Learning Experiences – September 2015

Every Monday at Mobile Jazz we kickstart the week with a Google Hangout. This is an ideal way to bring everyone together and share what we have learned in the previous week. Once again, we’re really excited to share this with you.

Work-Life Balance at Mobile Jazz in the Spanish Pyrenees

As we continue to apply our Mobile Jazz Philosophy “Optimizing For Happiness“, this year we gathered for the Mobile Jazz Summer Camp in Odèn, a lovely mountain village in the Spanish Pyrenees. Many team members work permanently on a remote basis so a yearly retreat is an ideal way to bring everyone together and enjoy the mix of nine different nationalities within the team. Read more.

Increase Your Productivity and Make Your Life Easier

#1. Remove and resize windows with ease.

We use various tools to optimize our workflow here at Mobile Jazz, which enables us to work efficiently from all over the world. Sometimes, we don’t always have the privilege of working with additional screens like we do at the office. When working on a 11” or 13” Macbook you might find the Spectacle app really useful. It allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to split your screen in all possible sizes. Download Spectacle.

#2. Get an Alternative Music Break…

Tunefind is an online music platform that only features music from movies or TV series. Simply pick your favourite and dream on.

#3. UX Designers: Save Heaps of Time with Sketch Content Generator.

When designing for mobile Sketch is the king and we’ve just discovered a plugin that has saved us hours. It populates your design with dummy content from profile pictures to maps, multiple styles of text and photos for each theme, all with a simple click… Download the plugin through Sketch Toolbox.

#4. Launch an App Website in Minutes.

Meet Launchkit a collection of tools for building smart, mobile-ready solutions for anyone managing a mobile app. Their tools also include a website builder with a dashboard for sales reports and reviews.

#5. Do You Also Hate Alarm Clocks in the Morning? Try Wakie.

Wakie is the social alarm clock that lets you wake up anyone you know or even strangers! Launched originally in Russia as a website in 2011, the app is now a successful community of people helping each other to start their day. Try it out!

#6. The Skimm. Get Updated Smartly.

When you subscribe to Skimm you’ll receive a daily email newsletter summarizing the most important news in the world. As we all claim to be too busy, it really helps to keep us informed in minutes. Subscribe here.

News and Facts from the Mobile Industry

#1. Get Your Push Notification Delivered in a Fast, Reliable and Secure Way.

We’re excited to announce that Mobile Jazz provides its own alternative way to get your messages delivered to your customers. With Mobile Jazz Enterprise Push Technology all messages are driven and send within your own infrastructure, which guarantees a fast, reliable and secure service. Check it out.

#2. Watching Time Differently. The potential of Android Wear.

Lately at the Mobile Jazz headquarters in Barcelona, we welcomed a guest entrepreneur from Ustwo, a digital product studio in New York designing for Google Android Wear. An amazing insight we gained is that there is no longer a need to display time using hands, in the old-fashioned analog way. The digital watch now allows us to read time combined with smart data. Check out your future watch.

#3. Meet Alexa, the Smart Home Assistant of Amazon.

Amazon’s new smart home device Echo features much more than its speaker-like appearance. Meet their new voice assistant, Alexa. You can simply talk to the device and Alexa will provide you with the answer right away. You can ask her to play your favourite music, read the news and even give weather updates. She knows where you left your shoes and if needed, Alexa can tell you a joke. Check it out.

Discover Useful Insights in Innovation, Technology and Business

#1. Seven Strategies to Improve Your App’s User Experience.

Time flies and for quite a while, apps have become our daily companions. We’ve taken a look back through the progression of mobile apps from a holistic point of view. Our conclusion is that unfortunately the majority of mobile apps are still missing the basic fundamentals that create a good user experience, a feature that separates the successful apps from the forgettable ones. Implement our 7 user experience strategies to get the most out of your app.

#2. Mobile Development in 2015: In-House Vs Outsourcing.

Across the world, businesses are facing increasing pressure to compete and take their operations to the next level. Technology is now a competitive cornerstone of most organizations, but web and mobile platforms have advanced so aggressively in functionality that many businesses are struggling to keep up. Is it better to develop in-house or outsource in 2015? Check our insights.