React Native powers more mobile apps than you think
Few years back, Facebook launched an open source mobile application framework by the name of React Native. As soon as it launched, mobile app developers soon began adopting it for developing high end mobile applications on several platforms like Android, iOS, Web etc. Many new generation clients wanting to develop their business online have been on the lookout to hire an Android developer. Sometimes, the same clients are also looking to hire an iOS developer to cater to a larger market. In this context, there is scope for mobile app developers to develop innovative applications to solve critical problem statements, given that people are transacting online more on their handheld devices. Released in 2015, React Native quickly became popular amongst mobile app developers and is used widely to develop various applications. In this blogpost, we will take a look at some of the prominent mobile applications both in Android and iOS.
Instagram is the most popular photo sharing social media network out there. It was popular even before Facebook acquired it in 2012. Prior to acquisition, Instagram was essentially a native app which meant that there were multiple versions catering to different smartphones. With the coming of React Native, Instagram was able to transform itself rapidly to the extent it was deployed even on the web. The framework has helped the photo sharing network to add more features that hinge on customer satisfaction. All these resulted in the milking of one key metric – engagement.
Bloomberg
Most of us would be familiar with Bloomberg. For the uninitiated, Bloomberg is an online platform for all news across the world delivered in a highly unique personalised fashion. In fact, the current form of the app is attributed to React Native’s influence – enhancing interactions and engagement.
Skype
Skype is one of the most popular video calling applications that was launched even before smartphones emerged on the scene. It quickly asserted its presence in the mobile app store to leverage on the new front camera and convenient portability feature of the smartphone. But there was a problem. Originally developed by Microsoft using the UWP framework, it was initially only restricted to Windows 10 phones that weren’t that popular. However, with React Native, it was possible to design Skype for other mobile platforms.
UberEats
With increasing prevalence of food delivery applications, it only made sense for UberEats to utilise React Native’s powerful features to be the snappy, vibrant mobile application it is today. Prior to that, UberEats experienced problems of incomplete information. Nothing can be more frustrating for customers than not being able to order food online, right? Fortunately, the open source framework eliminated all such performance issues resulting in massive jump in downloads.
Airbnb
This online accommodation booking platform sensed that customers were booking more on their mobile. Due to paucity of resources for developing native apps, it adopted React Native framework early to develop multi-platform applications. Now the company is able to deliver a much richer user experience and also able to release new versions quickly. After all, this is exactly what is needed to stay ahead of the competition.
Clients are always looking to enlist quality mobile app development services to build high quality applications. But it doesn’t stop there. The real challenge is to keep updating their apps with evolving customer preferences and outside competition. While you may have glimpsed at some of the framework’s advantages – Open Source, Rapid Development, Multi-Platform and so on, finding the right developer with expertise in the framework is a challenge, given that the framework was launched only a few years back.
Frontend Checklist for Smooth Performance of Web Applications
In this age of digital media, businesses’ mission to establish a solid image, pull in customers and retain them for a long period have become more challenging. Especially so, if your business is just starting, it is imperative you gain solid ground by signing up new customers. This is where the Frontend experience comes into the picture. It plays an important role in the background – enabling a smooth experience for first time customers without hiccups that includes but not limited to data loading, optimisation and Background processing. That calls for a robust frontend development from an expert programmer.
Now that we have realised the importance of a good frontend experience, let us look into some of the items in the Frontend checklist to ensure a smooth performance of web applications. That includes mobile experiences also.
A Clean Document
A critical aspect of frontend development is loading speed. No one wants to wait for a sluggish site to proceed to the next page. For that, you need to write your HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code in a concise way. Referencing other resources within our HTML doc also matters. For instance, rather than placing CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) at the bottom, it is recommended to place it at the top to ensure a clean rendering. The same goes for the placement of Javascript. What it effectively does is saying goodbye to impatient visitors leaving the website after waiting in a blank page.
Minimal Click Events
Remember, the lesser clicks you ask from the visitor, the better likely he will end up staying in the site. This translates to successful signup conversions. Adding excessive buttons will frustrate the customer and prove that you are quite demanding! Minimal click events also mean that you have to reduce invalid click scenarios.
An Intuitive UI
By designing a UI to be intuitive, you keep the customer at the top with all the buttons at his disposal. Such should be the ease of use that includes navigation too. It can be as simple as setting contrasting colors for navigation buttons to as complex as designing the webpage to optimisation across all platforms (Web, mobile, browsers etc). Also, ensure that there is a natural flow in your website. Ultimately it will seek to guide the visitor flawlessly. This
Optimising the Images
Excessive megabyte sized images can be a potential UX killer, if you fail to optimise them. They can be optimised by removing the excess information related to the image like dates, locations, camera specifications and so on. This can massively improve loading times.
Going Minimalistic
At the end of the day, it is your business and only you know / can determine what features you want to add to your web application, thereby starting with a framework that is lightweight. No user would like a cluttered website that will only confuse them. Some minification techniques will help you eliminate unnecessary characters in the file.
If your business caters to a global market, you can opt for a CDN (Content Delivery Network) that will considerably increase the performance of your website. This will offload some of the traffic from a singular server and links to a network of servers.
You can now Hire an expert Programmer at HireIndianProgrammers, who, rest assured, can delve into your project needs and design a website with maximum performance and optimisation.