The Localytics Blog

Three Common iPhone to Android Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Ever since Android devices have started to overtake the iPhone in terms of growth (and according to some reports, in terms of actual market share), I’ve been seeing a lot more companies take a serious look at both porting their existing apps to Android and developing new apps side-by-side for both platforms. I want to get straight to the point and demolish delusions you have that you can exactly port the UI for your current iPhone app screen for screen, rewrite in in Java, call it a day and expect rave reviews. Here’s why.

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Best Practices: Measuring App Sessions on iOS 4

Before Apple iOS 4, tracking mobile app sessions on iPhone was very straightforward. Only one app could run at a time and every app had a clearly defined starting and ending point. With the introduction of multitasking in iOS 4, apps are no longer terminated when a user exits but are instead moved to the background and resumed when the user returns. In fact, many apps such as music players and messaging clients are intended to persist in the background indefinitely without any defined stopping point. As a result, the old way of tracking app sessions no longer accurately reflects the users’ behavior.

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Localytics SDK Supports iPhone 4

Our engineers have jumped on each Apple developer release and ensured that our open source SDK is fully compatible with Apple's latest creations, iOS 4 and the iPhone 4. With people queued up around the world last night to be among the first to sport Apple's hot new device, mobile app publishers using Localytics are already gaining anonymous, valuable and accurate insight into iPhone 4 usage.

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Localytics Has Always Put Privacy First

Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference on Tuesday said that Apple was "pissed off" at Flurry for publishing sensitive data in violation of Apple's privacy policy and without notifying end users that data were being collected. In response, Apple changed the language in its iPhone (iOS) developer agreement to reflect those concerns, which Localytics shares and has addressed from the beginning.

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Localytics Closes Funding from New York Angels and Launchpad Venture Group

Localytics announced that it has closed its first round of funding, led by Launchpad Venture Group and New York Angels. This follows the launch of Localytics Enterprise Mobile Analytics, the most powerful and only real-time mobile analytics service for top iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry app publishers. The company will use the funding to expand the services and features of its Community and Enterprise Mobile Analytics services.

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Localytics Launches Enterprise Analytics for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry Apps

Localytics announced today the release of its Enterprise Mobile Analytics service for Android, BlackBerry, iPad and iPhone applications. Localytics Enterprise service is available as a fully-hosted or first-party solution. Large brands and publishers already using Localytics Enterprise service include CardStar and KAYAK. Localytics also announced a partnership with Semphonic and participation in Coremetrics Connect, Omniture Genesis and WebTrends Open Exchange.

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BlackBerry Analytics Show App Usage Higher During Workday Than iPhone

Apple is sharpening its focus on businesses with new enterprise features in iPhone OS 4, but BlackBerry usage of mobile apps is still more concentrated and higher during the workday than iPhone. Localytics also reports that BlackBerry app usage on the weekend is statistically identical to workweek usage. In contrast, iPhone owners use mobile apps more frequently on the weekend with the greatest difference at 2:00 pm EST when weekend usage is 40% higher than the same time Monday through Friday.

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New iPad Owners Explore Apps on Opening Weekend

With the much anticipated launch of the iPad this past weekend, how did users spend time on their new devices? Localytics reports that iPad usage began shortly after East Coast Apple and Best Buy stores opened at 10 am EDT.

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iPhone Analytics Show Peak Mobile App Usage on Nights & Weekends

Applications dominate how content and data services are used on the iPhone and those apps are primarily used in the evening and on the weekend. In the first hourly study of iPhone app analytics data, Localytics reports that mobile app usage in the US and Canada peaked at 9:00 pm EST during the week and maintained peak usage throughout weekend afternoons and nights.

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New Feature Explored: Event Attributes

We are happy to announce the availability of new client libraries for Android, Blackberry and iPhone apps that support performance improvements and a number of new features. One feature I particularly want to highlight is Event Attributes. Developers have always been able to record events in their applications, but now in addition to recording events you can record attributes associated with the event. (More)

Google Phone - Emergence of the Nexus One

The Google phone is real. In the spirit of the holidays, Google said Saturday on its mobile blog that they’re “taking dogfooding to a whole new level” by first distributing the new phone to Googlers around the world. The phone, called the Nexus One, will be part of a “mobile lab” where Google employees will help test the latest technology.

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DROID Delivers in November

Verizon is reportedly spending $100 million to make the case that the DROID DOES where other smartphones don’t. Verizon and the Motorola DROID may not have unseated King iPhone yet, but the DROID did deliver very solid numbers in the first few weeks after the launch.

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Should Android developers be targeting Android 2.0 and the Droid?

A year ago the Android ecosystem was pretty simple: there was one device, one operating system version, and developers knew exactly what they were building for.  Android has come a long way and today there are a number of Android devices available with many more expected.  One device that is now getting a lot of attention is the new Motorola Droid, which will be introduced on Verizon’s network tomorrow.  While this excitement bodes well for the future of Android, it leaves mobile application developers wondering how quickly the Droid and especially Android 2.0 will be widely adopted.  To explore this, we looked at the mobile application usage of 20,000 Android handsets over the last week to determine the breakdown of users by phone and by Android OS.  We have also used these data to make some predictions on device uptake over the next few months.

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How to reliably establish a network connection on any BlackBerry device

Establishing a network connection within a BlackBerry application is a challenge which tends to surprise developers new to the BlackBerry platform.  This is especially true for developers coming from another platform and expecting the ability to simply call Connector.open(url) and get back a connection to that url. This article explains why connecting to the internet on a BlackBerry device can be tricky and presents some of the popular ways of doing it along with the source code for our own solution.

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Developing For Smartphones: Setting Up Your Environment

Previously, we examined the business and technology concerns around building applications for each smartphone platform. Here we investigate the options for application development on each platform and what tools are are necessary to build them. 

Unfortunately there is no universal tool for app development.  For example, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Development require a Windows Environment, where iPhone requires OSX.  The closest thing to a consistent application model supported on all the smartphones is a Webapp but these take completely different forms on a BlackBerry than on a Palm Pre.  Java developers with Eclipse experience have a bit of an edge because this covers BlackBerry, Android, Symbian, and JavaME.  Similarly, if the iPhone is not the target device then Windows is the operating system of choice because it allows some form of development on every other platform.

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Smartphone OS Wars: What platforms to develop for? Part II (Technology perspective)

Deciding which platform to develop on is not only a business decision (as described in Part 1) but also a matter of what technology is right for the project. Each platform provides a different set of tools and development concerns for the application programmer.  Below is a brief discussion of the major technology differences between the platforms which are relevant to a developer:

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Smartphone OS Wars: What platforms to develop for? Part I (Business perspective)

As the smartphone wars rage on, mobile application developers regularly face a common dilemma: what platforms should I develop on? After some research and our own analysis we’ve deconstructed the answer into business (Part I) and technology perspectives (Part II).

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Notes - MassMobile Software Devs’ Meetup (4/21/09)

Thanks to everyone who came out to last week’s MassMobile Software Developers meetup; we had nearly 30 people attend and had a very strong technology-focused discussion.  Here are our notes from the meeting:

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Five things to test for a better user experience in your Android application

As the Android Market starts to pick up steam we are seeing lots of exciting applications come out of the woodwork. Unfortunately, the newness of the platform coupled with the desire to be first to market with a particular idea has also brought about a lot of application bugs which cause otherwise great programs to get some bad ratings in the Android market.

The following is a list of five things, which while certainly not all-inclusive, can be tested in five minutes and will help avoid some of these bugs and the negative feedback they bring

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Notes from Mobile Software Devs’ Meetup (3/4/09)

Last Wednesday, Localytics hosted a fantastic Meetup for mobile software developers in the Boston area (join the group at http://www.meetup.com/massmobile). Thirty people showed up and we had a very strong discussion.

The agenda for the meeting focused on Business Models (monetization, app stores, future platforms) and Development Platforms (platform limitations/comparisons, porting apps across platforms, etc.).  Here are our notes from the meeting:

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Analytics Engine launched

Last week at DemoCamp Boston, Localytics launched its Analytics Engine (see video or use our online demo yourself). Our Analytics Engine works across all platforms, and we currently have client libraries for Android and Blackberry, with iPhone and Windows Mobile coming soon.

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