Blog > Point of View

Kii Expert of the Week: Chris Beauchamp, Developer Evangelist, Kii

This week we sit down with our own developer evangelist, a long-time app developer and IoT expert. Q: Where does one get started on an IoT project? A: Well it all starts out with the hardware. You need a device that’s capable and does, well, so... Read more »

Kii Expert of the Week: Pasi Leipälä, CEO / Co-Founder, Haltian

This week, we were delighted to talk to Pasi Leipälä, CEO / Co-Founder of Haltian. Q: Can you please tell me a little bit about Haltian and how your company got started? A: Haltian is a spin-off of Nokia. There were a team of us that were working o... Read more »

Bye-bye Brackets – Swift is here for iOS developers

Developers around the world tuned in this week to watch Apple CEO Tim Cook take the stage to talk about everything iRelated. Anticipation has been building in recent weeks about a health platform, perhaps something in the IOT space, and other great a... Read more »

[Free ebook] How to Get More Mobile App Users

A tremendous number of mobile sessions happen outside the United States, but many developers have a hard time spotting the right opportunities for their apps. Our latest Mobile App Developers’ Guide, How to Get More Users: A Global View of Succes... Read more »

Mobile app promotion: Where to start

Gearing up to deploy your app? 10 tips to help it get noticed. With million of mobile apps already deployed and hundreds more released each day, you're up against some serious competition. To give your app its best chance at success, serious thought... Read more »

Ask and you shall receive great app store ratings

7 strategies to get the ratings your mobile app needs. A recent study by Apurify found that 75% of the top 1,000 ranked apps in iTunes have at least a 4-star rating. Additionally, Apple itself seems to be tweaking its app-ranking algorithms to make ... Read more »

3 Reasons App Developers Need to Think Multiscreen

There’s one big important answer to that question – customers. The people who download and use your app aren’t restricted to one type of device, and they don’t want to be.... Read more »

5 tips to revitalize your stalled mobile app project

You've made big headway with your app, but development issues have you stuck in limbo. You're not alone. ... Read more »

Register for Gigaom’s free mobile analytics webinar sponsored by Kii

Beyond Downloads: Comprehensive Mobile Application Analytics Tuesday, December 17, 2013 at 10:00AM PT/ 1:00PM ET Mobile application development has become a priority for businesses of all sizes, from indie dev teams to startups to enterprises. Wi... Read more »

Roll out the welcome mat for guest users

Traveling home for the holidays, you put up with a lot. An uncomfortable pullout couch. Visions of maniacal sugar plum fairies manifested by too much eggnog and mom’s jello surprise. Uncle Jimmy's incessant yammering about gout and his latest root ... Read more »

Mobile gamers pay to play in China

China's burgeoning app market is the next hot frontier for mobile games, with revenues expected to surpass $1.2 billion by the end of 2013. Driving the trend are the proliferation of smart devices in what is now the world's largest mobile app market.... Read more »

How to handle the tribulations of free mobile app trials

Free trials in the tech world are nothing new. They’ve long been used to get a critical mass of potential customers in the door quickly. The idea is to hook users on your app during a trial period so they won’t be able to live without it when it... Read more »

How to name your mobile app

It seems like mobile developers spend more time naming their applications than I spent choosing a name for my son, and with good reason. Having the right name is critical to your app’s success. So, what do I mean by the right name and how do you ma... Read more »

Stop driving users to your competitors with bad UX

We recently put together our list of the top 10 mobile app complaints that can make or break an app. Most revolved around the importance of creating an amazing user experience, but some naysayers wanted more proof. How's this? If you don’t get the ... Read more »

Don’t bank on vanity mobile app metrics

Could mobile app metrics impede your success? You bet, especially if they’re not really metrics. Last year Mixpanel co-founder and CEO Suhail Doshi called for an end to “bullshit metrics”—often called “vanity metrics”—because they fa... Read more »

Navigation design: No longer business as usual

Pressure’s on to create a unique experience, but mobile app navigation is one of those strange areas where it’s better to be a sheep. Developers often run into trouble when they attempt to reinvent the wheel. On the other hand, apps using older ... Read more »

Get Ready for a Sleighload of Mobile App Installs

he 2013 holiday app season officially kicks off on Halloween, and the picture is looking mighty merry for mobile app developers. In case you missed it, Apple’s App Store recorded 2 billion downloads in December 2012, much of that during “holiday ... Read more »

Roundup: Top 10 mobile app user complaints

Ugh! Don’t you just hate it when apps ___________________. It probably took you about a second to fill in the blank. We all have mobile app pet peeves. Unfortunately, when users decide to trash an app, they don’t just let it go. Everything start... Read more »

How to Drive Revenue With In-App Purchases

Most iOS app revenue comes from in-app purchases. In fact, a recent survey co-produced by Kii portfolio partner App Annie projects IAP will take 51% of the $12 billion mobile game revenue projected for this year. That’s a lot of cash, but nobody... Read more »

App store optimization (ASO), the magic bullet for attracting more mobile users

“If you build it, they will come” might work for baseball fields in Iowa, but you need to be much more proactive in the highly competitive mobile app market. App store optimization (ASO) is a crucial step to get your app out of the shadows and in... Read more »

5 Tips to Recover From a Buggy Mobile App Launch

Bugs happen, even to the big guys, but don’t freak out. A Compuware study from earlier this year found that 79% of users are willing to retry an app once or twice if it fails to work properly the first time. Here are five tips to keep bugs from bog... Read more »

What Apple iPhone 5s & iPhone 5c mean for mobile app developers

Today Apple CEO Tim Cook took center stage at company headquarters in Cupertino, CA, unveiling the much-anticipated iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. What do the new smartphones mean for mobile app developers? A lot. There’s huge potential to piggyback on d... Read more »

Piggyback on the next new device launch

The launch of new “must have” devices generates renewed excitement for apps. We often see a jump in downloads, even across platforms. With Apple set to unveil the latest iPhone(s) on September 10 (if rumor is to be believed), the next boost for m... Read more »

Driving Mobile App Performance: It’s a Numbers Game

Having the right data is vital for making decisions to improve and market your app. But not all stats are created equal. This is the first post in a series looking at the... Read more »

Guide to Pricing Mobile Apps

“We already paid out more money to Android developers this year than in the whole of 2012,” revealed CEO Larry Page during Google’s Q2 2013 earnings call on July 18. In April, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer painted a ... Read more »

The Art of Getting (and Using) Customer Feedback

As a mobile app designer and developer, your job is to put yourself in your user’s shoes. You probably think a lot about personas and mental models for your end users,... Read more »

How to Kill Your App in 3 Seconds or Less

“Every second counts” has never been truer than with mobile app: you literally have two or three seconds to win, engage and keep a user. ... Read more »

Compete Against the Big Guys (Even When You’re One of Them)

hether you’re an independent developer, a fledgling startup or part of a corporate dev team, the emphasis on mobile app development within enterprises is a trend to watch. The same big corporations that were fighting BYOD (bring your own device)... Read more »

Interview with Francisco Lozano, Asst. Director of Engineering at Kii

I had the opportunity to interview Francisco Lozano, the Assistant Director of Engineering at Kii. Francisco works from our office in Valencia, Spain, knows Kii technology inside & out and is responsible for some of the most critical systems runn... Read more »

Launch Your Mobile App Behind China’s ‘Great Firewall’

We’ve seen a big uptake in China mobile app distribution requests since China breezed by the United States to become the world’s largest smartphone market. Explosive user growth is just one part of the story. With an expected 500 million smart... Read more »

Why DIY Is DOA

OK, here’s a quick quiz for you. Did you start developing mobile apps because you: A. Love the thrill of developing an addictive game or useful tool so well designed it can change people’s behavior — and even their lives? B. Really like wra... Read more »