the SDK collects automatically. There is no additional setup required. Look at Analytics and Crashes section for APIs guides and walkthroughs to learn what App Center can do.