Web Application Development is an innovative choice which is currently a favorite of many business owners. But even now most people don’t have a clear concept of the price of developing a web application. All they need to do is read on to become more comfortable with the idea for anyone interested but confused in using Website Development to their company.

What is Web Application Development?

Web Application Development can be described as developing browser-based website or application or software with a short life cycle lead. It’s a web-based solution that helps you operate or manage or supervise or administer your major company information. You can also easily catch up with the mobile audience with the assistance of web solutions. You can control your website from the mobile phone, and this can help you boost your sales big time.

How much does it Cost to Build a Web App?

Web applications costs can differ so greatly from one business to another and. You might get surprised when you take the rates or simply just google it as they vary from $10,000 to $500,000 with the same requirements, functionality and engagement model.

Cost of web app development relies on three main variables :

1. The geographical location of the web app development company.
2.  Overall business experience.
3. App development company’s size, projects, status and achievements.

How to Reduce App Development Cost

There are not many choices available because it requires a lot of time, effort, skill, patience and money to develop a fully-fledged application. So we decided to write a comprehensive answer to this question to help all those interested in developing apps.

Jot down all the project requirements in the initial stage

It is understood that the cost of development will increase with the increase in demands. So prepare a thorough analysis of your demands as it is a critical element in the success of any project. In case if you are going to lack it, it will result in numerous changes during the development phase as well as become the reason for project delays. If at the very beginning, proper documentation of demands is handed over, the team will get a clear picture of the business purposes of the client. Although changes and errors are unavoidable during development, they will be kept to a minimum with clear, comprehensive documentation.

Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

It is good to be on a safer side and launch your product’s first version with minimal functionality. Initially, do not go over the top rather merely introduce the key concept and leave secondary feature development for a later time. With your MVP, you can easily assess your product’s market demand and determine if clients are prepared to pay for it or not. Once you are sure the demand exists and start getting revenue, you can then invest in adding those secondary features. Actually, with agile methodology, MVP goes hand in hand. It not only decreases expenses but also save you from potential failure.

Save Money on Development but not on Developers

Everybody wants the development to be done in the most reasonable rates. But keep in mind that, to employ the cheapest development agency, you become the victim of their experimentation and their go-to option for getting into the market. Furthermore, there is no assurance that they will complete it at all! Ultimately, you’re going to be forced to hire another more experienced development team to complete or even begin from scratch.

Iterative Development

It is an old methodology which implies developing all planned features to test your app and its market optimization. You can readily eradicate unnecessary features initially at the testing stage which were going to waste a lot in the development stage. In order to save time and money, it is highly recommended to split the whole project into small segments or iterations and then gradually you can add new features with each new iteration/segments. With Iterative development, you can readily change or modify the project without the replanning and restructuring the entire project to fit it in.

Cross-Platform Development

Developing cross-platforms can be an excellent cost saver. However, this is only valid if your app is not very complicated, if it does not use native interfaces, and if hardware integration is not required. Otherwise, its performance may be affected. Developing cross-platforms can assist you to reduce development costs in many cases.

Continuous Monitoring

Constantly communicate with your team and do not completely depend on your project managers. They can also create errors or overlook some problems. Test for yourself every new build of your application, as some minor deviations from the initial goals, may occur. Instead of noticing and fixing the issues after the app has been released. it would be much cheaper to resolve them while they are new.

Make Use of Ready-to-use Solutions

You can implement some UI features by using pre-constructed templates that just need a few adjustments. There are also many third-party WaaS (Whatever as a Service) suppliers, ranging from SaaS (Software as a Service) to BaaS (Backup as a Service) offering ready-to-use alternatives for a monthly subscription fee or even free. Mapping and payment facilities are among the most popular. You can use Puship, a third-party push notification plugin for iOS and Android, instead of creating your own custom push notification features.

Or, you can use Google Cloud Platform (PaaS) to provide backend facilities such as multi-user data sharing and processing, data synchronization across devices, user authentication, Memcache, notification, and message sending, automatic app scaling, etc.

However, you should bear in mind that many of these facilities that are integrated into an application can lead to problems such as instability and poor scalability. It is, therefore, necessary to use them wisely and within reasonable boundaries. They already understand which solutions can be used and to what extent, if you work with an experienced development team.

AI tracks and measures all the required factors which results in improving the accuracy of demand prediction. With the help of this data, warehouse management becomes simpler. Moreover, AI can bring beneficial improvements to the customer experience. Integrating this technology implies personalizing the experience of customers and, as a result, customer loyalty is improved. The collaboration between DHL Parcel and Amazon are a great example of personalized customer experience.

4.   Quickest Smart Road Delivery

Some businesses are working to develop smart roads. They grant some unique solutions depending on regional requirements. As a result, in some areas, there are highways built with solar panels and LED lights. These roads can generate electricity as well as using lights to warn drivers about crucial changes in road conditions. Moreover, the solar panels are heated to prevent the road from becoming slippery in the winter. As a result, the logistics industry gets some advantages as there are no delays in the supply chain owing to weather conditions.

6.   Voice Assistants to the Rescue

Artificial Intelligence is also getting a hold on voice assistants in logistics. Amazon’s Alexa is one such instance that is assisting t customers to track their orders placed. You can ask Alexa about your package and it can readily tell you where it has reached. Also, it can even route calls to the courier’s customer support if the customer faces issues with their package. AI has a part to play at every stage of logistics.

End Note

The logistics industry can take benefit from AI in a number of ways. Warehouses use AI to automate and interconnect inner procedures within them. Advanced techniques such as geocoding and location intelligence are used for optimum results. The B2B and B2C industries also use AI-based systems to allocate vehicles and select the most optimized routes for cars.

Today, this technology plays a significant role in logistics solutions. It improves efficiency and automates many time-consuming operations on a daily basis, saving time and lowering costs. The world we live in leaves a digital footprint in almost all operations and that serves as a stepping stone for machine learning algorithms. It’s about time that AI takes over manual choices and delivers packages more efficiently.

The announcement comes the same time that the UK officially deferred a decision on whether to bar or let Huawei be used within any of the UK’s 5G networks.

The US has been exerting pressure on the government to eliminate the Chinese firm demanding that it represents a risk to national security, but Huawei denies this.

As applications become a go-to approach for businesses to promote their services, many small businesses are seeking in-house development platforms to cut expenses and develop the finest app they can.

With instructive instruction and plenty of templates to choose from, they can quickly generate a good-looking mobile app. There are a number of app building platforms that allow you to create high-class mobile apps without needing you to learn to code or spend a lot. These tools will help you quickly develop applications based on hundreds of existing templates. It is essential to choose the right tool/s to guarantee that an ideal mobile application is designed for your purpose.

1.       Appery.io

Appery is a cloud-based mobile app builder which you can use to build Android or iOS applications, including Apache Cordova (Phone Gap), Ionic, and jQuery Mobile with access to its built-in parts.

It is easy to get started quickly since there is nothing you need to install or download as the builder works in the cloud. For building UI, Appery App Builder makes use of a drag and drop features as it demands visual editor. It has a characteristic of generating an auto-code for any component that you drop in. You have access to add a cloud database instantly as well as the backend to your app when you are in need to store data.

With the Appery plugin catalog, you can add strong features or create your own custom personal plugins to use in your apps. If you work with a team, you can readily share your project with them and collaborate for an additional fee in real-time.

2.       Xamarin

Xamarin is a C#-based cross-platform framework that app developers can leverage. Xamarin is a cross-platform based on C# that app developers can leverage. One of the best qualities of Xamarin is that it is an ideal tool which enables users to work with native IDEs, APIs, or languages. It gives you access to data across multiple platforms and can also reuse business logic layers. Xamarin also supports QA and testing features to promote the development of robust, scalable mobile applications.

3.       TheAppBuilder

AppBuilder is the best choice that offers a suite of apps to fit staff, customers, events, and brochures, with two distinct approaches available. If you wish to design an app as an intranet for a company, AppBuilder proves to be the best pick. With the help of available online toolkit and the training available, this platform will help you work while describing and building the app’s structure and populate it with initial content.

You can provide your customers with a window into various applications using the dedicated AppLibrary and even customize it with your own branding. It also helps you in securing both public and private apps with usernames and passwords and distribute them through the app store, using the active directory integration of TheAppBuilder to enable login with existing credentials and user groups.

Moreover, it helps you update the content and framework even after the applications have gone live. It allows you to create unlimited updates and publish them in one click on various mobile platforms. It has a support a number of platforms including native iPhone, iPad, and Android, with live updates within 60 seconds of posting a change.

4.       XOJO

XOJO has proven to be another great choice to develop iPhone device applications. XOJO’s toolkit helps developers to work faster and provide greater performance. This open-source platform is known for its simplicity. It can easily build cross-platform apps because it has all the rich features that developers look for. It offers generous support for graphics, DB servers, IPs so you can develop any kind of applications, bringing imagination to reality. With minimal distraction, it helps developers focus on making out-of-the-box applications. It is particularly preferred for a superb app interface.

5.       Appcelerator

As the name suggests itself, Appcelerator accelerates the app development process with briefly thin lines of coding for app creation. It’s a popular Titanium platform on Twitter, which developers can leverage to build native apps for mobile platforms, desktop ad tablet devices. Appcelerator works quite well with languages such as JavaScript, HTMS, Ruby, PHP, and Python. It is a platform which empowers more than thousand native applications every month.

It is beneficial in terms of location data and APIs and customizable metrics, that is why it is the top choice for various developers. It also facilitates you with real-time analytics that helps you keep a track of performance as well as find issues.

6.       Appy Pie

Appy Pie is a cloud-based mobile app development tool that enables users to develop and publish an app for almost any platform without programming abilities. There’s nothing to install or download — just drag and drop pages to build your own online mobile app.

Once finalized, you will obtain an HTML5-based hybrid app that functions with all platforms, including popular mobile platforms: Android, iOS and Windows, and even a Progressive app. All revisions are in real-time, with the capacity to send push notifications, monetize advertisements, see live analytics, and track GPS location. You can also incorporate social media feeds, blogs, websites, audio, radio, and more.

You are provided with different themes while using this platform, ranging from a restaurant to a radio station. They also have an appointment scheduler tool, which is particularly helpful for companies such as physicians, salons, or spas with contact features such as one-touch call included. You can embed custom code and iframes using the code page.

7.       PhoneGap

PhoneGap is Adobe’s diverse open-source app development tool and is most sought-after by new-age app developers due to its widespread benefits.

With the help of this tool, you can develop a single app that operates on most mobile device systems such as Android, iOS, and Windows. Other than these, it also supports other platforms such as BlackBerry, iTouch, iPad, and Symbian. This is PhoneGap’s greatest advantage app developers have.

PhoneGap is a platform which builds apps that are compliant with HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3. The tool best interacts with native device components such as GPS, camera, accelerometer, sound, and more. The framework has a wide library of components that you can use to strengthen the functionality of the app. Its enormous flexibility saves time and effort in building high-quality applications.

8.       AppMachine

AppMachine is considered to be the most easy-to-use platform that develops and design professional native applications for both iOS and Android. With its drag-and-drop interface, you can merge various construction blocks that give a range of features such as data, pictures, and video.

AppMachine’s building blocks also allow you to connect your app to Facebook, Twitter, or online stores. You can design the app in your own distinctive style and choose your navigation routes, colors, fonts and icons, take full control of the layout and watch your progress using the Previewer. It also facilitates you to scan a website for key content that could be transferred to an iOS or Android app.

Test your app as you build it and test how it works on different devices. When you are done testing your app and it is all set to go live, you can publish and promote the app as well as analyze user data. AppMachine takes care of everything you need to get your app to Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

9.       Zoho Creator

Zoho Creator is a multi-platform application builder that enables you to create a new app or use a ready-made app. The software is specifically designed for companies seeking to simplify and automate tasks, such as creating applications for functions such as sales management, order management, event management, logistics, or recruitment monitoring, for instance.

Whatever you’re planning to do, however, you can customize it completely the way you want. Zoho Creator involves a drag-and-drop editor to assist build your app from within a single dashboard.

While initially targeting companies looking to create applications for specific needs within their business, Zoho Creator can also be used to create applications for the wider market. Even better, you can incorporate data from other applications, improving their usability. Potential integrations include other Zoho applications, Paypal, Twilio, G Suite, and Quickbooks.

10.   Ionic 

It is the framework for the growth of HTML5 mobile apps. It is extensively used to develop mobile hybrid applications. It is a helpful tool for building mobile apps using web technologies such as CSS, HTML5, and SASS.

Ionic Framework is a project that is 100% free and open source. It builds a progressive mobile web and native applications for every key app store. It provides excellent tools and services for creating extremely interactive applications. Moreover, it enables web developers to create applications with a single code base fall major app store. It comes with many CSS elements and JavaScript components to develop mobile apps. Ionic emulates the native UI guidelines of the app and employs native SDKs.

Conclusion

This was the list of some of the best mobile app development tools and frameworks you can adopt for 2019. Reliable and unique, each of them has an incredible ability to meet your project demands and offer an app for both Android and iOS.

There are various kinds of outsourcing models, we’ve mentioned 5 of them which are the outsourcing trends 2019. You can pick the one suitable for your particular project and estimated expenditures.

Fixed-Price

Out of all the outsourcing strategies, fixed-price development agreement is known to be the most successful one. In this type of agreement, one needs to pay a particular amount of money for a specific job performed. This strategy works efficiently for short-term products whose development requires a few months or less. All the risks involved are put on the outsourcing partner as they wait to make payments until the project is done which consequently protects your budget also.

It involves giving the required details of the future piece of software, website or mobile application-their primary features, design, etc. Since fixed price agreement cannot be readily modified, all requirements should be transparent to both the client and the team.

In case, if any issue arises, you can work on a unique amendment to the current agreement specifying unmentioned points of the first, for instance, improved complexity of the project resulting in a price change, etc. Signing a fixed price contract also implies delegating control of the development to the representatives of the IT business. Usually, customers are not actively engaged in the process – instead, product managers take the head position.

Time and Materials (T&M)

T&M demands your outsourcing partner to bid for the project based on your demands, depth of scope and the amount of work that needs to be done. If your teams are good at outlining project requirements, this model is the right pick for you. In this way, your outsourcing partner will spend less time reworking issues, shortening your project overall time and saving you money.

Be prepared to build effective project management teams to guarantee that the entire project is completed on time and on budget. You will need to keep a close eye on project outcomes and prevent costly project delays. Keep in mind that building a cushion can assist you if the project goes over time or budget.

Time and material model of cooperation does not involve advanced specifications, so it can be used when all of the features of the future product cannot be explained at once. Unfortunately, due to the flexible nature of the cooperation, it is impossible to define the time required to complete the project.

Dedicated team

A dedicated team guarantees productivity and high-quality results. In this type of agreement, the whole focus of the developers will be on your specific project and will be interested in lengthy and productive collaboration. The dedicated team agreement counts among the global outsourcing trends.

Furthermore, if you are working with a dedicated team, customers handle the development process on their own, assigning tasks and altering priorities. The outsourcing firm can only help with some organizational moments, but the entire process is with the owner of the product. It is mostly preferred for long-term and complicated projects as it will result in time and money expenditure on employing skilled staff and supplying them with the necessary tools.

Incentive-based Pricing

You can always choose to go for incentive-based pricing models for your next IT outsourcing. It is often an add-on to the more traditional models mentioned above, incentive-based models involve bonus payments to the outsourced developer as a reward for meeting performance objectives above and beyond what is written in the contract agreement. Incentives can help make up for constraints in fixed-price or T&M models to ensure that the motivations of your partner remain in line with your own.

Adding complexity to your engagement model implies you will need to make sure that your partner delivers measurable advantages to your company. Many businesses end up paying partners for premium services that do not actually benefit them.

Shared Risk-Reward Pricing

Like the incentive-based model, this model contains a flat rate and maintain extra payments until your partner achieves particular goals. Here, however, customers and service suppliers generally share financing for the development of new products, enabling your partner to share in the incentives for a specified period of time. The Shared Risk-Reward Model promotes your partners to develop ideas that strengthen your business by sharing financial risk between both sides and, according to Gartner, assigning responsibilities to the partner mitigates some of the risks associated with new procedures, technology or models.

End Note

We’ve mentioned the most popular IT outsourcing engagement models; you can make use of any of them which fits best for your business. Remember, outsourcing is a partnership, and no party should enter into the debate trying to take advantage of the other. However, communicating your expectations obviously and selecting the right pricing model can go a long way to attaining success.

Technology greats of the Silicon Valley have apparently united to make WiFi connectivity easier and more effective in the future.

It’s reported that the group has come up with the inkling of a new WiFi bandwidth for 6GHz before the Federal Communications Commission.

The new WiFi band, it is thought, will bring new, unfailing connectivity for numerous types of devices including AR/VR headsets, smartphones, laptops, tablets and more.

“As detailed in the slide presentation, we explained that VLP operations in the 6 GHz band operating without Automated Frequency Coordination (“AFC”) at 14 dBm EIRP, or -5 dBm/MHz radiated Power Spectral Density (“PSD”), would present no real-world risk of harmful interference to licensed FS operations,” mentioned the accompanying letter sent to FCC Secretary  Marlene Dortch.

Apple and Google are supporting 6GHz WiFi because they can use it for their smartphones, AR/VR headset, virtual assistant-based car infotainment system, and other devices that can use the same band.

The advent of this new band may improve the use of 5tG connectivity in smartphones, which FCC is yet to confirm.

It’s also stated that this technology could also bring peer-to-peer connectivity between vehicles, which may help avoid crashes between self-driving cars in the future, a project on which Apple seems to be working on.

As for the calculation choices of delivery rates, it is possible to substitute or alter the default method price with the MageWorx extension. This allows you to overwrite the original shipping cost, surcharge the designated sum to the original value, or set a shipping discount by deducting from the rate of the method.

The Magento 2 module also allows changing default prices using fixed or percent amount of surcharge and discount.

Furthermore, the Magento 2 table rates module offers users with advanced conditions for configuring customized shipping rates. Using the extension settings, you can calculate the exact shipping cost based on the delivery address in accordance with the following parameters:

• Total weight or weight range of products in an order. 

• Order subtotal or cost range of items ordered.

• The number of products in order or quantity range of items.

As for the delivery destination, the module enables the targeting of a customer’s geographic location by specifying a postal or zip code in addition to choosing a shipping country and region. The feature of the Shipping Table Rates extension allows store owners to leverage advanced validation based on a specific postal code or postcode list, as well as the range of zip codes. Thus, you can activate shipping rates depending on the destination of the order, thus avoiding fees for correcting the delivery address and providing unique pricing for shipments to particular locations.

It is also important to note that in relation to numerical postal / zip codes prevalent in most countries, MageWorx Shipping Table Rates supports alphanumeric postcodes. This kind of codes is used in countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, and others. So, if you deliver your products to these locations, the Magento 2 module offers the necessary features to set the suitable zip code format.

Another useful feature of the Shipping Table Rates extension is the functionality of import/export. The module offers the capacity to readily transfer shipping-related data from other sources, such as from your other website. It allows you to handle and analyze all your shipping charges from one place conveniently and edit information manually when necessary. You can also import a CSV file with existing table rates and assign it to any shipping method or carrier depending on your business requirements.

Conclusion

MageWorx shipping suite is a robust Magento extension that offers an extensive set of tools to modify Magento 2 shipping integration options and create custom shipping, methods, and rates. MageWorx enables merchants to create custom shipping carriers. By using this module’s advanced shipping conditions, you can extend your delivery choices and limit specific shipping options as your business strategy needs. Thus, you can streamline Magento shipping extension management in your web store and provide more convenient delivery and reasonable shipping costs for your customers.

Dollar 1 billion has been invested by Microsoft in OpenAI, reaching a multiyear deal with the artificial intelligence research startup to mutually grow new supercomputing tech. OpenAI will run its services on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform.

Launched in 2015, San Francisco-based OpenAI has frequently highlighted its focus on the moral use of artificial intelligence that “benefits all of humanity.” Microsoft and OpenAI said that artificial intelligence should be used to resolve presently obdurate problems such as the global climate crisis.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement: “AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time and has the potential to help solve many of our world’s most pressing challenges.” “By bringing together OpenAI’s breakthrough technology with new Azure AI supercomputing technologies, our ambition is to democratize AI — while always keeping AI safety front and center — so everyone can benefit.”

OpenAI, which has a unique structure, is supported by leading tech leaders such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist, co-founder of PayPal and a Facebook board member. It began as a nonprofit but earlier this year, the nonprofit formed a for-profit company that the nonprofit’s board still controls.

The new partnership with Microsoft comes at a time when cloud services for OpenAI have allegedly become a noteworthy cost. Microsoft said that OpenAI has been an Azure customer since 2016.

Earlier this year OpenAI offered a glimpse into GPT-2, a AI-powered text generator that focuses on reading comprehension, answering questions and summarizing.

“We are in the process of porting our Rapid project to run on Azure,” an OpenAI representative said. “Rapid is a large-scale reinforcement learning software we’ve been developing for the last few years, and was used to train both our Dota agents and the robotic hand.”