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Tech Tent: Controlling coronavirus with apps

It’s the first pandemic of the smartphone era – and that means governments have access to new ways of tracking the spread of Covid-19.

On this week’s Tech Tent, we find out about the apps that are monitoring people with the virus and look at whether they pose a long-term threat to civil liberties.

In South Korea, the authorities have created an app that lets them know whether people who should be in quarantine have broken the rules. In China, the Alipay Health Code app, created by e-commerce giant Alibaba, lets users know if they are allowed to leave home or use public transport. But according to analysis by the New York Times, signing up to the apps can mean handing over data about your location and identity to the police.

Researchers at Australia’s Monash University have been looking at how countries are using tech to manage the virus.

“This is the first pandemic you can access with your smartphone,” Prof Mark Andrejevic tells us. “And also the first one in which smartphones are being used to track people and monitor them and control their movements.”

Of course, what we often fail to realise is that our smartphones and the services on them have been tracking us for years anyway.

If you are signed in to Google Maps, it may well have a complete record of everywhere you have been for years. If you use an iPhone and store your photos in the cloud, Apple will also have a good record of your movements and who you have interacted with.

But in some countries, governments have long wanted to get access to this kind of data – and now they have seized their chance.

In South Korea, they have gone even further than China in acquiring detailed information about people’s movements during this health crisis. Their app tells users about people near them who have been infected, and where they have been.

And that has privacy implications – although the information is anonymised it may not be too difficult for either app users or the police to work out exactly who each flashing dot on the map turns out to be.

Once the system has been put in place, it could continue to be used after this crisis is over. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t use it for the annual flu season, for example,” says Prof Andrejevic

“I do think it’s possible that we might find our concern about the use of information lowered by these moments where because of an exceptional circumstance, all of a sudden this data is being mobilised.”

In the UK, representatives from Google, Facebook, Amazon, Palantir and other tech companies were summoned to Downing Street to be asked what they could contribute to the battle against the virus. The discussions centred around how they could provide data and expertise to help the National Health Service manage what could be a surge in demand.

There is no indication yet that the UK government is considering monitoring infected people via an app. But as the crisis deepens, all countries will face the same dilemma – how much of our privacy are we willing to sacrifice in the battle to keep us healthy?

Original website: https://bbc.in/2QfD7K5

This Top-Rated App Can Help You Deal With Stress in the New Year

Stress tends to accumulate around the holiday season but it’s not like it simply disappears otherwise. Life is full of stressors, from tight project deadlines to frustrating coworkers to rush hour traffic. Don’t just accept the stress, deal with it appropriately by investing in your own mindfulness. Aura is a meditation app that can help you manage stress and anxiety effectively without resorting to bad or destructive habits.

Aura was created by top meditation teachers and therapists and designed to help you prioritize and improve your mental health. Personalized with AI, Aura provides short, science-backed mindfulness meditation exercises every day to give you the peace of mind you need to power through stress and anxiety to be your best self. Each day, you’ll get a free 3-minute guided meditation session and have the option to choose between 3-, 7-, or 10-minute meditations throughout the day depending on your availability. By rating each meditation experience, Aura learns your preferences and can provide more specific meditations to meet your needs. Through the app, you can also track your mood patterns, save unlimited meditations, and access additional wellness content like life coaching sessions, stories, and music.

Find out why Aura has a 4.7 rating on 17,000 reviews in the App Store and a 4.5 rating on more than 7,000 reviews in the Google Play Store. Right now, you can get a one-year premium subscription for 57 percent off $94.99 at just $39.99, a three-year subscription for 78 percent off $284.97 at just $59.99, or a lifetime subscription for 83 percent off $499 at just $79.99.

Original website: http://bit.ly/37kAxsf

 

Fabric’s new app helps parents with the hard stuff, including wills, life insurance & shared finances

A new app called Fabric aims to make it simpler for parents to plan for their family’s long-term financial well-being. The goal is to offer parents a one-stop-shop that includes the ability to ability for term life insurance from their phone, create a free will in about five minutes, and collaborate with a spouse or partner to organize key financial accounts or other important documents. In addition, parents are able to coordinate with beneficiaries, children’s guardians, attorneys, financial advisors, and others right from the app.

Fabric was originally founded in 2015 by Adam Erlebacher, previously the COO at online bank Simple, and Steven Surgnier, previously the Director of Data at Simple. The company last year raised a $10 million Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners,after having sold life insurance coverage to thousands of families.

Since launch, Fabric has expanded beyond life insurance to offer other services, like easy will creation and the addition of tools that help families organize their financial and legal information in one place. The idea, the company explained at the time, was to offer today’s busy parents a better alternative to meetings with agents to discuss complicated life insurance products. Instead, the company offers a simple, 10-minute life insurance application and the option to connect with a licensed team if they need additional help, as well as a similarly simplified will creation workflow.

As with the founders’ earlier company, Simple, which offered a better front-end to banking while actual bank accounts were held elsewhere, Fabric’s life insurance policies are issued by “A” rated insurer, Vantis Life, not Fabric itself.

However, until now, Fabric’s suite of services were only available on the web. They’re now offered in an app for added convenience. The app is initially available on iOS with an Android version in the works.

“Money can be especially stressful when you’re trying to build a family and a career,” said Fabric co-founder and CEO Adam Erlebacher. “In one survey by Everyday Health, 52% of respondents said financial issues regularly stress them out, and people between the ages of 38 to 53 were the most stressed out financially. Parents want to have more control over their families’ long-term financial well-being and today’s dusty old products and tools are failing them,” he added.

Using the Fabric app, parents can take advantage of any of its offerings, including the option to apply for life insurance from the phone and get immediate approval. The app also makes it possible to share the policy information with beneficiaries, so it doesn’t get lost.

Another feature lets you create your will for free, and share that information with key people as well, including the witnesses you need to coordinate with in order to finalize the will, for example. And a spouse can choose to mirror your will, which speeds up the process of creating a second one with the same set of choices.

Fabric also helps to address an issue that often only comes up after it’s too late or in other emergency situations — organizing both parents’ finances in a single place. Many working adults today have not just a bank account, but also have investment accounts, 401Ks, IRAs, and credit cards, or a combination of those. But their partner may not know where to find this information or where the accounts are held.

The app, which we put through its paces (but didn’t purchase life insurance through), is very easy to use. It starts off with a short quiz to get a handle on your financial picture. It then delivers you to a personalized homescreen with a checklist of suggestions of what to do next. Naturally, this includes the life insurance application, as this is where Fabric’s revenue lies. And if you’re lacking a will and have other fiances to organize, these are featured, too.

The online forms are easy to fill out, despite the smartphone’s reduced screen space compared with a web browser, and Fabric has taken the time to get the small touches right — like when you enter a phone number, the numeric keypad appears, for example, or the integration of address lookup so you can just tap on the match and have the rest autofill. It also saves your work in progress, so you can finish later in case you get interrupted — as parents often do. And it explains terms, like “executor,” so you know what sort of rights you’re assigning.

Given its focus, Fabric protects user information with bank-grade security, including 256-bit encryption, two-factor authentication, automatic lockouts, biometrics, and other adaptive security features.

Fabric isn’t alone in helping parents and others financially plan wills and more from their iPhone. Other apps exist in this space, including will planning apps from Tomorrow, LegalZoom, Qwill, and others. Plus many insurers offer a mobile experience. Fabric is unique because it puts wills, insurance, and other tools into a single destination, without complicating the user interface.

Fabric’s app is a free download on the App Store.

Orginal Website: https://tcrn.ch/2XWa68x

WOLL, cookware app with social sharing function

WOLL, a well-known Germany cookware brand released its’ app on Google Play store and Apple App store. Woll aims to create a healthy lifestyle platform which educates healthy cooking concept, provides discount price to exchange cookware, and to share cooking knowledge & healthy cooking recipes.

Healthy dining is very important for busy families in the modern world. The cooking method and cookware become a fundamental and important part of healthy dining obviously. All kitchenware sold in WOLL are international well-known brands which assure quality. For instance, 100% German made cookware brand WOLL, ergonomic cutting board brand Epicurean from America, stainless steel kitchenware brand Triangle from Germany, gadget brand ZYLISS from Switzerland, and lifestyle brand Full Circle from HK, America and etc.

WOLL will upload healthy cooking recipes and healthy life content to the “healthy cooking” column regularly. Besides, users can share their cooking experiences with photos to the “self-cooking space” and gain support via clicking “like”. Users can view other users’ posts to gain inspiration. Through the interaction with other users, both of them can receive benefit.

The app also contains “exchange center”. Users can earn diamond points through different methods. For example, register for WOLL app, share the posts in “healthy cooking’, upload posts to “self-cooking space”, share product information and join different activities. The diamond points earned can be exchanged for cookware for free or up to 50% off discount. After purchased any WOLL cookware, consumers can register for warranty in the app.

To start a healthy lifestyle through cooking, download WOLL mobile apps via Google Play Store or Apple App Store at once!

Refer to : https://www.facebook.com/wollhongkong/

Why you need MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and Prototype while developing your app?

Can’t wait to get your new idea to the market? Honestly, the market is already littered with apps that went all-in and failed to meet customer needs.

In order to minimize the aforementioned risk and to show a successful “Proof Of Concept” (POC) to your investors. You need to launch the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) & Prototype as to obtain consumer feedback first and furthermore to modify your app based on those received comments and responses.

Mobile application development is a great example of MVP concept. Years ago, native apps were designed and coded according to customers’ specifications. However by the time the app got completed, customer and market needs might inevitably changed.

Now you have three choices: 1) You can build a basic app (MVP or Prototype), 2) enhanced, or 3) with ultimate level, all-in! To be a MVP, the mobile app only need those basic functions, by no means to have the fully featured product at the very beginning stage. Thus, when you start with the MVP, you can limit your risks, both time and money, by reducing your initial investment and on the other hand maximize your returns by producing a more desired finished product in future based on the MVP.

Although wireframes could show the blueprint and the texture of the design, nothing brings you closer to your desired app than prototyping. The app may look great on the screen, but you never know if it works on end users until the clickable prototype. Prototypes not only use to help on providing the “Proof Of Concept” (POC), more importantly as to show any usability flows behind the wireframes and the concept.

How to Market Web Apps Online

market-web-apps

With more than 1 billion websites that are online every day, it is difficult to get the attention from people whom you want to market your product, especially if you’re still starting to grow your brand from scratch.

In the tech industry, there are already existing websites that are dominating the web in providing great content (blog posts, reviews, guides) to people they want to target.

If you’re a web app site owner, there are tons of things that you need to consider not to get behind from the competition and still attracting sales from your targeted customers.

In this post, I’d like to share a few tips on how you can market your tech-related website.

1.Choose a good hosting provider

If you’ve been blogging for quite some time now, you already know that a good hosting provider will positively impact your website in terms of providing life time website experience to visitors.

Server errors and issues brought by a bad hosting provider are some problems that you may encounter if you choose not to invest your money in a good hosting.

If you’re using WordPress, you can choose any of the listed hosting provider sites here. Find one that is most recommended (proven to provide high quality services) but is still affordable to pay in a monthly or yearly basis.

2.Publish useful content

It doesn’t mean that you are not a techy person, you can’t write any posts related to technology or web apps. In fact, a simple research on the most common problems faced by non-techy people (e.g. senior citizens) and sharing how to solve them in your blog posts could already be considered as a useful content.

A good example of a useful app-enabled accessories website is Appcessories. It consistently publishes news, reviews and resources about the latest tech-related accessories for niches like health, fitness & sport and cameras.

A list post like this is a one good example of content that requires only a small amount of time and effort to research and write about.

Top Three Inbound Marketing Strategies for Mobile Apps

Mobile. The very word makes some of us cringe these days. Everywhere you look in the marketing world, you see signs of it – mobile this, mobile that… Is it just me, or is it a bit overkill?

Sometimes, I feel like we’re pushing the idea of mobile to the limit. But then I look at the numbers:

  • There are currently 750,000 apps in the App Store alone.
  • These apps have over 40 billion downloads.
  • There are one billion smartphones existing in the world, and that number is growing.

2 Huge Markets - The growth in iOS and Android apps over the past 4 years

Whoa.

There are over one billion consumers looking for information on their mobile devices, and you know what works when consumers are looking for information? Inbound marketing.

In this post, I share the top three most effective inbound marketing tips app marketers can use to begin making waves in the world of mobile.

Inbound marketing wins in mobile

The opportunity to connect deeply with consumers through inbound marketing has never been larger than it is today, and mobile is fueling a huge amount of the growth. When it comes to apps, all you need to know is this: apps have already surpassed the web when it comes to consumer time-spent, and are second only to time spent watching television.

Time Spent in Mobile Apps Now Rivals Time Spent with Television - a multi-year comparison chart 1. Be social

By this point, we should all understand how important social is to any good marketing strategy. However, when it comes to mobile, social is just what we do as humans. We text and email like crazy. We ride the bus and check Facebook. We Instagram our lunches and Tweet our random observations while standing in line at Starbucks.

These days, to be mobile is to be social. This means that social is a perfect venue for conversations about your mobile app’s offerings. Let’s take a look at two of social’s leaders and how they can be used for mobile purposes.

Twitter

A while back, Nike ran a Twitter-focused experiment to introduce a new mobile app they’d created. They proactively shared their content and the app with likely consumers who were sharing their athletic activities on Twitter. The results astounded them. Their two week experiment yielded:

  • Over three clicks per outbound Tweet
  • A doubling of the positive ratings and reviews in the app store for their app
  • As many downloads from the Twitter campaign as their largest paid channel

Although Nike is a large company, the results of their campaign fascinating at any level. The last part is the most interesting: they received as many downloads from their social “experiment” as  they did through their largest paid channel. The ROI was extraordinary.

Facebook

It’s impossible to talk about the social landscape without bringing up Facebook. For mobile, Facebook can be incredibly important. For certain categories of apps (movies, tv, games, news, and others), connecting with Facebook drives a massive increase in revenue and engagement from users. Take a look at the data from some of the most popular apps who have integrated a Facebook login.

Engagement & Monetization Data from Popular Apps with Facebook Login

Facebook isn’t necessarily the best option for every app developer, but when it’s done well, it’s clear that integrating Facebook into your app can really improve your results.

2. Tell your own story

Consumers generally surf and search for apps from within the app store. As such, making sure that you’ve optimized your app store presence is absolutely crucial.  Getting discovered by a large audience of interested customers can be as simple as:

  • Selecting the right name
  • Investing in a compelling and memorable icon
  • Experimenting with categories and keywords, and
  • Testing and optimizing your app’s description (social proof in the description itself works wonders – take a look at the description that document signing app SignNow has crafted)

You must own your presence in the app store and also make it another channel for telling your app‘s story. Most app developers gloss over many of the important details that can affect downloads for an app. It’s important to not let the app store tell your app’s story for you. If you do, you’ll be missing out on a large marketing opportunity.

The app store is only one place to tell your story. Using your website and other channels to share why people use your app and what problems you’re solving is an increasingly powerful method of enabling app discovery, and it also makes your app seem more “human.”

Because apps are so exceptional at providing task-oriented solutions in small consumable packages, journalists and bloggers are actively searching for apps they can share with their audiences. The largest tech blogs and app review sites routinely drive as many installations as a feature in the app store. Take the time to produce content and information that will appeal to journalists and share your story in enough detail that they’ll discover your app and want to learn more. For a great example, take a look at how the small team behind Chewsy has shared their unique take on restaurant and dish reviews with publications like Forbes.By sharing your story with these outlets, it’s likely that your downloads will increase.

3. Court your audience of fans from day one

It should be clear that you want to own your story and tell it in the app store and elsewhere. However, there is another, more powerful route – having your customers tell great stories about you. Not only is this personally gratifying (nothing’s better than hearing from a customer that you’ve developed something that delights them), but word of mouth is incredibly effective. Consumer studies continue to show that recommendations from the people we know are trusted the most for the average consumer.

Data on the Most Trusted Advertising Sources for Consumer Decision-Making

Now, how do you get your fans to go tell their friends and say good things in public?

For many web businesses, this is an incredible challenge because there’s no centralized source for customers to share their thoughts. For mobile apps, that’s not the case – the app stores give you a great venue for this in the form of the ratings and reviews sections.

But how do consumers get to the app store to review your app? Despite the existence of easy opinion-sharing venues most customers don’t speak up.In fact,it appears that less than 0.1%of downloads result in a rating or review in the app store. Most consumers need a nudge – a reminder that they can share their thoughts and opinions.

This is why you should be proactively connecting with your customers from day one. If your app has a returning audience it means that there are people who are a fan of what you’ve built. Those customers are highly likely to share their fandom with the world, if you make it easy for them to do so.

The wonderful thing about developing apps is that you can use them as a direct channel to talk with your customers. Reaching out to your biggest fans inside your app, and connecting more deeply with them is a powerful strategy for increasing customer loyalty and motivating a group of evangelists.

Connecting with your audience of fans certainly increases the number of customers leaving great reviews for your apps, but it’s about more than just reviews. It’s about the recognition that we walk around with our smartphones all day long.

When we take a look at our phone in a meeting or open it at dinner, we’re around others, introducing them to apps we love. By communicating closely with your customer base, you can massively change your awareness and download trajectory. We’ve talked with a number of developers who can map their adoption geographically. Word of mouth, in the real world, is a major inbound channel for mobile which every app developer can influence in a meaningful way.

F&B takes bite at mobile apps market

Food and beverage chains PastaMania and Pizza Hut tap growing mobile-savvy consumer base, launching apps that allow customers to make home delivery orders via their smartphones. Efforts will stretch customer reach and generate new revenue, say company execs.

To better leverage and engage with the growing community of mobile-savvy consumers, food and beverage (F&B) companies are pumping efforts to develop their own mobile commerce apps, allowing customers to order food directly via their smartphones.

Read more: http://www.zdnet.com/f-and-b-takes-bite-at-mobile-apps-market-2062204357/

App Review : SodaCard App

One of the hottest new apps on the Hong Kong market is the SodaCard app. SodaCard is a rewards company that works with different restaurants and establishments around Hong Kong that provides rewards to customers based on their visits to each place. All Soda cards and the app are complimentary and are designed to be used at affiliated establishments to provide loyalty rewards. The customer receives points per check in with the app which provides location based services for checking in. The rewards are different at each establishment and being able to cash out the rewards is different as well.

For instance, if the customers have checked in and received a certain amount of points, there are different rewards with each establishment and a different reward system. Notably, it is easy to understand that with the more points collected the bigger the reward. For instance, Hokkaido Dairy Farm, whom is a restaurant member of the SodaCard App, offers milk teas, lunch sets and snacks as their rewards. It is to be noted that the SodaCard app only requires customers to check in at the establishments and does not require purchases.

The SodaCard app has checkin points available near a point of sale where the customers are encouraged to take a physical card or use their phone app to take a picture. Both foreign and local establishments have decided to get this app and help contribute to their business as well as the entire Hong Kong F&B market. The Soda app has been developed to drive brand loyalty and awareness in the region and it seems to be a success so far.

The SodaCard team created a sleek and sexy Soda app that keeps the customer engaged and visually pleased. The app is easy to access and streamlined so there is no questioning when it comes navigation. The app is delivered in Chinese or English and the app design is flawless in either language.

AppDevelopment_SodaCard(2) AppDevelopment_SodaCard(3) AppDevelopment_SodaCard(4) AppDevelopment_SodaCard(5)

Disclaimer: The content of the above mobile app review are the opinions of the reviewers and is intended for informational, educational and discussion purposes only, and should not be used, interpred or relied upon as any form of recommendations. We does not endorse or accredit the mobile app. We make no representations or warranties with respect to the app for the company owned the app and the app developer developed the app.

App Review : My Observatory – The Hong Kong Observatory App

MyObservatory App is one of the most well known and widely used apps in the Hong Kong Market today. The app provides timely weather information about what is going on Hong Kong. This hong kong based app sends through push notifications every time the government issues a different weather warning that might affect the outcome of your personal day.

The app was developed in Hong Kong by the government and was designed according to the layout of the current website. Although the design is a little outdated and not focused on ultimate user experience but it is functional and works on a multi-platforms and all different forms of phones. As design isn’t the main part of the HKO experience, the Hong Kong app has been made to deliver information timely and accurately.

The Hong Kong Observatory whom sends push through notifications is one of the most influential Hong Kong apps as the information it delivers is timely and important. The Hong Kong app design was made for more practical purposes as it was designed to be sent to an English and Chinese audience.

There is a big difference when it comes to design for the Chinese and English crowd. The Hong Kong app crowd seems to favor a more flashy and busy design for their audiences while the English speaking crowd seems to favor a simpler design. The Hong Kong app development seems to offer different designs for different languages which makes the app world a bit more interesting. How do the app development teams define what design for what language? It depends on the team and the market for the app. When it comes to government apps the easier translatable the better.

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Disclaimer: The content of the above mobile app review are the opinions of the reviewers and is intended for informational, educational and discussion purposes only, and should not be used, interpred or relied upon as any form of recommendations. We does not endorse or accredit the mobile app. We make no representations or warranties with respect to the app for the company owned the app and the app developer developed the app.