What’s one common link among Zomato, Ola, Uber, UrbanClap, Grofers, BigBasket, Dunzo, Swiggy? All are popular On-Demand Delivery Applications (Apps) that are mobile-based customized applications catering to their specific services. In other words, you can understand it as on-demand service apps that live on your mobile phones. Exactly, you got it right! When you are hungry and not in the mood to cook, you order pizza on Swiggy. What do you do? Download the ‘Swiggy’ app into your mobile phone, and order your food from your favorite restaurant listed under Swiggy. When you place an order, the app connects you to the restaurant and you pay online via a digital wallet or card payment. All is done online. And yes, you are notified about your delivery status and can track your order (delivery boy)and see whether it arrives on time as notified. A typical on-demand service app works like this. For an Android-based platform, your app location is Google play store while if you have an APPLE device, you need to download from an iOS platform. Then, there is also a Cross-Platform that exists in the ecosystem where your device is compatible with both platforms. If you are a start-up or business owner and want to develop a specific on-demand service app, your future is bright. Customers want app-based services for their daily needs as well as urgent medical attention like telemedicine where on-demand doctor’s consultation is also possible. The universal pandemic-led disruptions are another factor that triggers the growth of business prospects in this sector.

Basic Characteristics

Three important players –

1. On-Demand App
2. On-Demand App Consumer
3. On-Demand App Service Provider

On-Demand Delivery Apps – Their Types

• Business to Business (B2B) –  Business transactions between Start-ups, SMBs, or Enterprises
• Business to Consumer (B2C) – Transactions between service providers and consumers
• Consumer to Consumer (C2C) – Transactions between consumers

Few Popular On-Demand Delivery Apps

• Instacart
• Ola
• Zomato
• Lyft
• Grab
• Bigbasket
• Dunzo
• Byju’s
• Amazon
• ebAy
• Walmart
• Medlife
• Pharmeasy

Bright Future Is Here

• The On-Demand Delivery Mobile App Market-Revenue is expected to reach a massive  335 billion USD by the year 2025. It stood at 14billion USD in the year 2014.
• Angel investors are happily willing to invest in app-based Start-Ups catering to varied sectors.
• In fact, US consumers are lavishly spending,57.6billions USD, in the On-Demand economy.
• In the US, the market value for mere on-demand food delivery app increased from $8.7billion in 2015 to $26.5bilion in 2020 (As per BusinessInsider)

5 Trending Industries for On-Demand-Delivery App Market

1. Transportation &Travel

Transportation & travel app is considered a big revenue generator and venture capitalists’ favorite investment sector for the same. With the arrival of several travel apps like Ola, Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, all are making travelers’ and commuters’ lives so easy, comfortable and convenient. Even the businesses are basking in the glory of the success of their transportation apps which also take care of the safety parameter of passengers due to digitally-enabled mobile app inherent features. It works like, your customer will book your taxi or cab on the Ola or Uber-like app, will get ‘booking confirmation’ notification, and can track the driver’s location on his Google Map. Even the time is notified by which driver or rider is expected to arrive at the location. Even, the booking can be canceled from either side. On the other side, the driver also has a specific app where he sees his updates of the passengers, payment system, etc. Security feature like OTP or CODE gives end-users a seamless experience .

2. Food Industry

Restaurants have suffered a lot due to the Pandemic effects and are in the resurrecting and survival mode. One striking reason for their rebirth is the availability of digital-technology enabled On-Demand Delivery Mobile Applications like Zomato, Swiggy, Dominoes, McDonald’s, etc. Platform-to- Consumer businesses such as UberEats, DoorDash, Grubhub in the US have propelled the food-delivery market lately as per Statista, McKinsey reports.

While on-demand food delivery apps like Swiggy, Zomato are an all-time favorite among people and even small and big food brands have come out with their unique brand-based apps developed by themselves. Consumers like the comfort-zone where ordered food home-delivered and businesses get the opportunity to expand larger avenues. Even this mode is proven to be highly cost-effective for the restaurant businesses where the app does the work.

3. Education

The COVID-led pandemic has impacted the education industry to a greater level where students, teachers, staff are shifted to the virtual mode of operations. Online learning has become the only way today for students and on-demand delivery app for e-learning, coaching, tuitions, school, etc. are dependent on the system. App-based e-learning platforms are a great opportunity for businesses to go for specific on-demand mobile applications. This industry is ever-growing with an estimation of a huge $319.167billions by 2025(source – Statista).

4. Healthcare

The Healthcare industry is seeing a massive surge in the development of on-demand mobile apps across the globe. The reason being a valid one – people are home-bound due to corona scare and critical patients need emergency medical attention. Even normal people need online consultation for check-ups, prescriptions, or any other medical requirements. Unnecessary queue waiting is avoided while being a time-saving affair. Telemedicine is another reason where this form of an app is motivating businesses going forward to develop[ one. Online appointments, purchasing medical equipment, medicines, etc, are taken care of. All these ordered healthcare products are delivered at doorsteps. Some notable apps are Pharmeasy, Medlife, Netmeds,1MG, and so on.

5. Home-Services

This sector has seen an immense rise in the development of the on-demand delivery app. Beauty salon services, home cleaning, and the likes have attracted consumers and businesses alike. These services are maintaining company-specific protocols for providing satisfactory and safe measures at the doorsteps. Corona-related precautionary measures are adequately followed by all the services concerned. The online global home-services market revenue is seen to be growing up to $1574.86 billion by the year 2024.

Digital Technology is the Core

On-Demand Mobile Apps are making a spur across businesses around the globe. People are experiencing a comfortable life because the app-based system takes care of their daily chores. All they need are mobile phones and respective apps which they can download and install in easy-to-follow steps. Besides, the very idea of creating an on-demand delivery app is seen as a  lucrative business prospect for entrepreneurs, SMBs, big brands. Digital technologies like AI, ML, Blockchain, etc. are the mandatory tools one needs to adopt and integrate within the existing business models. However, if you want to launch an on-demand delivery app for your business,  you need to find out first, which platform might suit your requirement, viz., Android, iOS, Cross-Platform. So, you should consult a professional mobile app development company for recommendations.

The future of On Demand apps looks promising and it’s scaling new heights across industries. Reach us to know more or ask for a free demo.

Apple’s highly anticipated tablet computer would not, after all, require purchasing all new applications. Instead, everything in the App Store would automatically work on the iPad. As Jobs explained, tapping one button on the iPad screen transforms apps made for the 3.1-inch iPhone/iPod Touch screen to a snugger fit on the 9.7-inch iPad.

Simple, right? For the iPad owner, sure. But the iPad means bigger changes for the people who create these apps. Though the iPad has been dismissed by some as an oversized iPod Touch, it’s definitely not, as those who attempt to make iPad apps or re-create iPhone apps for it will find out fast.

That includes people like Michael Groves, who is half of a two-person development team at Wandering Pig Studios. He currently has two apps on the store, TapBox and a snow globe app. Groves, like most of his peers, is excited about the iPad. The extra screen real estate on the 9.7-inch device is a big deal, mostly because apps that were a no-go on the relatively small iPhone screen might actually work on the iPad.

“We’re starting to work on a game we originally positioned as an iPhone app, and it died because of the screen size issue. Now it will be our next project,” on the iPad, Groves said.

But bigger isn’t necessarily better in all cases. Cameron Daigle, a Web and interaction designer for Griffin, which makes all sorts of Apple accessories, says that like moving from a cramped apartment to a three-bedroom house in the suburbs, it will probably take app makers awhile to get used to all that space.

"What those (developers) are going to find is that the iPad has five times as much screen space, and your little app is going to look funny on there," Daigle said. "It’s going to be interesting to see how people grow their apps to fill that space. You’ll see a lot of awkwardly sparse and awkwardly cluttered apps as people figure out how to use that space."

Groves is also dealing with this problem. One of his apps is a game called Tap Box, in which players tap various colored blocks as they fly across the screen in changing patterns. Players advance by tapping all of the bad blocks as they try to make it off the screen.

"The interesting thing, on a much bigger screen size the game becomes a lot easier " Groves said. "If you have larger targets with larger screen, you’ll not have as much of an appeal as far as maintaining a (certain) challenge level "

For Groves, just having users click the 2x button Apple will put on the iPad screen will likely kill his app–if it’s not fun, who will buy it? So he has to basically rework his app from scratch to make it a decent experience on the iPad. So he will have to figure out a way to make his game more difficult.

Daigle, who has worked on Griffin’s iTalk voice-recording app, among others, says very simple apps like Griffin’s (the entire app consists of approximately seven elements) also won’t automatically benefit just from being larger. Making a button three times as big as the one on the iPhone app might look silly. It’s figuring out how to fill all that extra space that becomes the most important hurdle to overcome. That means rethinking what elements go on the screen, how big they are, and how users will interact with each element, all of which are things they’re working on as you read this.

Of course, many apps will translate to the large screen beautifully, like the ones we’ve already seen at the iPad introduction. Visually rich interactive games like Nova by GameLoft can only improve by being reworked and magnified. And MLB’s At Bat app benefits from being able to surface more info for stats-loving baseball geeks. It’s obviously not a coincidence as far as the apps chosen by Apple to demo the iPad–they make Apple’s new platform look good.

The iPad introduction event was not just a marketing strategy, it was also a subtle challenge to would-be iPad app makers. Apple set the bar really high with its own iPad apps. By demonstrating the likes of iBooks and iCal, applications which are very rich, distinct, and interactive, Apple is signaling to developers what they can and should do with this new platform.

"The iPad will require much more effort from a developer standpoint,” Groves said. “You have to put time into designing a workable interface that feels like it uses the screen size."

Instead of a few weeks to make a cookie-cutter iPhone app, standing out next to iBooks or iCal will probably take a few months, depending on the number of developers who can work on it. For Groves, it’s just him and another designer. At a large mobile developer shop like GameLoft, which has 60 games on the App Store, and 800 developers who work on the iPhone platform, it still means more work to upgrade to iPad-ready apps.

GameLoft Vice President of Publishing Baudouin Corman said his company intends to rework as many of its games for iPad as it can, though all of them is not really an option. "We can’t optimize all 60," he said. "Basically we have to make some choices…the ones that make sense best on the big screen."

Though it’s extra work, it’s worth it, says Daigle, because App Store shoppers will take notice. "There will be a big difference between a good, paid app and a free app," he said. "Free apps are going to look pretty free."

And that’s not meant to denigrate free apps at all, but to say that the gap between well-designed apps and poorly thought-out ones should be very obvious. Just allowing users to click the 2x button to scale up is an OK solution, but it’s not something designers and developers should rely on, according to Daigle.

"Scaling up never looks good–it doesn’t look good in Photoshop, much less something you’re interacting with," he said. "Apple is doing that to provide a little bit of a transitional period. But people are never going to be happy with scaling."

But there are other things developers need to think about too. Increased size also equals increased weight–the iPad weighs in at 1.5 pounds, the iPhone 3GS at just one third of a pound. Apps that require any sort of movement or shaking, like the Bump app for example, won’t be a natural way to use the iPad.

Groves says that worries him about his snow globe app, wpSnow. You shake an iPhone or iPod Touch with his app open and snowflakes float down onto the Christmas tree. "Not many people have held an iPad. My concern is that app (requires) the user to move the phone around a lot. With the heft of the iPad, will that cause an issue with user interaction? Will users drop the pad if they’re swinging it around a lot ? "

Clearly, this will be a learn-as-you-go process for iPad developers. While they have access to the software development kit (SDK), it only contains a simulator. Few people outside of Apple have yet to touch an iPad, and until April 3, when the device hits stores, app makers will likely have a learning process ahead of them. But for designers like Daigle who look forward to the direction the iPad is moving mobile computing in, it’s exciting, since it’s clear the iPad is just the beginning of a lot more changes in store.

"I think the iPhone/iPod Touch has been a training ground of sorts to get people used to this interface and concepts," said Daigle. "I think we’ll look back at when iPhone first came out, (when app design meant a) top bar, bottom bar, and space in the middle. Apple did that on purpose, releasing the smaller design (of the iPhone) first to get people used to it…If they had released iPad first people would have been overwhelmed"

Resource:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20000393-260.html

If you happen to be an Orkut user with an Android phone, you might be glad to learn that Google has announced the release of an Orkut widget for phones that use the platform.

Along with the Orkut widget, Google Buzz too gets a new Android widget.

For those who are still unaware, Orkut is a dominant social network in Brazil and India where even Facebook finds itself relegated to the second spot. Although Facebook has managed to usurp Orkut’s dominance in India to an extent of late, it has not managed to do so in Brazil. The Orkut app boasts of features such as Live Folders and photo upload options right from the phone. The Live folders option allows users to scroll through your buddy list even whilst you are “offline” and are not using a data connection. And yes, you also get scrap notifications – in real time. The Orkut app can be downloaded from the Android Market.

The Google Buzz widget helps you do what it is intended to do – post Google Buzz updates. You can post text, photos and stuff directly from the phone. The posts can be tagged as well. The Google Buzz widget for Android is compatible only with devices that have Android OS 1.6 installed. To add the widget, all you need to do is to go to Menu > Add > Widgets > Google Buzz and that should do the trick. Will this new Orkut widget manage to save Orkut from being usurped by Facebook as the largest social networking website in Brazil and India? Not likely. For that to happen, these applications have to arrive on more widespread platforms like Symbian and even Windows Mobile 6 for that matter.

Resource:
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Android_Gets_Google_Buzz_Orkut_Widgets/551-110024-580.html

But one thing that the 7 Series devices won’t have–at least not this year’s crop–is the ability to broadly copy and paste items. As earlier noted by Engadget, Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday that developers shouldn’t expect to have access to a clipboard to allow users to copy and paste. Nor will Microsoft’s own Office applications have copy and paste. That’s despite the fact that it has been a staple of past versions of Windows Mobile for as long as I can recall.

"We don’t enable copy and paste and we do that very intentionally," Windows Phone executive Todd Brix said in an interview.

Brix said many times when a user copies something on a phone, what they really are looking to do is take a specific action, such as calling a phone number or e-mailing an address. For those specific tasks, Microsoft has what it calls "smart linking," which lets a user double click on a phone number and either call it or add it to the phone book. For an address, one can get a map without having to copy and paste the address.

"It’s actually an intentional design decision," he said. "We try to anticipate what the user wants so copy and paste isn’t necessary."

But, particularly for a device that is going to include Word and other mobile Office applications, the concept of intelligent links doesn’t seem sufficient. The BlackBerry for example, offers both intelligent links and a copy and paste system, which seems to me to be ideal.

Brix insists that most users won’t miss copy and paste and said that it was a matter of focus; Microsoft said it wanted to really do well the tasks that 80 percent of users wanted.

"We tried to focus on what the core use cases were," Brix said. "Certainly there will be some people that wont be happy with some of those decisions."

If this feels like deja vu, a similar limitation hampered the initial iPhone, with Apple later going back and adding the feature.

As my colleague Jessica Dolcourt noted recently, it’s not like users don’t want copy and paste. We just take it for granted unless some one boldy chooses to omit it.

With the 7 Series taking so many cues from the iPod, I’m surprised they didn’t learn that lesson.

Resource:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20000393-260.html

Google March 16 said it now selling a version of its Nexus One smartphone that runs on AT&T’s 3G network and Rogers Wireless, a move that could broaden the device’s appeal and put it more squarely in competition with Apple’s world-beating iPhone 3GS.

The Nexus One is now available from Google’s Webstore as an unlocked device without a service plan for AT&T’s 3G network in the U.S. and on Rogers Wireless in Canada. Nexus One devices can also now be shipped to Canada from Google’s Webstore and will work with a SIM from Rogers Wireless, the company said.

Google’s Nexus One is based on the search engine’s Android operating system, an open source platform around which more than 20 different handsets have been built. The device, which runs the latest Android 2.1, includes a speedy 1 GHz processor.

When Google launched the Nexus One from its Webstore Jan. 5, the company made device available unlocked for $529 and with a two-year contract from T-Mobile for $179.

Google officials also pledged to make the Nexus One available on Verizon Wireless and via Vodafone in the spring. Recent reports indicated Verizon could sell the Nexus One as early as March 23, with the device rolling out from Vodafone in April.

In February, mobile gadget blogs discovered that the Federal Communications Commission had blessed a version of the Nexus One smartphone that runs on AT&T’s 3G network.

Google designed the Nexus One to be unlocked, which means users can use it with a SIM card from most GSM operators worldwide.

While the device is compatible with 3G networks such as T-Mobile, carriers such as AT&T and Rogers have different 3G frequencies. Accordingly, users owning SIM cards from AT&T or Rogers devices could only access 2G or EDGE networks on their Nexus One.

That all changed today. Users may choose from two versions of the Nexus One: one with 3G coverage on networks that use the 850 MHz, 1900 MHz, and 2100 MHz frequency bands. This is recommended for use on AT&T in the US and Rogers in Canada.

Google also offers the Nexus One with 3G coverage on networks that use the 900 MHz, AWS, and 2100 MHz frequency bands. This is recommended for use on T-Mobile in the U.S..

This move is a bit of positive news in the wake of a dismal new report from analytics researcher Flurry, which found that the Nexus One sold only 135,000 units through its first 74 days of retail sale.

By contrast, the Android-based Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless sold 1.05 million units, while Apple’s inaugural iPhone shipped 1 million copies in 2007.

If the Nexus One can find purchase on AT&T’s network, it may be able to more directly challenge Apple’s iPhone, currently carried exclusively by AT&T.

With features such as pinch-to-zoom multitouch, the Nexus One has been compared to the iPhone with all of its functionality. This is big reason why Apple has sued Nexus One manufacturer HTC Corp. for infringing on some 20 of its smartphone patents dating back the last several years.

The idea is to take Android down a few notches as Apple seeks to defend its turf from Google-based phones.

Resource:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-Nexus-One-Now-Runs-on-ATT-3G-in-US-Rogers-in-Canada-320991/