Sustainable Business Relationship Building Through Digital Strategy Solutions Development of Mobile Applications Overview . Introduction . History of Mobile Applications . Current State of Mobile Applications . The Future of Mobile Applications . Development Introduction • A mobile application (or mobile app) is a software application designed to run on smart phones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. History of Mobile Application The history of the mobile app begins, obviously, with the history of the mobile device. The first mobile phones had microchips that required basic software to send and receive voice calls. But, since then, things have gotten a lot more complicated. NX3 Mobile Application Development Services Native And Non-Native Frameworks Native Application Environment: . Android . iOS . Windows Phone 8 . BlackBerry 10 Non-Native Application Environment: . Phone Gap . Titanium Mobile Android . Based on the Linux kernel, Android started life as a proposed advanced operating system for digital cameras until the company realized that the market was limited compared to that for mobile phones. The Open Handset Alliance unveiled the Android operating system in 2007, nearly two years after Google’s acquisition of Android. The launch of Google’s foray into the mobile world was delayed by the launch of the iPhone, which radically changed consumers’ expectations of what a smartphone should do. IOS . Apple’s iPhone set the standard for the new generation of smartphones when it was first released in June 2007 with its touchscreen and direct manipulation interface. There was no native SDK until February of 2008 (Apple initially planned to provide no support for third-party apps). The iOS lineage started with Next STEP, an object-oriented multitasking OS from the late eighties developed by NeXT Computer (acquired by Apple in 1996). The world’s first web browser was developed on Next STEP and proved hugely influential in the formative years of HTML. The main programming language for iOS is Objective C. Development is done through Xcode IDE which has an in-built iOS simulator. Windows Phone 8 . The second generation of the Windows Phone operating system uses the same Metro interface but has an updated architecture based on the Windows NT kernel (like Windows 8) rather than Windows CE (which was used as the basis for Windows Phone 7). You can develop for Windows Phone 8 only on a system running Windows 8 – using Visual Studio 2012 as an IDE. You’re allowed to choose between XAML, Direct3D or a mixture for building UIs; you can write C#, Visual Basic apps on top of .NET; and you can use C++ for native code. Publication is less flexible. Apps need to be put through a review process before being allowed into the store similar to iOS. The low take up of Windows Phone makes this process seem rather onerous. Blackberry 10 . Originally named BBX, BlackBerry 10 is based on the QNX microkernel operating system whose parent company RIM acquired in 2010. BlackBerry 10 uses a system of gestures and touches which is supposed to make physical buttons unnecessary for core functions (e.g. a ‘back’ or ‘home’ button). The OS also has an Android runtime layer so that Android apps can be packaged and distributed on the BlackBerry platform. (The latest versions even allow the direct download of apps via Google Play.) . Native application development utilises an API library in C and a Native API in C/C++ though you can eschew C++ coding through the WebWorks framework (HTML5 and JS), Adobe AIR or Java itself. Again the publishing process is rather onerous: 10 business days are required to approve your app. Non-Native Application Environment . It is of course possible to sidestep the issues that come with developing native apps by instead developing web apps for use on mobile devices. The advantage to developing web-based apps are clear: you immediately solve the proliferation problem; you can ‘write once, run anywhere’; and you can use common web-based languages like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. Some frameworks allow you to build ‘hybrid’ apps which are not truly native (since their layout rendering is done via web views) or totally webbased (since they’re packaged for distribution and have access to native APIs). The disadvantages of hybrid apps are that you only get limited access to the native functionality of the phone on which the app runs and that such apps are usually slower than ‘pure’ native apps. PhoneGap . PhoneGap supports most major platforms (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Palm WebOS, Bada and Symbian) and allows developers to make use of native hardware features like accelerometers, compasses and cameras. A cloud based compilation engine – PhoneGap Build – generates compatible apps for all supported . Platforms but rejection of PhoneGap-built apps by the Apple App Store is still a frequent issue. It’s based on Apache Cordova which also underpins the aforementioned WebWorks. Titanium Mobile . iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone apps can all now be created via Appcelerator’s Titanium framework. Application source code is interpreted on the mobile device using a JavaScript engine (Rhino on Android and BlackBerry, Javascriptcore on iOS). Titanium provides fast results, making it a popular prototyping tool but (as with PhoneGap) performance issues abound and code forking is often required (e.g. if iOS then…). The Future of Mobile Application Development . Wearable Technology Miniaturization has made wearable what once would have been unthinkably cumbersome – sophisticated computers and communication devices can now be incorporated into wristbands, glasses or even clothes themselves. The market of ‘wearable tech’ is estimated to exceed $12 billion by 2018. Google Glass Released to developers in 2013 Google Glass is an ‘augmented reality’ device that is set to get a consumer launch at some point this year. David Thompson has seen a demo of Glass and his opinion is that while the product still has a long way to go before fulfilling the promise of genuine AR, the possibilities are exciting. It can record images and video and can almost be entirely controlled by voice alone when in operation. The Future of Mobile Application Development . Galaxy Gear Samsung’s smart watch, like most smart watches released to date (cf. Pebble and Smartwatch 2), met with a universally poor reception when released in September 2013. Fuel Band The Nike+ Fuel Band was a simple but effective foray into the wearable tech space from the sportswear manufacturer. The Fuel Band is worn on the wrist and tracks physical activity, allowing users to share and compare stats via the Nike+ online community. Mobile Application by NX3 - Medilexis • Medilexis is a mobile application designed for medical practitioners to conveniently maintain electronic medical records. It eases the transformation required at the clinic/practice for EMR adoption, eliminates training and allows seamless automation of both clinical and billing functions. That frees physicians from the chores of the practice so they can focus on well being of patients and meeting their revenue targets. Objective Keeping records of patient health information is imperative for medical practitioners. This process is handled through transcription service providers, in house transcriptionists or electronic medical record systems. However, all these are time consuming, costly and cumbersome. Physicians have been finding it convenient to dictate their patient information which can then be transcribed, reviewed, signed and stored easily. The primary objective of medical practitioners is to spend most of their time on patient care. They keep looking for solutions to free up their time from administrative work so they can focus fully on patient care. This application does exactly that. Execution Our team at NX3 with its extensive experience in the healthcare industry and valuable interactions with medical practitioners over the years envisioned and developed the Medilexis App based on the valuable feedback from the doctors themselves. The focus of this app was to eliminate the difficulties the doctors were facing in connection with patient records. The user interface of this application has been designed in such a way that it is seamless and self-explanatory. It does not require any training and can be used easily by just downloading it from the app store into their personal mobile phones. Results Medilexis App allow medical practitioners to add and dictate complete patient encounter directly into their cell phones which includes: . Adding patient demographics . Scheduling appointments . Search for patients . Dictate chief complaint, history of present illness, family history, review of systems, assessment and plan . Add medications with dosage information . Add images and mark them . Add procedural and diagnostic codes Physicians can record their dictation and transcribe the voice into text instantly by tapping a button. They can also type their notes directly and save them. They can do it remotely from anywhere and on the go without requiring any internet connection. The patient encounters can then be synced to our servers at a later time when the internet service is available. The patient data remains available to them to be retrieved anytime from our servers. Thank you. About NX3 NX3 Corporation NX3 is a one stop solution for all your digital needs. Using advanced digital platforms like Marketo and Salesforce for coaching, marketing and enablement, NX3 has a knack for transforming your business in a matter of months. We lay special emphasis on developing a very personal relationship with our customers. At NX3, we aspire to create a customized individualistic experience through our services not only for our customers but for their customers as well in a chain of steps carefully designed in the form of a customer journey. We execute across multiple channels to achieve maximum traction for our clients..