Current Trends in e-commerce solutions

1. Augmented Reality

AR stands for Augmented Reality. It is a wonder to the shopaholics. The technology helps buyers buy the right goods from online stores. It creates a virtual store experience at the customers’ home. They can check all the aspects of the product they are going to buy. How does the AR help users to buy the right product? Let’s take an example. You are going to buying furniture for your home. With the help of AR technology, you can test it by placing it virtually in different areas of your home. If the furniture does not match to your home decor, you do not but it. Hence, the AR reduces the product replacement issue.

Let’s take another example, in which you want to buy clothes. The offline shopping, in this case, is a right way. But it wastes your lots of time. AR drops this problem. While shopping online, AR provides customers with a facility of virtual clothes dressing rooms. In these virtual dressing rooms, customers can try various clothes and buy the one which best matches your style.

AR and Ecommerce Evolution

A lot of brands have installed AR on their platforms. Let’s see some of these:

IKEA

IKEA is a famous furniture brand. The AR app of IKEA lets buyers enter the virtual IKEA store. It saves a lot of time of shoppers. Also, it raizes the users’ experience. The IKEA AR App offers the best way to shop furniture online. In the IKEA app, products are available in the 3D view. So that, the customers can check all the dimensions of the product. They can place it virtually at the desired place in their home to know the exact space requirements.

IKEA AR App

Lacoste

The LCST AR mobile app of Lacoste lets users try a variety of shoes virtually. Customers buy the boots which best match their character.

LCST AR App

American Apparel

American Apparel is among the trusted and most fashionable clothing brand. It lets its buyers try clothing on its AR app. The shoppers can try a variety of clothes on its AR app and buy the clothing best suited to their personality.

Augmented Reality has become a necessary tool to be executed in online stores. That’s why it is on the target of every app development Company.

American Apparel

Read More: How Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are Transforming the Enterprises

2. Automation

Automation is the boon to many industries. Today, we find the application of automation in almost all industries. One such example of automation in the e-commerce firms is the chatbots. Chatbots are an excellent tool for online marketing.

An e-commerce solutions industry offers 24×7 shopping facility to its users. Therefore, it requires the 24×7 availability of the staff. Users can visit the online store anytime to make a purchase. If they face any issue regarding the product description, they want its immediate solution. They can ask their queries by chatting on the e-commerce platform. It is not possible for humans to reply to the questions of a lot of users quickly. The chatbot is a solution to this problem. Chatbots reply to the users’ queries immediately. It increases the users’ experience.

Let’s see examples of some successful e-commerce chatbots:

1-800-Flowers

1-800-Flowers was one of the first chatbots on Facebook Messenger. It lets users send flowers and gifts. Users can select the different items based on the types of event like a birthday, anniversary, etc. It allows users to make the purchase and give them shipping updates.

1-800-Flowers

H&M

H&M is one of the favorite clothing brands. It has a chatbot messaging app, Kik. The app promotes users product based advice on their choices.

H&M Chatbot

Read More: How is Artificial Intelligence Impacting E-Commerce?

3. Voice Search

The Artificial Intelligence has made voice search feature a boon to both users and firms. Today, many e-commerce brands are offering the voice search feature to their customers.

Walmart is among such brands. It lets its users make a purchase using their voice on Google Express. Moreover, they are working on this technology to make it better than before. In the future, they will allow their users to place in-store pickup orders via Google Home.

According to research, about 40% of customers use voice search before making an online purchase.

Walmart Google Home

4. Image Search

Consider a situation of offline shopping in which you see a product, but you are unable to buy it because it is out of your budget. In such a case, you look for the same product in other shops. In the online market, it is called an image search. You can select the image of a product which you want to buy. By using the image search feature, you will be able to find the same product at varying rates.

Pinterest, for example, is using this feature. On Pinterest, users find the related pins by using the image search. For this, you have to zoom in an image on Pinterest.

Today, there are a few brands that have executed the image search feature. It is estimated that the image search will make up about 50% of all the searches by the year 2020.

5. Digital Supply Chain

On-time delivery of a product is one of the crucial factors for e-commerce enterprises. The biggest challenge for the e-commerce brands is to deliver the product on or before the said time. The digital supply chain is helpful for on-time delivery.

Digital Supply Chain

6. IoT

IoT stands for the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things is a technology to connect devices to one another via the internet. The connected devices can send and receive data. IoT has many applications in various industries. For example, the education industry, the medical industry, etc.

An example of IoT in e-commerce is the tracking of a product. Al the e-commerce industries provide product tracking facility to their customers. Using this feature, users can know the location of their product.

IoT E-commerce Tracking Platform

Conclusion

The e-commerce industry is gaining popularity. There are many reasons for this. Many trends affect the e-commerce industry. The AR in e-commerce provides the users with a facility to shop from virtual stores. On the other hand, IoT has made it possible to track the location of a product. Besides, the image and voice search feature provides more flexible search features.

If you are searching for best e-commerce web solutions to boost your e-commerce business, then you can get in touch with us.

The post New Trends Reshaping E-Commerce Solutions 2018 appeared first on PuzzleInnovationz:.

In this digital era, Digital Marketing is what everyone is chasing. For this purpose, businesses need to have a formal website, can be built-in PHP. In the website, companies can display specific important information like the home page, about us page, services page, a Company history page, contact us page, terms and policy page, etc.

What is PHP?

PHP is one of the most preferred programming languages known for web development. Just like Java is used mostly for mobile application development; similarly, PHP is used for website development. Other languages are .Net, HTML, etc.

PHP has many advanced features and is easy to understand for new website developers. Rasmus Lerdorf created it in 1994. PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. It is the most widely used, open source scripting language and PHP scripts are executed on the server.

Benefits of Using PHP Web Development

• It is free to download and use
• Open source
• PHP can encrypt data
• It can restrict users to access some pages of your website
• Well organized programming language
• PHP can be easily embedded into HTML code
• Your website can handle heavy traffic with ease if developed in PHP

Where to Find the Best and Hire PHP Developers for Web Development?

PHP being one of the most preferred web development languages, there are thousands of PHP development companies in the world. Also, plenty of freelance PHP developers are present in the market. Moreover, you may also want to know the cost of hiring a php developer for your project, which may be tricky. Now if you want to hire PHP developer, where to find them is not a question. However, the question is where to find the best PHP dedicated developers for your website.

5 Sources to Find and Hire Dedicated PHP Developers

• Toptal
• Hired
• We Work Remotely
• Authentic Jobs
• Smashing Jobs

1. Toptal

Toptal is a place that delivers you the top best 3% of freelance developers. It is not restrict to PHP and has developers from multiple specialties. Since toptal claims in offering best developers, their selection criteria is very tough to score. They have a comprehensive vetting process.

2. Hired

Hired is for software professionals like developers, designers, testers. Lets you find custom matches through their different pipeline. You can search for clients using a unique search algorithm and request interviews with candidates. Most of the candidates on Hired are having 2 years or more than 2 years of experience. Hence you can get professional PHP developers here.

3. We Work Remotely

In today’s world, having a remote team that works from home saves you much money by eliminating infrastructure cost, devices cost. There are plenty of good PHP developers present on We Work Remotely. To post a job on We Work Remotely, you need to pay 299 US dollars per month. Yes, it is a bit expensive, and hence you can avoid non-serious candidates.

4. Authentic Jobs

Authentic Jobs is a place where companies can get leading web, design, and creative talent. Php development involves creative and technical aspects; Authentic Jobs is a great place to find professional PHP developers.

5. Smashing Jobs

Smashing Jobs is a paid service. If you want to post a job for PHP development here, it will cost it $225 for listing full-time positions and $75 for freelance. Hence you can expect a professional approach only. It is also known as Smashing magazine since the primary function of this website is to publish articles related to technologies. Smashing jobs have 2 million monthly unique visitors.

Top Services by PHP Development Companies

When companies are not looking for individual PHP developers and are in a search of well-established PHP development companies, above options might not be helpful.

PuzzleInnovationz

PuzzleInnovationz is a web development Company based in India. It has dedicated and experienced PHP developers as well as designers. PuzzleInnovationz offers data-driven PHP web development projects and real-time assistance.

The skilled team of PHP developers from PuzzleInnovationz are known for delivering high-quality websites with higher user retention and less bounce rate.

• Dedicated Team of Developers
• Flexible and Effective Methodology
• Latest Technologies and Tools
• Quality Assurance
• Result-Driven Solutions
• PHP/ MySQL Development
• High Engagement Rate
• Quick Response to Queries

WebClues Infotech

WebClues Infotech is one of the best Web Design, Web Development. It is a top PHP improvement organization in India. They offer PHP application advancement. WebClues has top-notch and skilled developers, designers and develops innovative web solutions. The talented designers understand the persona of the target audience and generate traffic.

PixelCrayons

PixelCrayons is a 14 years old PHP development Company and has 4600+ clients. It serves globally, and the team has an excellent expert PHP development team with skilled designers and testers.

The team first understands the requirements and offers them the solution according to their requirements. This methodology of Pixel Crayons makes it more reliable and an excellent option to choose from.

Hyperlink Infosystem

Hyperlink Infosystem is another good PHP development Company in India around the world. Though it has only 5 years of experience in PHP development, it has an experienced PHP team. They develop websites, software, applications, web apps, etc. It has worked on more than 1000 projects to date.

How to Hire PHP Programmer or PHP development companies (4 steps)

Step1- Deciding on the medium of hiring

It is essential to decide the source of hiring. Companies must decide what do they want. For instance, do you want freelance developers or PHP development companies? If there is a small part of coding, you can go for freelance developers. If the project is enormous and requires a professional approach, then hiring a PHP web development Company is a good option.

Step2- Check rating, reviews, and portfolio

Be it a freelance PHP developer or a PHP development Company, checking previous work, reviews and analyzing those websites is very important. This gives a brief idea of what style of work can be done, and you can decide whether to go forward or not.

Step3- Fix the price

It is essential to fix the price. Many times, companies can go with a fixed price option. In this criteria, a fixed amount is set for the whole project. Another option is the hourly prices. In these criteria, developers are paid depending on the number of hours spent by them on your project.

Step4- Communicate

Whatever are the expectations for the design and development part, companies must specify them explicitly to the development teams to avoid any confusion. Communicating regularly will help developers work efficiently and without any conflicts.

Conclusion

PHP is very famous for web development. With extraordinary features of PHP, it is the most favorite programming language. There are thousands of institutes that are training young people in PHP. Having a website is essential. Every small to large business has websites, and it indicates professionalism. Websites contain all the necessary information which can be sought by any customer.

There is plenty of PHP development and design companies. Many PHP developers are actively seeking good opportunities. Similarly, companies are looking for the best PHP developers too.

If you are searching for a professional PHP development Company that excels best in the top web services, then you can get in touch with us.

The post Where and How to Hire PHP Developers appeared first on PuzzleInnovationz:.

For example, Amazon’s Alexa, Siri, and self-driving cars are a few examples where AI has proven its worth in adding advanced features to interact with the machines. Also, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk allows developers to build human intelligence into their applications. Another example where AI is playing a significant role is Google’s Captcha, to minimize the bots intervention.

AI is taking a step ahead and paving the path for the UX to enhance the quality of services and products. AI along with predictive analytics is aiming to find what a user needs or how a user action in a situation.

 “A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.” – Alan Perlis, Computer Scientist

How is AI impacting user experience?

Recently, there were many updates in the market where AI has played a significant role. For example, Google Translate uses AI for enhancing the delicate linguistic nuances. With this advancement, the produced result of translations is accurately precise.

Furthermore, this technology has proven to be a breakthrough for the language barriers. As combining the power of Google translation with the hardware, we get Google’s Pixel Bud headphones. The technology is going to translate the words and feed directly into the ears directly. The world and its people come closer as they can communicate freely without any language barriers. AI is currently being deployed into many digital designing to enhance the user experience.

Below are the examples of how AI impact UX designing.

Chatbots:

Chatbots are present since 2013, but now with the help of the AI, chatbots have become more sophisticated than ever before. Using AI, chatbots have become more intelligent in dealing with complicated tasks. Rather than using scripted dialogues to answer back to the users, chatbots can answer to the real-time users’ queries.

TheGrid.io:

Now user can quickly design their website without any or minimal knowledge of coding with help of TheGrid.io. By collaboration of Molly and TheGrid, now users with no sense of coding can quickly build their website with high optimization and great design as AI is being incorporated in the web builder.

What AI holds For the UX design in the future?

In the recent times, the big fishes of the IT industries like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have unlocked various potentials of the AI. They are innovating AI on a faster pace and also enhancing the user experiences.

Soon, we are going to see a new age of interface, i.e., No Interface. According to the author, Golden Krishna, a designer at Google, wrote in his book  The Best Interface is No Interface that soon we will be witnessing a new interface that is “no interface.” Eliminating physical screens will solve the problem of distraction from the usual work of the user. Thus, with the help of AI researchers are working to develop no interface technology. Screen-less innovation will provide users with secure and dematerialize products.

People considerably recognize and accepts the value of AI in the UX sector. The gradual increase in the number of users of AI shows that in the coming years’ businesses will use AI for enhancing brand experience.

UX designers will get some relief from the high level of data analysis where data comes in large chunks of information. AI can help UX designer or experts to cut down the analysis time as they accumulate and assimilate data quickly and more efficiently.

Imagination has no limits, and AI allows you to dream, imagine and then to change that dream to real-time operation.

Going deep and exploring the potential of AI, we can assure that AI has the power to create an advance personalized messaging system– ‘audience of one.’ An entirely personalize messaging system which learns from the previous activities and preferences of the user. In the future, the user will expect to get only personalize messages according to their interest and problems.

Also, Google’s Feature snippet is a successful example of AI impacting user experience. A piece of information is selected by the algorithm and displayed on the top of the page. Hence, increasing the user experience and also benefiting the businesses to increase the engagement rates and sales.

Thus, it becomes essential for the businesses to design the content structure in a way that it gets selected for the featured content. Furthermore, it is crucial that app development companies pay extra attention to designing of the product by using the latest emerging technologies. Because your audience should like your product and services.

Will Artificial Intelligence take away UX designers job?

The answer to this question is a straight NO. The reason is as simple as the answer; AI is still far from the perfection stage. Although, AI is capable enough to provide personalized solutions but can’t offer customer service, which is preferred by the consumers. Machines can learn from experience, but still, they are incapable of thinking on their own. The evolution of AI is to help and assists people with their tasks to enhance their efficiency and productivity.

Moreover, AI is in the learning stage. It is inefficient to handle the complex tasks; thus, they still can’t replace the human UX designers. However, AI is helping UX designers by saving their time and efforts, assisting them in managing customer service, and many more.

Read More: How are Brands using Artificial Intelligence | Infographic

For example, Netflix uses the power of AI for content localization. For banner placement in different languages, designers use a specific layout that is already designed by robots.

Also, Airbnb is using AI for real-time conversion of paper sketches into codes.

“The time required to test an idea should be zero. We believe that, within the next few years, emerging technology will allow teams to design new products in an expressive and intuitive way. While simultaneously eliminating hurdles from the product development process.” — Benjamin Wilkins, Airbnb

Conclusion

AI can empower user experience in the future as it holds tremendous potential in it. It is the right time for the UX design service providers to explore the hidden potentials of AI.

From the above article, we can depict that, AI and UX together have limitless opportunities and potential to impress the users. Thus, it is the responsibilities of the businesses and innovative minds to use AI to enhance the technologies and user experience capabilities.

If you are searching for a professional Web App Design Company that excels best in the top UX Design services, then you can hire UX designer from PuzzleInnovationz

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Facebook F8 Developers Conference 2018 Recap

1. Dating Home-

Facebook is going to integrate a new online dating feature directly into its app. Facebook named this new dating feature as Dating Home. Users can access this feature by clicking on a small heart-shaped icon. This icon will be available in the top right corner of the Facebook app and lets users with Facebook dating profiles chat with potential matches.

These matches base themselves on the events and groups in which the users are interested. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Facebook said,

“This is going to be for building real long-term relationships, not just hookups.”

He also said,

“I want to be clear that we have designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning.”

It means that the Facebook is very much serious about the privacy of its millions of users. This feature will work for the users who create a dating profile on the Facebook. The app will give the suggestions matching to their preferences.

2. Facebook Clear History-

Facebook is going to introduce a Clear History tool. The Facebook does not disclose the date to launch this tool. This feature will work just like the evident history features of the web browsers. It let users clear the history from their Facebook profiles. According to Mark Zuckerberg, once Facebook introduces this feature, users will be able to view the information about the apps and websites with whom they were interacting.

They will be able to clear this information from their account. After users clear the history, all the data including history and cookies will be entirely clear. Due to this, they have to configure the things again just like on web browsers.

3. Facebook Upvotes and Downvotes-

Facebook is going to introduce a new upvote and downvote feature. This feature lets users upvote or downvote the comments on Facebook. Using this feature, users can downvote the abusive comments on the Facebook. This feature will be similar to the Reddit styled upvoting-downvoting design.

4. Facebook Watch party-

Facebook soon will launch a new feature, named Watch Party. With the help of this feature, users can watch videos while chatting with their friends. To explain this feature, Zuckerberg used his congressional testimo NY as an example. He said,

“Let’s say your friend is testifying in Congress. You can laugh together, cry together. Some of my friends did this! Let’s not do that again any time soon.”

5. WhatsApp is coming with new stickers and group video calls-

WhatsApp is one of the largest used messaging apps across the globe. Today, WhatsApp has 450 million daily users. In the Facebook F8 Developers Conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced WhatsApp soon would rollout with two unusual features. Users will enjoy the group calling feature and new stickers on the Whatsapp.

For now, the video and audio calling features are available only for one to one communication on the WhatsApp. Like other messaging apps (Hike, WeChat.), Facebook is also going to introduce new stickers on the WhatsApp. Currently, the new stickers are available on the Beta version of the app for the testing purpose. However, soon it will be available across the globe.

6. WhatsApp Business-

Last year Facebook introduced a new feature on the WhatsApp, WhatsApp Business. The feature is currently available for small businesses. It lets small businesses to communicate with users on the platform. In the conference, Facebook announced that in 2018 it would test it for large businesses.

7. Instagram-

Facebook will allow third parties to create custom AR filters on Instagram. In the conference, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would allow third-party app development companies to create custom AR filters. The custom AR filters are available in most of the messaging apps like Snapchat. Soon this feature will be available on the Facebook’s Instagram.

• Video Chat on Instagram:

In the Facebook F8 conference, Facebook announced, soon video chat feature will be available on the Instagram. With this feature, users will enjoy the video calling just like on Facebook.

• Bully Filter:

  Instagram is going to add Bully Filter this year. This feature will filter the inappropriate and threatening comments from the Instagram.

• AR Camera Effects on Instagram:

  The AR Camera Effects Platform lets users create custom filters. This feature is a little bit different from that of the Facebook. Here, one has to follow the person who had created the filters to unlock them.

8. Oculus Go-

Oculus Go is now available in the market. It is the Facebook’s standalone virtual reality headset. The all-new Oculus Go supports multiplayer games, live shows such as concerts, and more. For now, it is available for $199. Oculus TV app lets users stream live content from many TV channels like ESPN, Netflix, and Showtime.

• FIFA World Cup Live Stream in VR:

  Oculus is going to stream four matches of the FIFA World Cup without charging anything in virtual reality. It will start with the Sunday’s face-off between Mexico and Germany. Other than this world cup, Oculus is also going to stream other events including a weekly MLB game and weekly standup comedy acts from the Gotham Comedy Club.

9. 3D Photos-

Facebook is going to introduce 3D Photos. It lets users click 3D images of objects using their smartphones.

10. Redesign of Messenger soon-

In the Facebook F8 conference, Zuckerberg announced Facebook Messenger would be available in the dark theme. The dark mode on the messenger will turn the white or blue theme into the eye-friendly dark theme. This mode lets users chat with their friends at night without straining their eyes. It is the feature users have been demanding for a long time. Facebook did not disclose the actual date for the release of the new version of the messenger.

Ending Note

After the Facebook Data Leak case, Facebook is more concerned about the privacy of its users. To enhance the users’ experience and increase the security, Facebook is going to upgrade with the latest technology. Soon, Facebook will launch a lot of new features that will boost the customers’ experience and make their life more comfortable.

For more app industry updates, refer to our Blog section.

The post Facebook Developer Conference 2018: The wrap-up appeared first on PuzzleInnovationz:.

According to reports, Apple would place ads in these companies’ apps. All the revenue that the companies would generate from the App Ad Network would be shared between them and Apple. It is said that the apps that would be promoted will be displayed when the users search for some specific keywords that would match with the relevant app.

As of now, Apple is in speculation to give in this advertisement network. However, the Company is not new to investing in advertising.

Back in 2010, Apple came up with an iAd App Network. The aim of launching iAd was to place ads in mobile apps. However, Apple couldn’t generate enough attention of the users towards this service. Which is why they shut it down completely back in 2016.

Unlike its competitors like Facebook, who have been more than prevalent in using their users’ personal data and information, and revolving their entire businesses around advertising today, Apple is adamant to not do so.

However, the scenario with Apple is highly different. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook has been very critical that while targeting ads, they would not collect any information or data of the users that is more than relevant, making them different from the competitors!

This new step by Apple would direct the tech giant right into a competition with Facebook and Google. But it would probably help developers and brands grow their products and enhance their reach.

Whether or not Apple will launch the app ad network is still not sure. And if they do, the time of its launch is still unknown. However, with the indulgence in this advertising network, Apple might bring forth some contradictions too.

On one hand, these ads would prompt the users to download and use apps, and on the other hand, it comes as a contradiction of the idea set by Apple to train people to decrease the time they spend on apps and devices.

For more app industry updates, refer to our Blog section.

The post Apple Anticipated to Launch App Ad Network Soon appeared first on PuzzleInnovationz:.

APIs ensures that all the users are remotely served with data resources and apps. The APIs can be enabled to you through Google, Facebook, Amazon or any other third-party. To help you know, what is an API, how is API is build and what resources are required to develop a good API, we have created this article. Read through and learn more.

What is an API?

API is the acro NYm for Application Program Interface. In simple terms, API creates an environment that allows one piece of software to talk to another software. It is basically a series of HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) messages that efficiently tells the routine, tools, and protocols that are essential for developing a software application.

There are majorly two kinds of API available in the market. They are as follows:

• Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) – It deals with a formal programming language like Java and Microsoft.NET.
• Representational State Transfer (REST) – It is the famous protocol that is used to define the constraints and properties for the HTTP.

What is a RESTful API?

A RESTful API provides an independent client-server architecture for both the client and the server. It makes a call to a server from a client-side and you get the data back through the HTTP protocol.

It is also cacheable i.e the client has the control of storing the data on the cache. Here, the server is the back end of the service and the client is the front end component.

REST is the most popular and commonly-used style for designing and developing APIs. There is a lot of similarities between the working of a REST API and a website.

For example, when we type https://graph.facebook.com/youtube , what we get is the response to our request made to the API from our browser to the Facebook’s graph API.

The result which we get is some sort of JavaScript Object Notation formatted data. The screen you will see will look like the below image:

So, exactly why we use REST API more frequently and commonly?

There are multiple advantages of using REST, some of them are:

• It is simple to understand by the programmers and is more flexible.
• Smaller learning curve.
• No expensive tool is needed to communicate with the web server.
• Does not require an external processing, thus faster than other APIs.

Setting Up RESTful API for your Mobile App

In this section, we will guide you through about server hosting, designing backend architecture, security, selecting database and storage option, and creating compatibility with the multiple platforms. Let’s dive deep towards addressing each of these points for better understanding.

1. Securing and Protecting Your Data:

Data security has become the utmost priority in today’s time, where it is easy to breach into users personal data through hacking. There is a wide spectrum of the authentification approaches according to your requirement. The basic authentication technique that is using HTTP is not sufficient to secure your data. However, it is easy to implement.

In order, to provide a highly secured environment which offers an end-to-end approach to providing a solution for enterprise as well as mobile devices. The center point of concern when we are dealing with data security is to protect a person’s identity.

Thus, for this reason, we use some kind of digital encoding to protect the data or we use OAuth 2.0. It is recommended to use OAuth 2.0, as it provides double-authentification.

However, OAuth 2.0 cannot single-handed protect al data. Depending on the type of data you are trying to protect we have the Neo-Security Stack prepared for that purpose. The given below is the stack that describes the standard approach (ALFA) which is used to authenticate the data. With the help of these standards, we can create the secured APIs.

It is recommended to use the existing authentification techniques rather than developing in-house, as it will waste time and resources.

2. Hosting a Server:

Server hosting plays an important role, as based on the project requirement i.e. project scalability, performance, and administrative features, a server type is decided. Many mobile app development companies prefer to avail the cloud-hosted solutions which are easily available rather than hosting their own server.

There are many factors that play an important role in deciding where to host the server. Some are costing per increment to the   GAge requirement, migration feature allowing you to have multiple environment presences, the security of your data and system, etc.

3. Strategizing the Architecture:

Architecture is developed in three phase; starting from the development, staging, and production.

Phase 1: Development

In this stage, developers, perform meticulous coding and testing in order to develop a user-friendly app. You can take this stage as the layout or backbone of the application. Data used for testing the app is generated by the developers with the help of the pre-generated scripts. The database is filled with the sufficient amount of data in order to run the test. If your code gets a successful approval from the QA, then it enters the next phase, i.e. Staging.

Phase 2: Staging

Here, the data is real-time data, that means, now you will import the data from the real-time. The good the quality of the data, the more reliable is your code. Thus, try to use the real data to run in this phase.

Phase 3: Production

Well, this phase needs to be free from bugs, loopholes and any kind or time delay in the system. If the system is not able to reproduce the same quantity of data then, it means you have to move down to the phase 1 to make changes in the code and fix the issues.

4. Compatibility with Various Platforms:

When we are considering developing the API, it means we are developing it not for just one single platform but for a wide range. API should be scalable enough to commodate the future changes too. Also, while making an API, preassume your users as naive as possible.

Thus, storing all the heavy sorting, data aggregating and consolidation on the server. This will make the logic for the client simpler. Creating API for the multiple platforms will help you as a developer to write the code once for all type of platforms including iOS, Android, and Web. For the future perspective, debugging and reading logs becomes easier with this approach.

5. Scaling Database:

The type of database you are using depends on the data. It might be possible that you implement the traditional version of the database like MySQL, or you would prefer a more scalable version of the database like MongoDB. Every database has its own advantages and is suitable to implement based on the data you are working on.

MySQL/MariaDB

• Stable, reliable and easy
• Less data mismatch because of well-structured data and rigid data.
• Domain-specific knowledge is required for scaling.

MongoDB

• It is easier to scale than MySQL database
• Easier to use
• No formal schema and no tables required

Different Tools to Test API

There are many tools that can be used to automate the testing process of a REST API. Some of them are mentioned below.

• Postman:

  This tool is easy-to-use REST client. The tool comes with a native version for both Windows and Mac apart from its quick plugin for Chrome users. Postman allows its user to send a request to the web server and server responses back quickly.
  Apart from this, it permits the user to set up all the cookies and headers that the API is expecting, thus checking the response later.

  Features:

  1. It is used in exploratory and automated testing.
  2. Compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac and Chrome Apps.
  3. Attributes like Run, Document, Test, and Monitoring.
  4. Integration with Swagger and RAML is possible.

• REST-Assured:

  It is an open-source Java DSL (Domain-specific language) that makes testing very efficient and easy. This tool supports JSON and XML request/response.

  Feature:

  1. Support BDD (Behavior-Driven-Development) Given/When/Then syntax.
  2. Eliminates the requirement of boiler-plate code to interact with the REST services.
  3. Easy integration with Java projects.

• REST Console:

  It is an HTTP Request Visualizer and Constructor tool that support developers to develop, debug and test RESTful APIs.

  Features:

  1. Syntax Highlighting.
  2. It supports all the major authentication approaches like OAuth 2.0, Basic, Plain, and Custom.
  3. Easy creation of parameters.

How to implement RESTful APIs for Mobile Apps

Well, after knowing about the basic of the APIs, tools, and types of APIs, it is time to start coding with your first basic RESTful API for your mobile app.

Before you move ahead with the coding of API, it is important that you set up your app. For that, we need to first get our Node.js project started with the help of npm. npm allows you to install the JavaScript tools and modules of your project as it is a package manager for JS projects.

• Create a folder, direct it to the command line and run.
  $ npm init

Choose default option for all the npm questions. After this step, npm will create a package.json file, this file keeps track on your project information. You can also install Express, which is a web framework for Node.js. For install Express, run this command:

$ npm install –save express

Now, here are the steps to create your first REST API-

Step 1: Create a file name “index.js”.

Step 2: To import the Express module, initialize the Express object, a manager for GET/notes which reverts back to the request with a JSON object. Also, initialize the port number where the express links to the HTTP. Say, for example, 3000.

Step 3: Now run the code on the command line:

node index.js

Well, you have created your first basic REST API. You can see the result of your request on http://localhost:”Port address”/notes.

Now you can check the API authentication and testing with the help of the tools.

For a better understanding of how to code, please refer the below images.

Here, we request the API to give us the details of the occasions (Birthday, Festivals, Events, etc). API gives the response back by giving the details in the various formats like JSON, HTML, TEXT, XML, etc.

Request to the API can be made in the following manner:

The Response which you will get will be like the JSON format given below:

Conclusion

Above we have tried to give you an insight to the API know-how. It is recommended that to become a top app developer, you should start with developing an easy API first, this will help you to understand the basics.
Also, when you are working on a backend project, try to communicate with the development team as much as possible. This will reduce the bugs at the endpoint and will surely eliminate any lagging in the implementation of the API.

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