Parija Rangnekar – Page 19

Significance of Location-based Applications

Location-Based Services (LBS) are one of the most trending services nowadays. These services are utilized in countless applications like on-demand apps, travel and transportation-related apps, banking apps, social media apps, event planning apps, etc. to name a few. From Instagram to Uber, from Runtastic to Tinder, these apps have impacted millions of peoples’ lives positively. They have eased out several tasks of day-to-day life and made the customer experiences more comfortable.

Here are some top predictions about the location-based services and their applications.

The LBS market is expected to cross $39.2 Billion by the year 2025, as projected by MarketsandMarkets!
Another report by Fortune Business Insights forecasts that by 2026, the LBS market size will cross $66.61 Billion.

It is evident from these stunning reports that the LBS and the location-based apps are high in demand. These are being leveraged by several entrepreneurs, start-ups, and business enterprises across the globe at a fast pace.

Top Functions of the Location-Based Tracking Apps

Communication: Businesses can register their address or any related places on maps. People can add reviews, leave feedback, and also refer to these reviews. Businesses can even link certain content on the map.
Marketing: Geo-location technologies are used in incentive marketing campaigns for creating interaction mechanics with end-users.
Information: Customers can get real-time information about the location of a person, place or a bus/train, etc.

Major Types of Location-Based Apps using Geolocation Technologies

On-demand Apps like Uber, Zomato, etc.

Social Networking Apps Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.

Location Tracking Apps like Google Maps, Waze, etc.

Dating Apps like OkCupid, Tinder, etc.

eCommerce Apps like Amazon, eBay, etc.

Travel and Tourism Apps like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Booking, etc.

Health and Fitness Apps like MyFitnessPal, Nike Running Club, etc.

Photo Location Finder Apps like Explorest, Google Photos, etc.

Weather Apps like Weather by Apple, Yahoo Weather, etc.

Some of the examples of the location-based apps developed by us are as below:

MastR: This is an eCommerce app that enables customers to do virtual shopping. The product categories displayed are based on the location of the product. It also enables scheduled pickups and deliveries.
BeachCaddy: This app enables end users to request assistance from beach caddies to help them carry beach items. Travel of caddies is tracked through the application.
Otego: It is restaurant management and a food delivery app. Orders placed by the customers can be tracked on the map.

After looking at these live examples of location-based applications, we are now going to discuss the mobile app development process used for creating apps using geo-location technologies. So let’s commence.

How to Create a New-age Location-based App?

Step 1: Thorough Market Research and Finding a Reliable Tech Partner

You should first decide which type of location-based app you want to build by studying its scope in the market. Market research is mandatory to get the answers to questions like-

What is my target audience?
How my app idea will benefit them?
Who are my competitors?
What innovation can I offer to my target audience?
Should I develop an MVP or a full-fledged mobile app?
How to go about the location-based app development process?
Which are the top mobile app development companies and whom can I partner with?

Step 2: Deciding the Apt Geolocation Features

It is essential to integrate some core geolocation features and functionalities in your app to make it highly beneficial to the users. These functionalities include Map view, GPS coordinates, user location detection, location history, route mapping, location-based notifications, etc.

Step 3: Selecting the Right Technology Stack

Selecting the right tech stack for geolocation app development is a necessity. Find below the list of a few set of tools required for location-based apps to choose from:

Web:

HTML5 geolocation API

iOS:

Google Places API
Google Maps API
Google Maps SDK
Core Location API
Apple MapKit

Android:

android.location package
Google Maps API
Mapbox
Google Location Services API
Google Maps Directions API
Google Distance Matrix API
Yandex Maps
MapView class
Open Street Map

Step 4: Wire-framing, Designing the UI, and Developing the App

The next step is creating several visual prototypes of the app that match your app idea/concept. After wire-framing, design a user-friendly and responsive app UI. Now begin with the development of a feature-rich location-based application. Pay attention to detail, and get your app developed by an experienced team.

Step 5: Applying Safety and Security Measures

Ensuring data safety is of paramount importance, especially because location-based apps carry sensitive data. So, consider all the existing legal regulations of different countries you are going to target and strictly adhere to their safety regulations.

Follow the below-given practices too for making your app secure:

Using multi-factor authentication
Using an SSL certificate
Encrypting communications
Using App Transport Security for iOS or Network Security Configuration for Android
Not storing high-importance data on user devices
Encrypting sensitive information with algorithms like RSA or AES-256

Step 6: Final Testing of Complete App

The last step is to carry out rigorous testing of the app. Make sure that the app meets all the code requirements. Test-driven development (TDD) is another effective approach. These will help you reduce the potential bugs, and enhance the app quality.

Are You Interested in Building a Top-Class Website or Mobile App?

Final Thoughts

Needless to say, location-based apps are enjoying extreme popularity across diverse industries. Owing to their vast benefits, almost every mobile app development company in the market is utilizing this functionality in some of their apps.

So, do you have a great idea for developing a location-based application? Or do you want to enhance your existing app with this amazing functionality? Reach out to the world-class location-based app development company in Texas, USA, for further assistance.

What are the Persistent Issues in the React Native Framework?

What Features are Covered in React Native’s 0.61 Version?

How does the ‘Fast Refresh’ Feature in this Update Impact the Developer Community?

All such questions about React Native 0.61 version will be covered in this blog. We will especially elaborate on the Fast Refresh Feature in this blog. So without much delay, let’s get started.

A Bit about React Native 0.61

React Native 0.61 is quite a small update comparatively. It is an attempt to resolve several persistent issues present in the older versions. The broken hot-reloading feature was one of the biggest pain points for React Native App Developers and the Community. This new update majorly focuses on a new reloading experience called Fast Refresh. With this update, the developer community can heave a sigh of relief.

But before looking into features in this new version, let’s have a quick look at the persistent issues in React Native. Like any other technology, this technology had several shortcomings and no matter how small, but these shortcomings did affect the overall mobile app development.

Shortcomings in React Native Framework!

Hot-reloading Issue: Being one of the most popular features of React Native, the hot-reload feature got much attention from the developer community. But sadly, it didn’t go that well and especially failed to work appropriately with Stateless Functional Components (SFC). In the React Native 0.61 version, this issue has been fixed, and now, reloading any React Native code reliably is possible without reloading the complete application.

Time-consuming Updating Process: Updating React Native from an older version to a new one is tedious and needs a lot of time. This process especially becomes highly time-consuming in case the React Native Developers haven’t installed a few updates and then want to update it once for all.

Sudden App Crashes at Times: Several times, React Native apps can crash suddenly and there is not much information available to know the reason for such app crashes.

Finding Main Reason of Exception: Finding the main reason for the exception is quite challenging in the React Native framework. Stack trace in the Chrome debugger console makes the debugging process much time-consuming. In this case, component DidCatch also doesn’t seem much helpful.

Issues with Ram Bundle: The ram bundle of React Native isn’t supported by any OTA platform like CodePush. This issue is caused since React Native community is not connected widely.

So, to overcome such challenges and solve the existing bugs, React Native 0.61 was introduced. New features in this version will help the developer community to leverage an improved development process and also result in a better end-product.

Notable Features of React Native 0.61 and its Impact on the Developer Community

React Native 0.61: Fast Refresh Features

Better CocoaPods support: A few updates in the 0.60 version of React Native were by default made to integrate CocoaPods. But this leads to several issues in the use_frameworks! But thankfully, this issue is being worked upon and fixed in 0.61. After this update, it has become much simpler to integrate React Native into the iOS projects that are developed with dynamic frameworks.

React 16.9 Upgrade: In this version, there have been improvements to act. Also, the old names for the UNSAFE_ lifecycle methods have been deprecated.

The ‘useWindowDimensions Hook’ Feature: Hook is another fascinating feature introduced in this version that offers and subscribes to dimension updates. This feature can be used instead of the Dimensions API in several cases.

Fast Refresh: The “hot reloading” and “live reloading” features have been unified into a single feature called “Fast Refresh” for addressing the hot-reloading issue. This update is quite helpful to the developer community and every React Native App Development Company. So, let us have a quick look at what’s so impressive about this feature.

Significance of the Fast Refresh Feature

The hot-reload issue needed enhancements for a long time and in this update, it has been addressed. So, what are these enhancements, and how is these will impact the developers as well as React Native App Development services leveraging this framework? Please read along.

The feature doesn’t exercise invasive code transformations. Thus, the code can be considered more reliable and trustworthy even if kept ON in the settings by default.
This feature provides complete support to new-age React along with function components and Hooks completely.
This feature helps to skilfully recover from typos and similar mistakes. Besides, whenever required, the Fast Refresh feature can be switched to full reload.

Are You Interested in Building a Top-Class Website or Mobile App?

Final Views:

We have seen several features of React Native 0.61 version along with its Fast Refresh feature. About this feature, the developer community finds it much flexible to use. It works well for both functional components and class components. Though it is almost similar to the hot-reloading feature, this time, it is much more efficient and excellent in performance.

That is all in this post!

What is your experience with React Native 0.61? Do share in the comments section.

For any further assistance, please feel free to discuss with us!

Parija Rangnekar, Page 19 Author

An Overview of New-age Location-based Apps and their Development Procedure!