Have you noticed how many languages there are for developing mobile applications?

During the late 90’s everything was so much easier when developing for mobiles. When it came to choosing the language, the choice was simply between Java and C++.

But now, we have 2 main platforms; iOS and Android, with a number of smaller platforms to choose from, including Symbian, RIM and Windows.

Whilst the market changes so rapidly, choosing the correct development environment for creating and presenting your new product ideas becomes vital. The one you finally select could directly affect your profit and business expectations.

Let’s be honest; the large mobile companies will always want to attract as many developers as they can, to help them evolve their own software development ecosystems. What is really needed is a standard approach regardless of the device.

HTML5 is the latest version for the most commonly used development language in the world. All web based applications contain pieces of html coding. Regardless of the operating system or the device being used, when opening the web browser, the web browser is responsible for translating the particular meta language enclosed with ‘smaller than’ and ‘greater than’ symbols into an infinite number of different web pages.

With HTML5 some of the old restrictions are removed and you only need a single browser application to run a variety of programs. However, web browsers still lack full HTML5 compatibility and so some features don’t work, and as yet the major mobile players have yet to adopt HTML5 as their standard development language.

So where do you think the future of mobile application development is heading? Have you got your favourite development language yet?

At ThinkShield we keep abreast of the changes in the market to ensure that our healthcare products meet with the latest standards. Our people are well versed in a range of programming languages. If you’d like to talk to us about your own mHealth application development needs, then get in touch.

Do clinicians and stakeholders ever really have time to scrutinise a technical spec?

Even if they do, is it really the best tool we can give them to approve an application’s design?

We’ve recently changed how we run our application development projects, placing much more emphasis on creating a detailed interactive mockup of the finished front end. This allows clinicians to play around with the application and see if it really handles the way they think it will, and solves their business issues before they approve development.

We create an initial version on day 1 and then go through an iterative process of workshops and new versions of the mockup until everyone is happy with the final version. It’s way better to make changes at this stage then when you’re knee deep in code.

After experimenting a bit, our wire-framing tool of choice is Balsamiq, an intentionally low-fidelity tool for rapidly making interactive front-end mock-ups. It allows us to quickly make changes and issue the mockup version to our clients as interactive .pdf documents.

We’re already using it for two projects at a central London hospital, and a number of internal projects we’re working on, to great success.

Feel free to get in touch if you want to find out more.

In this the fifth and final video in the series, ThinkShield employees are posed a number of questions; ranging from their thoughts on their time in the company, to what they think the future holds for IT and the NHS.

In the video, Tim Taylor, (head of ThinkShield’s Healthcare IT Services Company), talks about how he has seen people come and go and how he has enjoyed watching individuals develop and grow in confidence. Tim explains how important it is to invest in the people in the company and how that sets the company apart. When it comes to what he enjoys most about working with the NHS, he talks about a visit to Great Ormond Street Hospital and seeing the tiny beds and small babies in the high dependency unit, and that as a company ThinkShield are helping doctors and nurses run their business.

Life and Business Coach, Andre Radmall reflects on the time he’s spent running a number of coaching days for employees. He talks about how the flat company hierarchy enables employees to be able to talk to anyone in the company and because of this, finding the person who is able to make decisions is simplified. When asked about the company core values, he sums it up as “Good relationships make a good business”.

You will also hear from Peter McCartney and the sense of achievement he gets from doing something good for the community and providing an IT healthcare service. Josh Day reflects on the immense satisfaction he gets from knowing that he's doing a job that helps people, rather than a job that simply makes money.

The video also contains some great sound bites from Nikolay Traykov, Fran Ruano and Matthew Hanson, it’s definitely worth watching.

Here are the links to the other 4 videos in the series, in case you’ve missed them :