5 Things Every Business Mobile App Needs to Stand Out

Online shopping is becoming a growing demand whether we like it or not. The percentage of sales happening on mobile devices is climbing on a steady pace. Large and small businesses are on the race when it comes to launching mobile apps in the hopes of capturing ecommerce dollars. But for every successful app, there are dozens that go down the drain.

Ever wonder what makes a top-rated app stand out from those that disappears over time in iTunes and Google Play? Here are five things every business mobile app needs in order to succeed.

1. Interactive content

For some mobile apps, we would notice that they are just plain and canned version of their company's website, which makes it unimpressive to the users. Let's take the Gap app for example: it's nothing but a packaged website, which makes the reviews not very favorable from the consumers. It doesn't make sense installing an app when you can just view the same thing on your mobile device's browser, right?

On the other hand, successful apps like the Nike+, gives the users to install it as it interfaces with fitness apps to track your activity, delivers advice from athletes based on your interests and needs. Nike+ encourages you to play with it and provides users something useful in return, which keeps them coming back. Making a business app as interactive as possible will surely catch your customers attention.

2. A reason to keep coming back

A good example for integrating a brand with a platform is Under Armour's MapMyFitness app. MapMyFitness offers running, biking, walking, hiking, and calorie-tracking apps; you can shop Under Armour gear in all the apps, but that's not the actual reason why they're so in-demand.

The MapMyFitness platform keeps users coming back every day to track workouts, record routes, participate in challenges, and log meals. Research suggests branding on mobile devices improve purchase intent, and even minimal brand impression can build a positive association. The Under Armour name may not be so much "in your face" in the MapMyFitness platform, but there's enough chance for it to be noticed.

3. Added value

It's not enough that a mobile app is successfully installed in someone's mobile device -- it needs to have a bigger reason why a consumer should use it and spend money with your company. Starbucks' mobile app, for instance, lets users order straight from their phones and pick the order up from the store. Starbucks then bills the app as a way to avoid falling in line and wait to get your ordered coffee, which is a major added value for its customers.

Without the app's special feature, the Starbucks app would simply serve as a store locator and a points tracker, which is a common thing for most mobile business apps. Offering customers that option to order through the app is something innovative and provides a lot of convenience, which gives people a good reason to install it, while giving the company a leg up in the competition.

4. A good interface

Again, there are several apps that possess poor interface. Businesses should keep in mind that they should not mess with the basic ways users interact with their device. If your app, for example, doesn't allow swiping to go back a page, nor does tapping on the top of the screen return you to the top. These are two gestures that iOS users are greatly familiar with, and if you want your app to succeed you need to leave these -- and other basic commands -- in place.

Apps that get bad reviews can affect your brand in a negative way, while high ratings can drive a huge amount of business opportunities. User interface is fundamental to an app, and no amount of added value, uniqueness, or interaction is going to overtake a clunky homescreen.

5. Regular updates

Regular updates, both for quality improvement and feature addition, can increase an app's success rate by roughly three times than that of less updated ones. If you're not sure it's worth updating an app frequently, it's better to check the app's ratings section on iTunes or the Google Play page. Each update brings a new flood of complaints and requests, and keeping up with them is easily a full-time update schedule.

It's also a good idea to include feedback function in the app itself. While it doesn't guarantee users will respond, it at least encourages them to submit comments directly to your team.

Apps That Will Surely Kickstart Your Collage Social Life

You're now in college. At last, you're free to do anything you want your parents have been restricting you to do when you were in high school. Now, you can have all the liberty to have all the party and booze, like the ones you see in the movies. But most of all, don't forget that college life is also about studying and learning new and worthwhile stuffs, too.

Aside from that, college life can also be confusing and challenging at the same time. It can be difficult, at first, to find your footing in a social way. Thanks to technology, you can easily touch the World Wide Web with your own hands. Here is a collection of apps that will surely kick start your college social life.

Twitter

Don't be the only person in class who isn't updated with the world events. Use Twitter to keep yourself in the loop in both the academic and social aspects of your college life. In today's contemporary classrooms, you may even be asked to participate in class discussions via Twitter.

The app is available for free for iOS and Android devices.

Between

Are you someone whose attempting the long-distance relationship course? Kudos to you because that's not a small task to deal with. Relationship app Between can help you ease the separation anxiety by letting you send messages, voicemails, memos, and photos. A private timeline makes it easy to reminisce about the good old days with your significant other or loved one(s).

Between can be downloaded for free by iOS and Android users.

Skype

Video interviews are not going away any time soon -- so you might as well get a heads up now. Microsoft's Skype is a reliable way to connect with faraway family and friends via text, voice, and of course -- video.

It is available for free on iOS and Android devices.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn and all its nifty features makes connections a breeze -- for better or worse, college is a time of both personal and professional connections.

The LinkedIn app is available for free on the Internet, of course, but you can also get it for free for iOS and Android devices.

Afterlight and Over

These days, anyone with an Instagram account can call themselves an amateur photographer of sorts. But with these two apps, you can even make more beautiful pictures to put on your blog or social media accounts. Afterlight is an app that has lots of shape, formatting, and filters to make your pictures really beautiful. And Over is an amazing app that lets you put text on your pictures. What makes these two photo apps stand out specifically are that they are super sleek and classy, so really nothing that you do to your photos with both of them makes your pictures ten times better looking. Of course, these are more for your average Facebook/Insta use and not for professional photography per say, but anyone of any expertise can use them to make pictures really nice. With these apps, you won't be able to stop editing.

Meetup

Let's face it, when you graduate into the real world, you're not going to have all your friends living within a mile radius for you to hang out, party, or go to football games with. So realistically, if you are new to the place or the city, or even just interning for a couple of months somewhere, it helps to join a group who has similar interests or backgrounds. And that may sound terrifying, or Tinder-esque, but the whole point is to find an entire group of people to hang out with and get to know. So maybe consider taking a buddy with you, or ask around about activities, but give it a try so you'll get used to your new home.

Click here to download Meetup for free.

Students Will Find These Free Apps Highly Useful

Summer don't last long enough for kids, and it can be a stressful time to get everything in order so that students have new clothes, school supplies, dorm stuff, and...back to school apps? According to a 2015 study, 77 percent of students reported that using tablets and smartphones has helped improve their grades, and 62 percent said that tech helps them feel more ready for class.

Below is our compilation of apps that will help you get back to school the right way. And since it's pretty common sense that students don't have much of a budget to work with, you can download all of these apps for free.

Evernote

Free: iOS, Apple Watch, Android, Windows

Evernote is considered as one of the most popular note-taking apps for quite a while. Its clean, uncomplicated interface makes it perfect for students wherein they can take notes, make to-do lists, set reminders, attach files, create agendas and access everything through any device. Evernote doesn't have a storage limit, but free users are limited to an upload limit of 60 MB per month. You also have to activate push notifications to sync all your notes when the app isn't running. The camera feature is highly useful, because it allows you to save any photo, document, Post-it note or business card.

Dropbox Mobile

Free: iOS, Android, Windows

As a student, you save, send, and lose a lot of files -- usually in the depths of your inbox. The free Dropbox Mobile app lets you store and share up to 2 GB of documents, photos, and videos in one secure location. It's easy to add notes to files you want to share, too, which is ideal especially when your group project seems to be taking forever. Recently, Dropbox partnered with Microsoft so that users can edit Microsoft Office files straight from their mobile phones and save them to their Dropbox accounts.

You may also want to consider Dropbox Paper, a collaboration platform that allows multiple people to edit the same document.

WolframAlpha

$2.99; iOS, Android, Windows

Meet your know-it-all bestfriend, which also happens to help Apple's Siri. Dubbed as the "Star Trek computer," WolframAlpha holds more than 10 trillion pieces of data and 50,000 equations. The app, which costs $2.99, uses these information to compute answers and generate reports on topics ranging from trigonometry and astronomy, to genealogy and mythology. It provides you with graphs, step-by-step explanations, and formula details.

EasyBib

Free: iOS, Android>

EasyBib takes over one of the most time-consuming parts of writing a research paper -- the bibliography. This app helps you format your list of references in more than 7,000 citation styles, including the most common APA and MLA formats. Just type in the name of the book and EasyBib will give you several options to choose from and then makes a citation for you. The app has a website that does the job just as well, but with the app you can take a picture of a book's bar code and then generate a citation for it.

My Study Life

Free: iOS, Android, Windows

The My Study Life is a free app that replaces any paper planner by keeping track of your workload across multiple platforms and devices. Manage your classes with week and day timetables, keep track of your tasks and upcoming exams in the cloud, and receive notifications to keep you updated with your exams and class schedules. The calendar is very easy to read, thanks to its clean interface and the ability to color code your classes.

Now you'll enjoy school more with My Study Life!

Tiny Scanner

Free: iOS, Android

Tiny Scanner is an app that is perfect in making sure your handwritten class notes are at least legible enough to send to a classmate. The app uses the camera on your phone or tablet to scan documents and export them into PDFs that you can email or save to your camera roll. You can also crop and color-correct your images before you export them into PDFs.

Must-Have Apps for Techie Teachers

Aside from students, other people like custodians, nurse, security guards, and especially teachers also bring electronic devices to school. Because of the growing BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend today, most people in the corporate world are utilizing their own gadgets to get their work done. For teachers, they don't actually need a pen, paper, or laptop in order to accomplish their daily tasks should they have the proper devices.

Some famous apps that fit this description includes Google Drive for document collaboration, Dropbox for file synchronization between devices, Keynote for creating presentations, and Evernote for storing almost everything that your students submit in its searchable online database. The list could go on, targeting teachers and school staff, with tasks ranging from grading and taking attendance to simplifying presentations or perfecting their use of the whiteboard.

If you're a faculty staff and would like to take your teaching methods to the next level, check out our list below for more apps that will guarantee to suit your needs.

Edmodo

Edmodo is a full content management system for educators that allows you to easily disseminate assignments and receive submissions. With the newest version of the app, teachers and students now have the ability to like posts in their stream and get a quick glance of who else liked a particular post. Users will find threaded discussions in this app enjoyable because of its Facebook-ish layout.

The app is free to download for iOS, Android, and Windows 8 users.

EduBlogs

EduBlogs is a blogging platform that is designed for teachers to get the word out to students. School educators and teachers alike can use this mobile app to create blogs, post updates, moderate comments, and upload multimedia. The app also has privacy control that provides options to make blogs private or public, teachers can also leave private comments on student writing, organize students in groups and lists, and monitor progress with detailed user reports.

EduBlogs is free for both iOS and Android users.

ShowMe

ShowMe is an app that lets you turn your iPad into an interactive whiteboard. It allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them with your students online. Anyone can use it if they want to create presentations using images, drawings, text, and audio voice-over recordings. You can keep your presentations private or shared with limited groups only, if you prefer it that way. ShowMes are categorized by topic, so users can explore other people's ShowMes to find unique lesson resources. Teachers can pay $4.99 for a monthly groups subscription to share ShowMes with a class. The ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard is a collaborative tool for digital lesson-sharing that can work for parents, teachers, and students.

Teacher's Assistant Pro

Teacher's Assistant Pro is an app for iOS that tracks student behavior and achievements, including searchable demographic info on each student. It's easy to communicate later with parents or administrators about what's happening with each student or the entire class. You can send reports via email, text, or make a call directly from your iPhone -- it's an app that thousands of teachers around the world is already using.

Other tasks that you can do using this app -- filter your students by class, action, or just about anything you need, use random student lists and groups for class participation, send announcements to all or some of your students or classes using Email Blast, store parent names and student contact information including a photo, phone numbers, email addresses, and unlimited custom information such as student ID, and many others

You can get Teacher's Assistant Pro for $4.99 for Mac OS, $5.99 for iOS Pro version or Free; Android version is TBA.

Teacher Aide Pro 2

The Teacher Aide Pro 2 is an app for teachers and professors who would like to keep electronic records for classes, with just a touch away from their Android phone or tablet. Instead of being tied to a desktop device, teachers can now enter and access data anywhere in the room. All data is stored in the device locally, so there's no need to have Internet connection in order to access the data you need. However, you also have the option to back up your students' data in the cloud to provide extra security in case your Android device gets lost or damaged. Other features that Teacher Aide Pro 2 offers are Attendance Tracking, Gradebook (Categories and Weighting), Seating Chart, Random Student Caller with text to speech, Student group generator, Easy 1 tap communication with parents, students, and advisors, and Progress report feature.

You can get the Teacher Aide Pro 2 app for $19.99 (Android).

SlideShark

SlideShark is a free app for viewing and sharing PowerPoint presentations on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch the way they are meant to be seen -- with animations, fonts, colors, and graphics intact. It also has the ability to broadcast slides via the Web in real-time, which is useful especially when you have sick students at home, and play embedded videos from your PowerPoint presentation. Some of the key features provided by SlideShark include: File management with your own secure, cloud-based account, plus option to import from leading cloud storage providers, offline access to presentations (requires no Internet connection when presenting), iPhone remote control and laser pointer capabilities when projecting from your iPad, and more.

The free version of the app offers only 25MB of online storage, but if you're willing to pay $8 a month for the Pro version, you'll get 1 GB of online storage or more. You can download the SlideShark app for iOS here.