State of 4G Apps Development

Trends, Challenges, Solutions

WHITE PAPER BY INTERSOG

SEPTEMBER 2014

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Executive Summary  As mobile technology continues to evolve at a stunning pace, the business world starts to apply it more broadly by integrating new developments into internal processes, customer relationships, HR management, corporate branding, and other activities. As the enterprise mobility improves, it adds significant merit to business application performance and brings a range of positive changes including increased sales and improved products and services, productivity gains and management effectiveness, innovation, improved agility of business processes and development methodologies as well as enhanced employee morale. The 4th generation long-term evolution (4G LTE) technology is one of such business drivers.  Compared with older generation mobile network technologies such as 3G or Wi-Fi, 4G LTE has a proven track record of:

• Allowing more rich content apps to be used on mobile devices without draining their batteries fast

• Allowing fully-mobile use of apps that require high broadband speeds

• Accelerating real time sharing of streaming media and large files

• Accelerating delivery of time sensitive data used in real time interactions or transactions

4G LTE improves performance of many existing mobile apps and gives birth to new generation apps dependent on reliable high-speed Internet or responsive data transfer.

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Worldwide 4G LTE subscribers reached 170 million worldwide in Q1 2014. In general, the 4G technology is set to create a USD $340 billion market opportunity by 2017 and become the key driver of the Internet of Things and Connected World. As such, 4G LTE will inevitably change the way we build and interact with mobile apps, bringing our app usage habits to the next maturity level. This Report is a compilation of the most up-to-date research data that aims to demonstrate how exactly 4G LTE will affect the apps development business, apps usability and what innovative app features will be enabled to make our user experiences even more personalized and seamless.      

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Contents The Latest 4G LTE Stats | 5 4G App Definition | 6 What Does 4G LTE Offer For Business Mobility? | 7 4G LTE Challenges For App Development | 15 What to Consider When Building Killer 4G Apps | 16 Conclusion | 19 References | 20

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The Latest 4G LTE Stats  As of Q2 2014, there are 225 operators in 98 countries that provide and manage 4G LTE networks. The table below compares LTE functioning across the three continents, according to 4G-Portal.Com:   Europe Americas Asia Commercial 4G LTE networks deployed

84 in 34 countries

53 in 16 countries

47 in 23 countries

4G LTE subscribers

9.4 million

84.3 million (50% worldwide share)

66.1 million (40% worldwide share)

Key operators / countries in terms of subscriber base size

UK EE – over 2 million UK Vodafone – 0.5 million

Verizon – over 42.7 million AT&T – 25.4 million

Japan – over 31 million South Korea – 28 million

 As the comparison shows, the United States is the world’s #1 4G LTE enabled nation, followed by Japan and South Korea. Europe is lagging badly in the rollout of 4G LTE coverage and services. This can be explained by the facts that the EU hasn’t reformed its mobile spectrum policies or consolidated telecommunications industry to close the gap with the U.S. Another reason is that at a time when heavy investments were needed (from 2005 to 2010), the EU’s annual capital expenditure on telecom infrastructure dropped 14% to $52 billion, which accounted for only two-thirds of investments made in the U.S. Now Europe is desperately trying to catch up, but mainly at the cost of carriers such as Vodafone that had doubled its network investments in the UK market to over USD $1.5 billion in Q1 2014, partly to support 4G network coverage as well (The Wall Street Journal, 2013).

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4G App Definition  Many mobile developers often view 4G apps as “spiced-up” or boosted versions of 3G. But is it really so? As a matter of fact, super speedy connection isn’t the only benefit of 4G LTE. Low latency, i.e. the time it takes for data to make a round trip through the network, is one of the underestimated features of this new-gen technology. Unlike 3G with latencies as high as 750 milliseconds and producing a significant delay into the data transactions, LTE boasts latencies of 30 milliseconds. And anything that is less than 50 milliseconds is considered real time. So, this is one of the key distinguishing features of 4G apps – developers must put real time in front of their applications. A lot of applications actually couldn’t make their way from wire-line to wireless networks. Videoconferencing apps make a good example. When Apple introduced their Facetime video chat app, it made a splash among users, but the fact that it’s limited to Wi-Fi connections repulsed many from using it. Low latency is believed to create more great opportunities for mobile network gaming and, thus, we should anticipate a new wave of user obsession with MMO role-playing games and 1st person shooters. As such, the 5 types of apps that are most affected by 4G LTE are:

1. Video streaming apps 2. Mobile and social gaming apps 3. Navigation and geo-location based apps 4. Apps for wearable devices and machine to machine (M2M)

communications 5. Augmented reality apps

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What Does 4G LTE Offer For Business Mobility?  According to Arthur D. Little Research, 67% of U.S. organizations already using 4G LTE report increased productivity, especially with regards to business development and customer services (see Figures 1 & 2). In the United States, 76% of businesses agree that 4G has helped them to better “innovate and jump the competition” and 86% admit being able to have more work done on the move.  

Source: Arthur D. Little Analysis  

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   When compared with 3G, 4G LTE allows applications to be truly mobile by enabling:

• Higher bandwidth able to handle really Big Data • Improved network responsiveness, i.e. lower latency and idle-

to-active times • Higher spectrum efficiency that results in better cost efficiency

and network capacity • Velocity tolerance • Backwards compatibility and future proofing • Enhanced security due to network authentication (128-bit

keys), SIM robust and non-invasive key storage, RAN encrypted data communication (that helps prevent eavesdropping or malware intrusions), IMSI/IMEI identity protection against snooping, etc.

Unlike 3G that is built for voice and data, LTE is built for Big Data, Cloud and machine-to-machine communication, i.e. Connected World.      

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   Source: Arthur D. Little Analysis    

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  Source: Arthur D. Little Analysis   How 4G LTE affects certain vertical (i.e., industry-specific) mobile apps:

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Vertical

App

examples

Use Cases

Benefits

Healthcare

Health tracking apps Fitness and nutrition apps Patient decision aid apps Doctor – patient interaction apps Video consulting apps Logistics apps Medication compliance apps Remote care apps

Remote healthcare / telemedicine Healthcare management Ambulance management In-patient / outpatient management

Data security and resilient service critical for remote real-time diagnostics Up to 25% reduction in patient care costs Better patient treatment as a result of real-time therapeutic interventions Access to patient records in Cloud (any time, from anywhere) Significant saving of administrative and paramedics time – 20-30% on average

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Reduction in median time from alarm to therapy by over 50%

Retail

Mobile stores / kiosks mCommerce apps Multi-channel customer management apps Sales / goals tracking apps eSignage apps Store management apps Mobile fitting rooms Inventory control apps

Online and mobile commerce Multi-channel customer management Partner / customer relationship management In-store marketing Retail supply chain Retail analytics Sales support

Improved effectiveness as a result of communications being tailored to specific segments and engaging users Improved operational efficiency through optimized supply chain and logistics, better inventory control and quality management Customer-profiled ads with face recognition Increased in-store shopping Quicker responsiveness to immediate customer needs

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and reduction of buying cycle time by providing sales staff and distributors with instant access to in-depth up-to-date information about products available in stock, etc. No need to pay for fixed broadband lines, i.e. increased cost efficiency

Automotive

Apps to improve in-car control, monitoring and telematics Traffic alerts / monitoring apps Journey planning apps Navigation apps with location-based rich content Remote condition monitoring apps

Connected vehicles and public transport Urban transport systems Information delivery and in-dash infotainment In-vehicle media and entertainment Navigation

Improved interoperability Real-time sharing of technical documentation, project plans, diagrams and other data Real-time updates of navigation system Improved vehicle issues

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Remote vehicle control apps Asset management apps Telemetry apps Documentation sharing apps

management Smartphone integration into vehicle

Gaming

Mobile and social games Virtual / live casino Online sportsbooks

In-play betting Mobile betting Competition Player vs player (PvP) Multi-channel gaming Affiliate management

Improved latency and, as a result, scalable games providing great performance no matter how many players are involved High resolution streaming Higher security of all in-app payment transactions

   

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4G LTE Challenges For App Development  Despite all of the above benefits that 4G LTE technology provides for application development, there’re some factors that may affect the perceived speed and mobile apps usability:

1. Channel quality The LTE channel quality is generally affected by the number of concurrent subscribers on the same radio frequency (RF) channel. As such, densely populated areas may experience lower channel quality and, thus, poorer app performance at peak usage times.

2. Network speed Factors such as distance from cell towers, network congestion, app design and RF interference due to walls, weather, terrain, etc.

3. Battery life 4G LTE enabled devices normally consume up to 20% more capacity than the older-generation gadgets, so apps should be made “light” no matter how data-heavy they are.

4. Handover time When apps switch from 4G LTE to 2G, 3G or 4G HSPA+ networks they should be robust enough to handle the handover delays that can vary from 2.4 up to over 10 seconds (and these delays can be crucial for mobile network gaming or other real-time apps).

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What to Consider When Building Killer 4G Apps  

1. Data cap Today’s 4G LTE subscription plans are all capped meaning that users are charged for overages. Data caps count both data uploads and downloads. Tools such as AT&T Application Resource Optimizer (ARO) help app developers eliminate duplicate content that can account for as much as 20% of HTTP traffic. This allows users to actually consume 50 hours of standard definition (SD) or only 20 hours of high definition (HD) video on YouTube and, thus, avoid exceeding their plan cap limits.

2. No large video thumbnails High-resolution video thumbnails used in many apps can drain user phone battery very quickly. To avoid this, app developers should program automatic check of the device resolution for the app to download only those thumbnails that are most appropriate for the given resolution. The rule of thumb is to use high-resolution thumbnails in apps on high-resolution devices, and, vice versa, use low-resolution thumbnails on low-resolution devices.

3. Data transfer settings should be configurable

It’s highly recommended that app developers always provide configuration settings for high volume data transfer scenarios such as big data download and upload over Wi-Fi. For instance, these settings may include:

• Forcing Wi-Fi for specific features

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• Switching to Wi-Fi rather than 3G to avoid battery drain • Prompting users before they use high volume data that may

exceed their cap limits • Limiting data or audio / video quality and upload / download

rates • Limiting streaming time, etc.

4. Conserving battery life should be one of the biggest concerns among 4G app developers

As RRC_CONNECTED state consumes more power to enable faster data transfer speed in LTE, 4G apps should be built with the ability to use the minimum amount of battery power. As such, developers should:

• Reduce polling, as frequent switches between mobile networks may cause timeout during the network handover. The rule of thumb here is to poll as seldom as possible rather than leave a channel open all the time.

• Avoid continuous video streaming, as it drains battery much faster than downloads do. So, if your 4G app provides a streaming service, it should warn users about excessive power consumption and data costs.

• Avoid hammering the network, since apps that continuously

attempt to regain lost data packages can aggravate original failure conditions, which may result in service denial and traffic overload. Additionally, aggressive behavior towards crowded wireless networks will drain device battery very quickly.

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5. 4G apps should “feel” fast App’s speed is impacted by the bandwidth, latency and responsiveness to user actions. In order to enhance user’s feeling of using a really fast 4G app, it’s recommended that app developers:

• Decouple UX transitions from data interactions to provide a smoother UX flow

• Cache often, as apps that function properly when there’s no network availability are usually more valuable than those relying solely on the Internet connection. As such, keeping and maintaining a local data copy that is unlikely to change in the short term will benefit 4G apps by reducing repeated retrieval of duplicate data, improving app’s responsiveness, and reducing battery drain. Yet, it’s also important to flush the cache on a regular basis to prevent some files from consuming too much storage space.

• Pre-fetch data to provide a better user experience.

6. 4G apps should “feel” robust 4G apps have to deal with different real-time scenarios such as handovers between mobile networks, crossing dead zones, etc. For effective management of these and other real-time scenarios it’s recommended that app developers:

• Plan for a mix of networks such as 2.5G EDGE, 3G / 4G HSPA, 4G LTE

• Use larger buffers • Support IPv6

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Conclusion      Recent polls among organizations that already use 4G LTE demonstrate that 4G is not only a revolutionary mobile network technology providing better security and speed of data transfer, but also a powerful business tool that actually takes such functions as sales and marketing, customer relationship and HR management, software development and others to the next level of maturity. Yet, when developing corporate mobile strategies, many organizations still underestimate the importance of building 4G LTE optimized applications, which can result in user experience bottlenecks in the long run. When building mobile apps, developers should address the two key concerns:

• How to avoid draining user device batteries when letting them use rich content / heavy data apps, and

• How to prevent users from exceeding the limits of their capped 4G subscription plans while using mobile apps

These concerns challenge app developers to revisit their mobile development habits and processes and focus specifically on features that would allow smooth and seamless user experience, better mobile safety and cost efficiency.

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References “The Business Benefits of 4G LTE” By Arthur D. Little for EE, 2012, http://www.adlittle.com/downloads/tx_adlreports/ADL_UK_Business_Benefits_01.pdf 4G-Portal.Com, 2014, http://4g-portal.com/worldwide-lte-subscribers-to-exceed-170-million-in-1q-2014-as-top-3-operators-account-for-52-of-total-subscribers The Wall Street Journal, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324412604578515222989449746

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About Intersog  Intersog is a Chicago-based provider of web and mobile application development and UX design solutions for education, eCommerce, eHealthcare, wearable tech, digital media and entertainment, automotive, and other industries. Our Contacts: 233 S Wacker Dr. Suite 9390 Chicago, IL 60606 USA (773) 305-0885 375 Water St. Vancouver, BC V6B 5C6, Canada (604) 379 1514 www.intersog.com contact@intersog.com