We excited to let you know about the Droisys Mobile Apps Hackathon Contest that will give its developers the opportunity to participate in an exclusive and-day Droisys Apps HackathonEvent in Noida office where they will receive help to build an app using the available resources and their creativity.

The Event – taking place on January 18-01, 2013 – will give direct access to people from Droisys Mobile team, including members of other teams as well who can help attendees understand how to integrate the their ideas and creativity into their application.

So how can you win entry to the Event?

Answer:Use your imagination to think about how to use to innovate your apps. You’ll need to bring your idea, a laptop development software, your coding skills and excitement with you to the event.

What is Hackathon

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software development, like graphic designers, interface designers and project managers collaborate intensively on software projects. Occasionally, there is a hardware component as well. Hackathons typically last between a day and a week in length. Some hackathons are intended simply for educational or social purposes, although in many cases the goal is to create usable software. Hackathons tend to have a specific focus, which can include the programming language used, the operating system, an application, an API, the subject and the demographic group of the programmers. In other cases, there is no restriction on the type of software being created.

Source : http://enn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon

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Though not all companies are into it, “mobile first” development is the mantra of the immediate future. Here’s why companies that put mobile at the core of all development have a better chance of making it big in the market.

Mobile Demography : A World Going Progressively Mobile

Mobile phones and tablets are replacing computers and laptops for a variety of reasons. It is becoming increasingly easy to check mail, chat, connect with friends, manage finances, read and edit documents, make payments and much more through tablets and smartphones. Reliance on computers and notebooks is decreasing.

Although the world of PCs and laptops might not just end, the amount of time spent on these devices is decreasing rapidly. Most tablet-users actually spend very few hours per week on their laptops or computers.

The mobile market is not even at its peak. Analysts predict that the growth will continue to peak further. Smartphone apps are outrageously popular and an emerging tablet market is attracting traditional activities from the PC crowd like watching HD videos, video conferencing and editing documents.

World Of Apps Responsive Websites: A Trend In Progress

One of the best examples of the necessity to focus on mobile development is the trend amongst website designers. A huge movement towards responsive redesign to fit the various mobile devices and their resolutions is a testimony to the fact that the number of mobile customers is growing rapidly. People are more into mobile apps to chat, to check their emails, to edit documents, to view movies and more. Over a billion apps have been deployed collectively on the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android).

All of this is a clear indication of how fast the world is going mobile. Tablets and smartphones have overtaken PC and laptop sales: they’re less costly, they’re mobile and they’re powerful enough.

THE CASE FOR A “MOBILE FIRST” WORLD

Much like the handful of designers who design their websites for mobile devices first (and later configure it to meet desktop standards), a small group of developers is now supporting and pushing forward the idea of a “mobile first” development.

With the current fragmentation in the mobile market, a “mobile first” approach certainly is tough but an undeniable fact is that the reach obtainable through such a development approach is enormous. Presently, established companies that have their own desktop apps and offer “Saas” over the web are turning to the mobile sphere to reach to their customers via smartphones and tablets.

The trend is gradually changing. As more people become familiar with smartphones and tablets, the dependence on desktops and notebooks is decreasing. People don’t want to boot up their desktops or open their notebooks to access something: they want instant connectivity and access. Only tablets and smartphones can provide this.

Quite naturally, it becomes intuitive to design for the mobile first, in order to reap the benefit of a faster, better and larger reach to your customers.

MOBILE LIMITATIONS

At the moment, the technology hasn’t reached quite far enough to enable a limitation-free mobile development. Yet, companies that are willing to place mobile at the core of all development have a better chance of getting to their customers resulting in improved business.

“Mobile first” is the way forward.

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BUILDING MOBILE APPS IN AN EMERGING MARKET

Everyone is trying to cash in on the smartphone phenomena. The mobile app market is evolving, emerging and increasing at a very rapid pace. There are more than one billion apps just across the two popular platforms, iOS and Android, and each day, millions of these are getting added into the App stores

From large corporations to small startups, the mobile app phenomenon has helped in many ways. Little, unknown companies like Rovio have made millions through little popular games while large corporations (like eBay) have increased their visibility and sales through dedicated mobile apps. It’s a period of intense growth, undoubtedly.

HIGHLY COMPETITIVE AND SATURATED
It wouldn’t be quite wrong to term the mobile app world a super-satured one right now. For every little functionality that you can think of, there are dozens of apps available. Many of them are free while some cost a little. In a rapidly emerging market, this is highly expected.

For well-established brands like eBay, Times, etc., building and deploying a mobile app is basically an extension of their reach. These brands are already established and well-known and require very little promotion to get on the top of downloads.

However, for startups and other little businesses which embark on building mobile apps, the market presents a very bleak picture: it’s heavily saturated and super competitive.

USABILITY DECIDES SUCCESS

Under these scenarios, quality of an app is decided very much through the usability and functionality of the app. Without credible market research that relies on real usage statistics or “need for an app,” most companies would fail in their mobile app project.

There are exceptions to this though. Intuitively functional apps that are spectacularly designed with an amazing streak of usability, functionality and utility are generally rare but they certainly win the battle at the App stores. Examples like Instapaper are clear examples
Ultimately, what decides the success of an app is its usability and the value it generates. If you can deliver an app that changes the way people go about their lives – and would feel crippled in its absence – you can very well bet on your success confidently.

TRUE SUCCESS IS AN ILLUSION

But then again, if you sold your app for “free” in expectations of large-scale download numbers, even a million downloads would be of no financial value. In a market with strong ROI expectations, your app needs to generate revenue.

Generally, getting users to pay for your app is tough even if you retail for the legendary $0.99 on the App Store. Although smartphone adoption has hit very high numbers, users are still cautious about buying non-physical things like an “app.”

The easiest way to generate revenue, though, is direct buying of the app. And in order to make users buy an app, you need to make it enormously worthy, often many times more than what it is sold for. Building mobile apps with a focus on such value is perhaps the only way to score in such a competitive market.

FUTURE OF MOBILE WEB

With technologies like HTML5 and softwares that enable cross-platform development easily, mobile apps are growing big time, exponentially. It’s going to be a tough time competing with apps but through a very careful approach that borders on usability, design, functionality and “solving a very important need”, mobile apps can turn out to be successful amidst intense competition.

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But while smartphones and tablets seem like a new security challenge, we’ve really been here before — it’s just taking on a different name, and a different form. That’s why when it comes to joining the mobile application development party, it’s necessary to first take a deep breath and consider what we’ve learned from past computing architectures.

Native mobile apps — the ones you download from app stores — can come riddled with vulnerabilities, including authentication, authorization, data privacy and input validation issues, which a criminal can exploit to retrieve customer or company information. Pushing a vulnerable mobile app out to the marketplace is not just a security no-no, it also can have a lasting effect in the form of brand reputation harm or lost revenue.

So while it’s important to train developers on secure coding and threat modeling, businesses must also have a backup plan in case they outsource this work to unreliable coders. Organizations need to have a process in place that regularly evaluates their app code for new and existing threats.

Again, this is really nothing new from our previous — and continued — battles against flaws in more traditional systems and applications. Consider mobile a refresher course.

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And if enterprises don’t take strides to change the developer culture now, there’s big problems lying ahead. But for coders to get up to speed on securing mobile applications, they don’t have to look very much past their understanding of how to safeguard traditional web applications. Many of the same flaws and attack vectors that exist in them also are present in mobile. Here’s a good list.

It’s not too late. We have the chance to make the work much harder on the bad guys. It starts with the developers. I compiled a list of four things organizations should consider doing, so they can avoid the mistakes they may have made in the past.

Preach security over speed: Easier said than done, but sometimes the cost of taking the time to write secure code can pay off down the line. Remember, studies show that it costs loads more to respond to a breach than work to prevent one.

Get them trained: There are plenty of training courses available for developers, many of which are affordable and don’t last more than a day.

Show them their mistakes: Sometimes the best learning mechanism is reality. Conduct regular audits of your apps, and present the vulnerabilities to the coders.

Keep them: Some say that developer training won’t pay off unless they stick around for a while. Try to fend off the competition, and keep your team happy!

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How far we’ve come in a dozen or so years. These days, talking almost plays second fiddle on mobile devices. Texting, instant messaging, web browsing and app usage reign supreme. On that road trip, never could I have imagined the vast computing power that would eventually be built into that handheld instrument.

In sticking with this theme of progress, mobile devices are now becoming payment mechanisms as well, both to serve in place of paper and plastic, and also to accept transactions. Of course, given that the financially-driven criminals have a tendency to follow the money, they know that mobile payments present an inviting opportunity. (Gartner predicts mobile payment transactions will reach $171.5 billion this year. That’s a 60-percent jump from last year!).

The payment industry, however, is trying to do its part to prepare merchants for the risk of threats like malware and man-in-the-middle attacks. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council, which manages the PCI Data Security Standard, has just released guidance for mobile software developers who may be designing payment-acceptance apps.

According to a press release:

[The document] organizes the mobile payment-acceptance security guidance into twocategories: best practices to secure the payment transaction itself, which addressescardholder data as it is entered, stored and processed using mobile devices; andguidelines for securing the supporting environment, which addresses securitymeasuresessential to the integrity of the broader mobile application platformenvironment.

The guidance includes specific recommendations.

• Isolate sensitive functions and data in trusted environments
• Implement secure coding best practices
• Eliminate unnecessary third-party access and privilege escalation
• Create the ability to remotely disable payment applications
• Create server-side controls and report unauthorized access

what you will about PCI, but I think it’s critical that someone takes the lead to define mobile security priorities. Breaches and attacks are going to impact the mobile space, but if we all agree to follow a set of agreed-upon best practices, that risk will be mitigated.

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Sure, there are real criminally-backed mobile threats out there, SMSfraud being a big one. But it looks like, at least for now, we’ve so far dodged the sky-is-falling bullet that has been forecast for many years now in the mobile space. One credit goes to the developers. App development practices clearly are on the improve, which bodes well for the platform’s future.

But let’s not get too high on ourselves. We know that as the mobile realm becomes more attractive to attackers, they will work extra hard to find flaws that could be leveraged for profit.

And besides, malware isn’t the only concern when it comes to defective mobile apps. Sensitive data leakage also is a real risk – as evidenced by a recent disclosure from a Michael Ramirez, a U.S. Navy computer scientist, who discovered that the free mobile app for drugstore chain Rite Aid could expose patient prescription information due to an authentication vulnerability.

He told PHIPrivacy.net:

At least two of RiteAid’s services, “RAPrescriptionHistory” and “RAPrescriptionDetails” were inadequately secured, according to Ramirez. Those services included the patient’s name, address, their doctor’s name and address, the names of their medications, and their refill history.

“The root issue is that there is no authentication that occurs,” Ramirez explained. “The only thing that is providing any protection is a static “username” field in the request. The system essentially uses a hard-coded password that the iPhone and Android RiteAid applications have embedded that is easily interceptable (from discovery to first test, it literally took all of 5 minutes).”

Ramirez said anyone with “some IT knowledge” could exploit the issue. And according to the article, Rite Aid wasn’t exactly amenable to working with him to resolve the issue – as should be the case every time a researcher agrees to responsibly disclose a vulnerability.

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Most of these apps, of course, cost consumers nothing and their downloadstook place in Apple’s iOS app store or Google’s Android (Play) store. But considering the craze, more and more stores are emerging. And that includes private ones andwithin enterprises as well.

They’re known as enterprise app stores, and some organizations prefer these outlets as a more efficient and secure way to distribute and manage the mobile apps their workers want and need. For instance, Minneapolis-based Medtronic, a 41,000-employee medical equipment maker, successfully deployed such a platform.

The value proposition is attractive — even companies like SAP are offering infrastructure on which companies can host their private app stores. They seem to solve many of the concerns that corporations may have over their workers using conventional consumer-based app stores, while also empowering them and offering an environment with which they are familiar and comfortable.

But, before diving head-first into this model, remember that enterprise app stores won’t guarantee that the vetted apps you push to your employees are built with perfect security and privacy specifications. In addition, they can’t do anything to solve the possibility that your workers may be using unpatched devices.

In a word, enterprise app stores won’t solve your BYOD conundrum, but they get you a little closer.

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With several million Android activations every single day, we know for sure that the world of smartphones is growing exponentially. Over a billion people now use smartphones and are actively seeking mobile apps that help them in their daily tasks from entertaining games, to HD videos; from banking apps to social connectivity and more.

MOBILE APP BY THE NUMBERS

Mobile app development is the latest craze that has captured the attention of almost every creative individual. Companies like Rovio, the creators of Angry Birds, have proved that successful mobile apps can actually have an amazing cultural impact and generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Apps are typically sold for a dollar or more but the numbers that they sum up to run into millions. Take for instance, the case of Supercell, a Finnish company that is involved in mobile app development. One of their top-selling games generates revenues of about $350,000 a day.

WHAT IT TAKES TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL APP

Two kinds of apps connect instantly with people: highly (and uniquely) entertaining and highly functional.

Creating the latter is a task unto itself. Social connectivity apps like Hootsuite, instant messaging apps like Whatsapp and several other apps that provide easy solutions for smartphone users to connect, get things done etc. fall into this category.

Games like Clash of Clans, Angry Birds, Bad Piggies, Temple Run etc. are some instances for the former.

In the case of Rovio, they created over 50 different apps before they hit the jackpot with Angry Birds. But when they came up with Angry Birds, everything changed. From a little-known mobile app development company, they turned into an Internet giant overnight.

A successful app is not just about a unique and amazing idea. It’s a lot of factors ranging from a focused approach, a very genuine passion and exceptional development and testing

MOBILE APP TESTING & PERFORMANCE

The founder of Supercell, the Finnish mobile app development agency, said (about Rovio): “One thing they’ve really done for the Finnish gaming community is they’ve done a huge favor in raising the bar for everybody.”

The bar for mobile app performance has gone way up. Today, quality of the mobile app plays a very vital role in its popularity. And all of that gets influenced only in the mobile app testing and performance that goes into development.

RISE OF HARDWARE

Mobile hardware has come a long way since the old times. Smartphones these days are equipped with some of the best processors with the best capacities. A 1GHz processor with 1GB of RAM has become way too common amongst the smartphones. Top of the line smartphones from Samsung and HTC are even more power-packed.

All this paves way for HD graphics, deeper game play, more capacity for local data storage and high-performance apps to run smoothly. With this comes the responsibility of crafting exceptional mobile apps that are tested well before being launched.

VARIANT DEVICES / IMPORTANCE OF MOBILE APP TESTING

The importance of mobile testing can never be overstated. One of the main reasons is the variety of the smartphone ecosystem. Under the iOS platform there are merely two or three devices but under Android and other platforms, the number and variety of devices is enormous. This calls for a very rigorous mobile app testing in order to craft an app that performs exceptionally across all devices.

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