About Smartphone Apps
A smartphone App is a type of software that runs on a mobile phone or tablet and which allows you to perform very specific tasks. Normally you download it from an App store and it stays on your mobile phone until you delete it. Apps are generally easier and more convenient to use than software on a laptop or desktop computer.
There are 2 brands of Apps in general use:
- Apple IOS Apps (only on Iphones), and
- Android Apps (on various mobile phone like Motorola, Google, Huawei, Samsung, etc.)
These Apps use different programming languages, so an App downloaded from the Apple App store cannot be used on an Android phone and vice versa.
There are 3 types of apps:
- Native apps
These are generally written using the development language systems of Apple or Android depending on the type of phone in which you need them to be used - Hybrid apps
There are some new systems that let apps be created once then automatically output as separate versions for both Apple and Android. - Web apps
These are versions of a website that are optimised to work on any mobile device.
Why might you want an App building?
Generally, you might want an app building because your organisation needs a simple and convenient way for:
- your staff to accomplish a specific task.
- your customers to contact you or buy from you.
- your suppliers to accomplish a specific task, or to work with you.
- Your community or stakeholders to be supported with tools to achieve your joint goals.
Or you may decide to provide an App for the specific purpose of improving your bottom line. Typically, an App has a potential market in 2020 of 2.5 Billion users world-wide.
Areas of interest for AES
We provide complete solutions for customers from consultancy through design to prototyping for proof of concept and on to publication via an App Store.
As well as creating Apps, we can upload or download data to or from a web server, so that each app can contribute to a full-scale data model related to its use. For example one of our apps uploads graphical data to a server, and system managers can use laptops to map each issue from each App, to create a picture of the issues right across a city.
So, for organisations, the complete solution can include an App plus a web server and a management console to view and interrogate and report on the data, as well as initiating actions within the organisation.
How to get involved with AES & Smartphone Apps
If you have a great idea that you need developing, contact us or call 01642 366660. We always start with a meeting to find out more about your organisation and what you are aiming to achieve.
That initial meeting is usually free of charge. We’ll quite quickly come to a
conclusion over what further support we can provide, what outcomes you might expect and what sort of timescales and costs would be involved. It may be that we need to conduct some research prior to the App design stage or the proto typing stage.
Some recent Smartphone App projects.
- Smile & speak App:
An app for call centres and customer service centres. The App records how centre staff react to customers, and provide management with key biometric info on performance during calls, for use in training and during appraisals. The complete system uses a web server and admin access to help analyse the data from each app on a person by person basis.
- Around my Town App:
An app for community users to record issues with a range of issues that they may encounter around town. These cover many areas from road problems like pot-holes, to fly tipping and littering, to street furniture problems. The associated Admin system lets local council admins view the problems on a map and confirm when they rectified.
- Early Years App:
An app for parents to add family pictures and text. When the toddler taps a coloured square, the image is shown and the system reads a short text message. This App can be deployed on a phone or can resize to fit a tablet.
Innovation
AES believes that Innovation using technology is key to providing powerful easy to use solutions, so as well as providing Smartphone App solutions, AES design and develop innova tive solutions across a range of technological areas including IOT Solutions and Online web-based Software, offered as Software as a Service.
If you haven’t already, please read our customer playbook.