Kleverbeast

66% of App Creators First Want To Create For iOS

At Kleverbeast we speak and interact with thousands of mobile app creators all over the world. Some of the creativity that we see, strongly speaks to the fact that whether in Italy, Japan or the US, so many people have great ideas for apps to grow or create a new business or to share their passions.

To that end we have also learned a few things about the new world of self mobile app creation in terms of;

- What type of apps people want to create?

- What devices do they value most highly?

Here are some of the highlights from our insights that we thought we would share and this may help influence you in your App creation journey. If you are someone who work in Marketing or IT or are a Small Business owner or budding Entrepreneur this might help guide where you need to focus your efforts given your line of business and the makeup of your customers and fans.

Chart 1: What type of App Do App Creators Want to Make

Chart 2: What Device do App Creators Want First

Chris Jacob
VP, Marketing

When Words Fail Apps Speak

When Words Fail Apps Speak

Writing is not easy. We are told in school that you must write then re- write then re- write again. It can be a painful task if you don’t love it. But it is also very important.  Each word needs to be meaningful, and needs to resonate with the target audience.

The problem with writing lengthy paragraphs on your website for example, is that no one reads it.  People do not read every word on a web page. They scan. So your hard work and hours of scrutiny are lost on a web page.

Apps can help

Apps are focused, and because they are highly visual and interactive you are able to communicate your message in a much different way.

Apps Use Visuals

Training materials by the US federal government cite studies by education researchers that suggest 83% of human learning occurs Visually. So if you want your message to stick, using visuals is key.  Apps make it easy to present information in a visual way.

Apps are Engaging

When someone uses an app, they are actively involved in the information as opposed to passively listening to information or reading information on a web page.

Apps also allow you to reach out

Using Push notifications means you can actively contact your app users. Don’t wait for your users to come to you. Let them know what’s going on by reaching out through your app.

Instead of spending five hours finishing the perfect paragraph on your wordy website, spend some time creating an app and communicate with your audience in a new, fun, and engaging way.

How Your App Can Make a Difference?

Apps make it easy to get and share information. They also make it easy to connect directly with a seller. If you are a non- profit or just a socially conscious small business, and app is a great way to promote your cause and show you have a big heart.

For non-profits, it is easy to share stories of successes and share event information through your app.  It is a wonderful way to engage people on their mobile devices. You can even link to your website so that your donors can give to a local chapter.

For Animal rescue organizations, there is no better way to share information about pets that need homes, than through a fun picture filled app. You can even share videos of the furry friends and show a potential owner how well behaved the animal is!

For small businesses who know the importance of social responsibility, you too can share a bit about how your small business works to help the community.  You could also link to your favorite charity website to encourage your customers to give as well.

Don’t forget about Volunteers. Volunteers are the heart and soul of many non- profit organizations. An app can make it easy for volunteers spread the word about a specific cause. All they need to do is say “download this app.”  It can also be used to notify volunteers about events and any volunteer needs.

In this busy world it is difficult for non-profits to get and keep donors and volunteers. Though a clean design and low cost plan, Kleverbeast makes it easy to communicate good work through mobile technology

What are push notifications anyway?

Push notifications are discrete notifications that allow you, as an app creator, to send messages to your customers. They can be in the form of badges or alerts. Often times, when you download an app from apples app store, a message will appear asking if you want to allow push notifications. So the user has the option to allow or not allow.

As an app creator you want to implement push notifications in order to let your users know what is going on with the app. Anytime you make a change or modification to your app, you may want to inform your users.

Push notifications are also a great way to get your users to come back and use your app. So, setting up push notifications will help you market your app, by reminding your customers to come back to your app.

Adding push notifications to your app is free and easy with Kleverbeast. You simple go to settings and enable push notifications. Check it out and see how push notification can help grow usage of your app.

Happy Valentine’s Day - Kleverbeast Launches For All Who Want To Create Beautiful Apps

We write this brief post in the midst great excitement and anticipation as well as maybe a tiny touch of nervousness that you might have prior to a big event!!

Kleverbeast, today, on February 14, launch our Public Beta.

This means that anybody from anywhere in the world can sign up and begin creating their very own beautiful mobile apps with no coding or design knowledge required. Today, this will be for iPad and Android tablets, but very soon, devices such as iPhones and Android Smartphones will be available, as well.

In launching a brand new product to the world, we have to be prudent and ensure that as best as we can, we are giving the best user experience to anyone that signs up today. For this reason, we have limited the devices and also the range of initial verticals and designer template choices as we scale up. This will continue to change every few days as we monitor and elicit feedback, and release ever more exciting things on Kleverbeast to help you create the best mobile apps, such as the gorgeous Photography app below.

So what can you do today?

• You can sign up and begin creating and testing your mobile app.
• You get a fully featured Free 7-Day Trial (including access to all upcoming features released during that time) to create, test and publish apps.
• The initial set of designer templates are tailored mostly to Photographers, Artists & Galleries, Fashion, Retail and the Travel segments. However, you could use any design for any purpose (e.g. an early customer of ours uses the art template for a food blog)
• Depending on the template, you can publish your mobile app to the Apple iTunes App Store & Google Play, for iPad (all types) and Android Tablets.
• You have access to Kleverbeast support via e-mail (support at kleverbeast dot com).
• You can be a part of a select group of people around the world able to create their own mobile app!

What can you look forward to in the coming days and weeks?

• We will introduce additional designer templates for the initial three verticals but also expand to new verticals, such as Publishing, Music, Business, Retail, etc.
• We will expand the functionality of the initial templates, as well as include new features, animations and other cool mobile features.
• Expansion of the ability to include ads in your app along with the ability to do things like in-app purchasing.
• Additional device support across things like iPhone, Android Smartphones and more Android Tablets.
• Ongoing improvements to Kleverbeast to help your app creation experience.

Most importantly, we want to hear from you, so please comment on the blog, e-mail us, Tweet us and leave comments on our Facebook Page. Also, tell all of your friends, especially those who have beautiful content like photographers and galleries, because this is a whole new world for them to transform their business.

Create an App to Enhance your Business

We have all been there. You meet someone on the train, or on a bus, or skydiving over the Galapagos, who is interested in your business. Yay! You go to reach for your business card… and OH NO! How could you forget to bring your stack of fifty cards that you meant to have on you at all times? Or, better yet, you hand someone your card, and they leave it on the bar. Nice!

But what if the next time you meet a potential customer, you can show a beautiful easy to use app. You can show what you do, instead of handing over a piece of paper.

This is only one example of how creating a mobile app can help your business. Here are 5 others:

1. Control Over Marketing Message– Creating an app for your business gives you an opportunity to customize and prioritize what your customers see.  You have complete control over the experience that your customers have.  Plus, since apps work on multiple devices, you can ensure that your users all have the same experience.

2. Unlimited Reach – With an Internet ad, your reach is limited by Internet access. After downloading your app, customers will be able to access your content without Internet access.

3. PR potential – What an easy way to continuously communicate with your customers! With your app, you can keep your customers informed. Plus, you give them the ability to easily share information about your company with others.

4. Money Maker – With Kleverbeast app templates you have a few ways to monetize your app. You can sell your goods through our app. Or, you can host advertisements to earn some more cash.

5. Enhance your image – Let’s face it. Apps look pretty complicated expensive. (No one needs to know how easy and cost effective yours was, unless you want to tell them. in which case, we won’t stop you). An app for your business makes your company looks smart and innovative. Your customers will be impressed with how put together you are!

Apps make it easy to customize your messages and distribute to a limitless group of people. You can make money, and display your company in a technologically advanced way. So, next time you reach for your business card, think Kleverbeast instead!

How NOT To Be a Reject: Do’s and Don’ts for Getting Apple to Approve your App

We love Apple, but they have a lot of rules and since we want your app to be approved, we thought we would give you a Kleverbeast’s eye view of the major Do’s and Don’ts for getting your app published We also want to share some tips for using our templates to help you get published!

1.    Do: Check for Errors

Bugs are icky. Squash them. Once you have placed all of your content, test your app and make sure you don’t have any bugs or errors. Lucky for you, Kleverbeast has written tests for you. All you need to do is click on “alerts” at the top of your editor screen and click “all” to see all of the alerts and errors we found for you.

2.    Don’t:  Leave blank pages or stock content

             We have worked with some amazing people to create some cool apps. To make is easier for you to see what the apps can do, we show you content that others have used to build apps. However, if you have a page on your app that doesn’t have any content in it, or still has stock content from our template you could be rejected.   If you are not using a certain section of the template, you can click the edit button and disable the section you are not using.

3.    Do: Provide lots of content

            In this case more is more. And less is, well, less. If you don’t have enough content in your app, it may get rejected. As a rule of thumb at Kleverbeast we recommend that you have at least 3 full pages with 30-45 pieces of content (i.e. photos, text, videos).

4.    Don’t: Make an R –rated app (X-Rated either)

Keep it clean for the kids. Apple may not accept an app with pornographic or obscene content.

5.    Do: Provide quality content

If your app looks like a two year old made it, it may be rejected. If your two year old did make it, congratulations, you have one smart toddler, but the app still may not get published.

6.    Don’t: Be Redundant. Be Redundant.

If its been done, don’t do it again. Unfortunately, like all good things, apps must be enjoyed in moderation. So, if you are making an app that is too similar to an app that has already been published, it  could be rejected.

So, when you are ready to publish just make sure you are all Do’s and no Don’ts.  Sticking to these guidelines will greatly improve your odds of getting your app approved by Apple.

The Four Trends to Watch for in Mobile in 2013

Everyone is always trying to predict the future, and in recent years, mobile has been a common topic for those with Nastradamus-like qualities. In fact, the phrase “the year of mobile” has been used so often in recent years to describe everything from shopping and advertising, to gaming and the web itself, that it is often now hard to take all of these predictions that seriously.

However, most people who make these predictions, with all due respect, are just humble tech reporters. Dinesh Moorjani, founder of mobile startup incubator Hatch Labs and the former head of mobile at tech giant IAC, and now also also a co-founder here at Kleverbeast, is uniquely placed to make such predictions. As one who is tasked to decide which ideas and business propositions in which to invest and nurture specifically in the mobile sector, he has the opportunity to view when the adoption of these ideas across the mass consumer spectrum is taking hold.

Recently, he penned his thoughts for the Huffington Post as to what and who to watch in Mobile in 2013. The interesting thing about this list is that it covers four areas of mobile that are not necessarily new in 2013, but due to a combination of factors, including technology critical mass, change in legislation, macroeconomic conditions and changes in consumer behavior, suddenly certain premium and innovative companies in these sectors are ready to capitalize. 

Here are his four major mobile predictions for 2013:

1. Casino-style mobile gaming continues strong growth vs. other genres.

2. Creating apps is open to anyone via new tools, requiring no coding skills.

3. New mobile technologies and ideas will be funded more conservatively.

4. Mobile commerce becomes the first choice for consumers over the web.

Kleverbeast Top 5 Mobile Stats 2012

For our first annual Top 5 Mobile Stats of the year, we are going to focus on the overall mobile eco-system and how consumer adoption is adapting consumer behavior. 

It is clear that 2012 has been a year when the smartphone has transformed into a household necessity, particularly in the Western world. With the initial form of the modern tablet device, starting with the Kindle eBook reader about five years ago (a few months after the first iPhone), a new screen form factor was born. The iPad that followed in early 2010 has only accelerated this new way of working and consuming content, and 2012 saw great updates to the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Nook and most recently, the Microsoft Surface. 

So here are our Top 5 Mobile Stats of 2012 (along with an accompanying infographic):

1. 1B Global Mobile Smartphone Owners

This might seem like a huge number, but there are approximately 6 billion mobile phones used in the global market. So the vast majority is still dominated by old feature phones with little or no capacity for data, apps, e-mail and web access. Thus, the potential for growth is still massive, particularly in areas of the less developed world where people are using only mobile devices with no landline-type infrastructure. India, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America are the major centers for this growth potential. In the developed world, the mobile phone has quickly become the go-to source for everyday items such as airline boarding passes, mobile banking, photography, social networking, news, shopping, etc. 

2. 90M U.S. Tablet Users in 2014 - 29% of U.S. Adults

As mentioned earlier, the Kindle was first released in November 2007 and the iPad in March 2010. The fact that this device type will be in the hands of 1 in 3 adults in about a year from now (let alone the global usage) is almost miraculous. One could speculate as to whether the timing is now perfect for users to move from the old laptop/desktop paradigm of primary computing to a smaller device with the ability to consume and create content. However, what is probably less debatable is that most people today, whether at home and/or work, are either using these devices as part of their functional lives or are using a service that has a iPad or Android device option to access their product or content.

3. 8B Google Mobile Revenue 2012 (up 3 times year-over-year)

Google’s Mobile Revenue is now almost 15% of their total 2012 annual revenue run rate, which is remarkable considering it was only 6.5% in 2011, and it doesn’t directly account for the impressive Android growth rates, particularly in the smartphone sector. Considering that most of this 8 billion is for the purposes of business promotion, either acquisition or branding, it can be safely said that the money is following the eyeballs, and if your business or content is not on mobile, it soon may not be seen at all.

4. 81% of Time is Spent on Mobile Apps

Given the huge growth toward mobile devices, what people are doing on these devices becomes a key question, and the overwhelming answer is that they are using apps. In 2011, 72% of time was spent with mobile apps vs. 28% on the mobile web (i.e. using a mobile web browser). Now in 2012, this has risen to 81% of time being spent on mobile apps vs. the mobile web, so it is becoming ever more clear that it is the App that is how people prefer to consume content and do things such as purchasing and performing daily activities. The power of the native mobile app allows the creator far more ability to create features, as well as have more control of the user experience than on the web, so it is not surprising that it is the first choice of entities like businesses and media publications.

5. Average iPhone User has 100 Apps on his/her Device

The iPhone series of phones is the largest selling smartphone device brand in the world. Stats also show both that iOS devices currently make about three times more revenue for App creators than Android and that users are are increasingly using a wider variety of apps beyond the Top 50 apps year over year. Therefore, it is not surprising that Apple stated this year that the average iPhone user has 100 apps on his/her device. As with many of the above stats, the indication that mobile apps are only growing in importance is the clear trend.

 

Background:
Kleverbeast is the premium mobile app creation platform empowering any business or individual to create beautiful native mobile apps across multiple devices with no technical skills necessary. These stats have been collated from a number of sources, including Nielson, Apple, Google, IDC and Kleiner Perkins.
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