Forrester on Apps That Don't Need WiFi or Data
A new report from Forrester, "The Offline Mobile Challenge," makes it clear: If you're building a mobile app it must work properly, even without a WiFi or internet connection.
Offline apps are absolutely vital for today's businesses because we don't live in an always-connected world. People need to work with company data and resources even when they're offline. Critical business apps cannot power today's organizations if they don't work offline. The report warns that "offline is not just another mobile feature...offline support will be a crucial consideration for nearly every future modern application." The report goes on to explain: "Offline services provide immense value to application users; being able to use the app absent network connectivity simply scratches the surface. Offline support ensures outstanding app performance, regardless of network connectivity or speed."
Despite that, many mobile apps don't support mobile apps that work without internet connection. And many of those apps that can work without a connection don't do it properly. The report notes, "Our experience shows that offline support is the mobile app feature continually under-scoped by developers and over-simplified by stakeholders." The report adds that offline mobile access is "often the most expensive (and valuable) infrastructure service mobile development teams will implement."
Building Apps that Work Without a Connection
Building offline apps that can work without a Wifi or data connection is frequently the most valuable mobile app development service that developers can provide. Unfortunately, it is usually the most expensive and labor-intensive feature to build. But it needn't be costly or difficult anymore.
The Forrester report concludes that the new version of Alpha Anywhere "supports a very robust solution for HTML5 implementations" needing offline support. Alpha Anywhere integrates fully with transactional back-end systems, and includes mobile app data synchronization and intelligent conflict resolution versus simplistic "last-write wins." It offers data persistence when the business app is closed or the battery dies, including data not saved to the server.
In addition, Alpha Anywhere features built-in support for converting SQL data into hierarchical JSON data sets, for example, customers, their orders, and the order details. And Alpha Anywhere builds these offline apps that work without a connection without requiring specialized, additional coding.
Offline capabilities are built directly into the core of Alpha Anywhere mobile app platform. That means that offline-capable apps can be built with no additional development time --- and no additional cost. Learn about offline mobile application development.
Additional resources for developers looking to build apps that work without WiFi or cell connection:
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What Is An Offline App And Why Are Offline Apps Important? -
Analysts say that mobile apps that can work without an internet connection is the "most important and difficult feature" of modern business apps. So what do offline apps do for business and why are they so important?
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