With India’s ever surging hunger for smartphones, there has been an equal surge in the number of apps coming up. But not all of those zillion apps are useful — forget useful — a lot of them are uploaded by amateur developers with zero pre-deploying testing and complete disregard for user security.
Keeping that in mind, we’ll today be talking about yet another (we talked about pCloudy earlier) app testing solution, developed by Shephertz.
ShepHertz Technologies was founded in Delhi about 6 years ago to provide mobile backend as a service. Providing a complete Cloud Ecosystem for Apps, all Mobile, Web, Social, Gaming and TV Apps, ShepHertz helps App developers successfully create applications on the Cloud, irrespective of the technology or platform on which they are developing.
Started by Siddhartha Chandurkar in Gurgaon, they offer multiple products to make app developer’s life easy and augment their business. The ShepHertz App42 Platform consists of App42 Cloud APIs, App42 MA, AppWarp, App42 PaaS, App42 DevOps to help developers build and market their products. All the products are focussed on making an App developer’s life easy by helping them make applications of varying complexity; assisting them in developing applications, ranging from a very simple to a complex App in as short a span of time as possible and in a reliable and robust manner.
App Development Process
If the developers want to develop and deploy their app on the cloud, then they can visit ShepHertz website and sign up for a free trial to check out what’s in store. Once the developer clicks on the ‘Start Free Trial’ button, he is taken to the user registration page. Once signed up, the developers will then be presented with the option to name their application that they’re gonna start developing. After putting in the name of the application, you’re presented with the option to choose one of the three products that are part of the full app development suite of the company:
- App42 Cloud API
- App42 MA
- AppWarp
We’ll take a closer in-depth look at these development, deployment and marketing services down below.
After selecting one of these services, let us assume the developer chose the App42 Cloud API, then he will have the option to choose one platform from a varied set of options, including PHP, Andriod, iOS, JavaScript, Flash, etc. that he wants to use to build and deploy his applications. The sign-up process, though, may seem easy has a bug which makes it stuck at the same screen with a non-responsive ‘Start Integartion’ button.
But, the developer can work-around and logout and then re-login to fix this tiny bug. He will then be greeted with the App Dashboard, which provides him with the multitude of features and APIs that have been referenced below.
Talking about UI/UX of the game/app development platform, it seems a bit dated when compared to other app testing platforms available on the market. The user interface of the platform seems to have been built using BootStrap and custom-CSS elements, which stand-out but make the user experience less satisfactory. But, the availability of resources, documentation and support at all times, make-up for the points lost in the user interface department.
App42 Cloud API
This product provides developers with a one stop omni-channel app development platform, with real-time actionable analytics. With the help of Microsoft Azure’s machine learning and virtual machine, App42 Cloud API boasts of 25 modules and 16 SDK’s to offer solutions.
The product also wants to help the developers apps achieve virality with a detailed data analytics report on each campaign. The developers can use the App42 Virality service in synergy with the cloud platform to integrate in-app referrals within minutes. This will help developers automate their marketing efforts and capture real-time user behaviour which can then be segmented to determine what’s working and what isn’t by using.
Their 800+ Cloud APIs have been developed on Mobile, Web, Social, SaaS, TV and Gaming Apps. Features like push notifications can be built inside existing apps with our quick setup, comprehensive SDKs and dedicated support. In addition to this, developers also get features like ‘Gamification‘ which help them add game-like features to non-gaming application. For example, developers can use ShepHertz APIs to include a reward or gift management system into the application.
The developers can increase the life of their apps by making them relevant and tweaking them using new APIs and modules that are introduced and updated quite frequently. Shephertz is also assisting users towards the development of non-conventional apps for IoT, smart wearables supporting devices.
AppWarp
Among the multitude of backend services launched by ShepHertz, it has also introduced a little(an understatement!) something called AppWarp. This service has been designed to help developers focus on building the client side of the multiplayer or third-person shooter games/apps, while transferring the heavy work of developing and deploying the backend of the app.
AppWarp takes care of the server side development, reducing the cost involved and time to market drastically. Even after the app/game goes live, server management is looked after by Shephertz itself. And if you’re worried about app downtime, you shouldn’t, because the servers have been deployed in a clean and NIO (non-blocking I/O) manner.
AppWarp’s client SDKs also provide you with a set of advanced features such as, matchmaking, managing intermittent client connection errors, among others. It also has exclusive features like connection resiliency and chat history that make it popular among developers.
Their immediate session recovery enhances multiplayer experience, and chat history enables recover in-app and in-game chats. ‘The Octagon Theory’ game, powered by AppWarp uses multiplayer, match making and connection resiliency features of the product.
App42 MA
And to build a complete business suite for developers, ShepHertz has also built a ‘Marketing Automation’ tool for deeper insight into user engagement to help them predict the next move. Using this product, the developers can integrate referral campaigns, surveys, emails or coupons into their application at the click of a button.
This product helps in user acquisition, engagement, retention and conversion by acting onto the results based on big data. The information collected by in-app referral campaign toolkit, and Facebook remarketing is analysed using statistical methods to engage and retain customers. ABP News for instance uses App42 MA in their mobile application ABP Live that helps feed news to millions of users across India through advanced segmentation and automated push notifications.
Other Products
Shephertz has also built AppClay to help developers launch HTML5 and Android native Apps on the fly in a few minutes. Without any coding or technology knowledge, users can go online and use their drag and drop option to get item lists, menus etc on their app. Shephertz has built a function to help developers in order to manage their users, requirements, costing, and collaboration tools for communication with the help of AppHawk.
A complete management system for the planning and development of a project, AppHawk offers users an intuitive interface to take care of important aspects in your project development process may it be cost estimation, user management, risk management or even revenue generation without any frills and fancies.
