In today’s digital-driven world, the rapid rise of mobile devices has enabled organizations and their teams to move beyond the limitations of a plain old telephone service (POTS) and embrace apps and mobile technologies that not only improve communications but also simplify operations and boost business performance. But this global explosion of mobile apps has also given birth to new challenges…namely, the user experience and the user journey. Today’s time-sensitive users expect a fast, consistent, and rewarding mobile experience. Consumers are also actively seeking reliable mobile apps that deliver on performance, and they are quick to abandon poor performing apps.
To solve these challenges, businesses and mobile app developers are employing new technologies that help deliver optimized user experiences. As the first in-app technology, PacketZoom is helping to provide a sophisticated solution to analyze, detect, and solve mobile app networking issues in real-time, thus meeting the needs of both consumers and companies
SourceForge had a chance to catch up with Shlomi Gian, the Chief Executive Officer of PacketZoom, to discuss the effects of mobile network performance on mobile app users. Gian also helped highlight the importance of download time and connection quality for mobile applications, and further offers insights on how businesses and mobile app developers can solve mobile network performance issues and enhance the user experience.
The Impact of Mobile Network Performance on App Users
Given the popularity of mobile applications and the growing competition in the mobile app industry, businesses and mobile app developers know the importance of mobile app performance and just how it can affect the user experience, expectation, and behavior.
Shlomi Gian, the CEO of PacketZoom
PacketZoom’s new study on Mobile Network Performance revealed that 66% percent of the surveyed consumers considered network performance very important. Out of the 2,000 participants in the US, ages 18 and older, 71% of respondents expect apps to load within three seconds, while 63% abandon an app that takes more than five seconds to load. Based on these findings, today’s consumers are placing great importance on mobile network performance to create more engaging and more immersive experiences.
The study also revealed how quickly consumers get frustrated when mobile apps perform poorly or even fail to load at all. “As the recent study shows, with the growing competition in the mobile app space come high consumers expectations and low tolerance towards slow, unreliable apps,” said Gian. “Consumers expect a fast, rewarding, consistent experience and are fast to abandon those brands that don’t deliver on performance. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for mobile app developers who are willing to invest in new technologies to ensure an optimized, consistent user experience.”
Gian also emphasized the importance of time and reliability when it comes to finding the best mobile apps. “Consumers today are overwhelmed with information and possibilities,” said Gian. “With limited time and low attention span, brands need to stand out and truly engage with consumers to win their loyalty. When using mobile apps, consumers mentioned network performance as the second most important trait after security, which shows you how important is time and reliability to today’s consumers.”
Improving Mobile App Networking Performance with PacketZoom
PacketZoom redefines mobile application performance by delivering sophisticated in-app mobile networking technology that helps enhance the user experience. In order to solve mobile app networking performance issues and connection latency, PacketZoom offers developers and businesses two new best practices to improve the mobile user experience. “The first one involves HTTP connection setup based on the actual network available in runtime to ensure that each request is executed in an optimal way,” said Gian. “The second has to do with sequencing HTTP requests based on desired app functionality.”
PacketZoom also offers developers Mobile IQ, a free-forever mobile APM and optimization tool released this past September. Through these tools, PacketZoom aims to empower app developers by allowing them to easily analyze, troubleshoot, and control apps across all networks and geographies in real-time.
The key capabilities of the Mobile IQ include:
- Offering data display and collection;
- Alerting of performance issues;
- Providing URL control and content prioritization;
- Blocking and redirecting of error-causing URLs; and
- Monitoring app speed, failures, HTTP errors, session length, disconnects, throughput, and more.
Aside from launching the Mobile IQ, PacketZoom recently partnered with Amazon CloudFront. Now, by bundling Amazon CloudFront’s service with PacketZoom’s Mobile Expresslane, app developers can easily get all of their networking needs by using a single SDK for the best price.
Looking Down the Road: The Future of Mobility and Mobile Apps
The Internet of Things (IoT), sensor technologies, and self-sufficient machines are changing the mobile and transportation landscapes. With the advent of digital transformation, today’s smart consumers expect to transition across information channels seamlessly while on the road. Car-to-phone Bluetooth capability, onboard GPS, and traffic alerts, are no longer enough for the auto buyers. This is why the need for advanced connected car apps has increased exponentially.
According to Business Insider’s premium research service, BI Intelligence, 381 million connected cars are expected to be on the road by 2020 and will generate $8.1 trillion between 2015 and 2020. To fully embrace autonomy and to achieve a sustainable mobility experience, today’s automakers and technology companies should start investing in connected cars and autonomous vehicles.
By innovating and accelerating mobile app development for the connected cars, automakers and technology companies can meet the needs of the customers as well as grow the IoT connected vehicle industry. “The tremendous investment in connected cars and autonomous vehicles will require higher and better connectivity in the car,” said Gian. In order to help deliver the best app-enabled driving experience, PacketZoom is working on developing a new approach to cater to the needs of the customers. “We have not seen any other solution in the market that can successfully address those specific challenges, hence, we are working on developing a new solution to support that growing need.”
About PacketZoom
Headquartered in San Mateo, California and established in 2013 by Chetan Ahuja, PacketZoom specializes in native mobile apps, iOS, Android, content delivery network, mobile networks, mobile user retention, mobile monetization, software development kit (SDK), and more. Specifically built for native mobile apps, the company’s reliable mobile platform supports mobile app developers by analyzing, controlling, and boosting mobile app performance. PacketZoom supports leading mobile game publishers and travel, shopping, and news apps. On the business front, the company continued their expansion in emerging markets and added in Southeast Asia (Perfect Corp, Inshort, and Netmed, to name a few) as well as Latin America (e.g. Bellcorp).