Active even offline, sounds good. A recent trend observed in mobile app development practices is to make the application working even offline. The offline app is the highly demanded one for handling the emergency situations in poor network areas, quicker launch, and battery-saving environment.

Even though the application is highly appreciated for the numerous functions, the users search it for others due to the lack of offline-functionalities. The thin line in the mobile app development process is that the one size is not fit for all types of business domains. 

On the basis of user participation and type of business models, the changes in app development practices are unavoidable things. One such change is observed in the industry is offline app development where it is getting high beneficial things as follows

• Protection of data sharing from the internet threads
• Convenience even in a poor network environment
• Consistently connecting while the app-users are in traveling
• Highly impacts on healthcare sectors to offer undisturbed medical services
• The ability to change the personalized data, due to data storage is in local devices while offline mode.
• Handling enterprise activities in the flexible schedules

With all such capabilities, the on demand service providers are now looking any offline mobile app is available or not. Mostly, the offline app is categorized into the top three categories as follows based on their functionalities.

• Offline data storage: The data is stored in the database offline without any editing capabilities.
• Editing with Synchronization: This category includes the mobile apps where the participant’s data is edited in offline mode and the edited one is synched with the online
• Multiple Editing: The apps belonging to this category have the option of one user can edit the other user’s data after permissions.

An automatic dealing of network failures is the special case for offline apps and this turns many of the users belonging to the medical field, banking sectors and the industries carry the financial activities. In general, the ‘no connectivity’ states bring the following issues for the app-users.

• The error message is received by the app itself if the network connection is a loss.
• Enabling the handling options of network failures automatically in the background
• The application itself stores the cache data of the users in the respective place if the connection is lost. E.g. ordered things transferred to cart in eCommerce apps
• The transaction process is carried out in an undisturbed manner if the user is stuck on either the transaction page or payment interface due to the network issue.
• It must resume all the activities when the connection is back.

Knowing all such basic things is only helping you to enhance your knowledge. When you start working on it, then you must gain some impressive things. This blog illustrates the necessary details of offline mobile app development in all directions and how Uplogic plays an important role in achieving the best quality in offline app development practices. 

Enabling Offline Capabilities To Bring Big Relief To App-Users

Since the influence of offline apps is highly reflected in the customer’s experience, the demand is high in recent days. The applications that arrived at the play store are all based on internet platforms. Hence, the app users faced various issues while opening the mobile application on weak network areas.

Moreover, the reliability of the app usage and the secureness of the database is also questionable things. Hence, the app users are in need to have big relief from these issues. With the enable of offline capabilities, the app users are getting brief in the following ways.

• Long Loading Time

Due to the connection between the server and the application is in low condition or completely lost, then the application took a long time to load. This causes frustration to the app users largely. Suppose they are in the middle of sending any data or transaction means, then the respective process is standstill.

Facing this type of problem in many ways makes the customers turn their attention towards a valid offline application. With the use of offline-apps for their activities, the preservation of data is a highly achievable one.

• Focus on Reliability

The reliability of the application highly gets affected while the users are moved around in the region where the Wi-Fi connectivity is unstable. If the reliability is affected, the users may switch over to the next application and this causes the retention problem. 

Alternatively, if they prefer the offline-app means, then the reliability gets assured even in the weaker areas. In addition to the reliability, the workflow is also improved that provides a good selling point to the customers.

• Easy Access of Databases

While the app development process, the smaller version of the database is created and it is dedicatedly used for data storage means, it must be accessible for the users even in weak network areas.

To meet these criteria, the offline based app workflow is highly helpful. Besides, this is beneficial for the app developers Aldo in case of any upgrade.

• Guarantee of High-performance

The app development process is broadly split up based on the dependency of the network. If the application for you is to work it offline to meet all your demands, then you need not go for online apps. 

This saves the cost of development and the time required also. The constant dependency of the server on data exchanges slows the app performance and hence many of them switch to offline apps.

To get the big relief from above-listed stress metrics, the app developers may switch on to the inclusion of the offline capabilities. While encountering this stage, the app developers meet several challenges and they must be known. Uplogic pointed out those challenges and how it makes them into opportunities in this blog.

Addressing challenges and Turning them into Stepping Stones by Uplogic

Data storage and synchronization faced major challenging issues while developing offline mobile apps. Storage of data into the local database and this must be available for the back-end support are the top metrics needed to make the synchronized offline mobile applications.

The practical difficulties are highly observed in data storage where the application has the capability to run on many devices like mobiles, tablets, etc. That meets the various local databases and hence synchronization is a highly critical task for offline apps. Uplogic utilizes the following practices to bring these challenges into the stepping stones. 

• Preplanning with Queries

The preplanning is the essential process where it is based on certain queries related to the following aspects: identify the features based on app considerations, focus on battery and power capacity for the handheld devices for data storage, and the synchronization of the database with the server. 

The queries collected regarding the app usage are what is the purpose of the app, is it operates in handheld devices and does it really need the synchronization. Getting answers from these queries is essential for the app developers to proceed further. 

• Identify the Technical Possibilities

Once the plan is ready, then the developers focus on technical supporting tools available to make the storage and synchronization an effective process. Mostly, the SQL database is used for the storage of app data into the user’s device to assure the operation for low internet connections. 

The turning of MySQL database into the SQL database usage by the Uplogic enables the app users to synchronize their data in both online and offline. Further, the patterns like read-only, read/write are also focused by the Uplogic for the betterment of offline apps. 

• Focusing Principles

The ultimate objective of the offline app design is to make the app work most of the time offline. After knowing the plan and technical possibilities, the top following principles are highly focussed. 

• The app should make the regular data copy and structure
• The synchronization between app and cloud server
• The conflicts because of the multiple updates should be resolved. 

By focusing on these principles, Uplogic enables the synchronization of data within the app database and server. Before digging into detailed implementation it is necessary to know the impact of offline mobile apps in usages. 

Uplogic’s Findings Relating to the Impact of Offline Mobile App Development

The impact of offline capabilities into the mobile application is highly reflected in the data synchronization firstly and then the conflict resolution also the beneficial line. 

• Multi-dimensional Data Synchronization

The application carries the customer relationship tasks that highly need the data synchronization and it is split into top categories such as initial local, and server. The initial synchronization is highly reflected when the app is initiated in the workflow for the very first time. The data present on the initial workflow is directly saved to the local database. 

While handling customer queries, the application is highly connected to the local database in several manners, and the syn flag is also set for that. In the local synchronization process, the data is stored in the local database when connectivity exists. If the connectivity is lost, then the sync failure is observed and the data storage is done in the back-end process. 

Finally, the server synchronization deals with the pushing of local copies to the servers. While the connection is lost, the trigger message is sent to the client and they do synchronization in the background. 

• Efficient Conflicts Management

While storing the data into local databases, the conflicts are raised since the app is worked on various devices. To rectify the conflicts, Uplogic allows the process of synchronization to happen with the timestamped values. The data associated with the timestamp information resolves the conflicts raised among local and server. 

• Secure Sensitive Data Handling

While handling the customer data, the ensure of credentials are not cached is the special one to be noted from the Uplogic point of view. While customers access the mobile application, logos, basic details, contents are stored in the cache. This way can limit every time loading process. 

If the sensitive data related to the private users are not to be cached on the local database or even in the server database. Hence, the security of the data is essential for data storage. We fulfill such demands in a peculiar way. 

By getting the offline mobile apps from Uplogic, you can get above listed beneficial things and this assures the build-up of a strong consumer base against your competitors. Now, it is time to know for the integration of offline capabilities into mobile apps. 

How Uplogic Integrate Offline Capabilities into Mobile Application?

Integrating the offline capabilities into the mobile application is not an easy task and it highly demands a wide range of technical skills for both storage and synchronization premises. This section illustrates the processes used in the integration of offline capabilities into mobile applications. 

• Architecture Selection

At first, the identification of suitable architecture is an essential thing and it highly depends on three major processes such as caching, manual replications, and synchronization.

Caching helps the user to access the data easily while in offline mode. Access of data in cache highly needs an attractive user interface. Consequently, the manual replication process is enabled to edit or change the data while offline and synchronized back when online. 

The final process is synchronization where the manual changes are sent in binary form and they must be synchronized with the timestamp information. Architecture selection based on these approaches makes the offline mobile app development a successful one. 

Influencing Technologies 

While picking the technologies for offline app development, the in-depth analysis of workflow and the sensitivity are the top metrics to be considered. Based on the processes, the technologies selected are listed as follows:

• Data synchronization Frequency Identification: Selection seldom on this process is highly beneficial in balancing the customer updates and battery power premises.

• Syncing Based on Time and Cycles: Prioritization for the data is assigned and then synchronized based on the needs in the different cycles. The storage is split up into different packages and synchronized with the timestamp information. 

• Management of Data Changes: Use exception handling to make the changes to be saved while the app work is offline. 

By incorporating such necessary technologies, the Uplogic brings offline mobile app development into a new dimension and assures a reliable environment for users. 

Time to Start

With the top focusing metrics such as reliability and security, the app access even offline has emerged in recent years. Offline mobile app development highly depends on data storage, synchronization. While doing both these processes, the difficulties faced and how the Uplogic changed all of them into stepping stones are listed in this blog. 
Besides, the technologies preferred are also highlighted in the consecutive sections. If you are launching the offline app-based business, share your ideas in [email protected] and get a highly secured application.

Join With Uplogic For Offline Mobile App Development: