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Our team is a wonderful bunch. This series will give you an insight to the people behind the apps.

This in-depth blog series offers a step-by-step guide for mobile development teams.

Why we strongly think your agency should monitor billable time

We look back at all of the exciting things 2019 has brought us.

Project Structure Strategies for Kotlin Multiplatform Android/iOS projects

How we went about creating tooling to maintain high-quality code.

We're really excited that MDHub awarded Brightec an award for happiness.

A few simple things to help engage your team in their work.

At Brightec, we love learning and when we learn something new, we love sharing it with others. That’s why I wrote this article - to share how you can create a barcode in Kotlin Android like I did.

The story of how I recently became a UI/UX Designer at Brightec.

Answering the question of how we "actually" do culture is critical to our growth.

Updates that make a huge increase to checkout conversion rates.

Our big vision for this year was ‘Rhys plus one’. We did a little more...

What is mockk.io and why have we adopted it in our team?

How we automate our AAB deployment to the Google PlayStore

Say ‘aloe’ to our plant loving designer, Elle

Technology is in a constant flux of evolution and we always want to stay ahead of the game. So much so that we’re jumping the gun with this one…

Meet our down to earth developer with a passion for coding and capoeira

When tough times hit your business, how do you bounce back?

Why do I need to gather feedback through my live mobile app?

We’ve recently been recognised for six separate industry awards.

How do you effectively deal with the completion of a project?

For all Android app developers tackling the issue of scrolling, read on. In this article we share how to extend the ListAdapter with a Header View in Android.

We've been busy creating vector drawables for Android using Sketch.

A man of few words, Dave has the ability to deliver one-liners with a straight face and continue as if nothing untoward just occurred

We ventured deep into the countryside to find ourselves…

Collaborating ‘in-house’ with our clients to get the best working relationships for them and us.

This budding photographer never loses focus, whether chasing sunsets or revamping development processes within the team.

Getting the most out of regular team research and development time.

How we learnt to praise each other honestly and openly to get the most out of our team.

How to create a custom camera view controller that replicates the functionality and UI that’s found in the system camera app.

Simple steps for writing better user stories for you and your team.

We're delighted to partner with AquAid as they strive to make a difference to people's lives.

How to turn an iPhone into an iBeacon

Multi-award winning app for Lowcostholidays.
We were thrilled to be nominated for another award this week, this time for our Lowcostholidays app.

Rate The App - Part One: The story of creating an Android Library.

As 2015 screeches to a halt, we thought we’d take a few minutes to look back on some of the stories here at Brightec in the last 12 months.

Our advice on designing and building apps for Android TV.

A quick guide to developing Top Shelf content for a tvOS app.

Ed attended the UX conference Interact 2015 and penned his thoughts.

How to use slack to post your location

With a career chronicle more varied than most and a love of Sci-fi, we’re honoured to have kept Steve grounded on planet Brightec since 2015

In this article, we will share how we used WebSockets to enable two devices to communicate with each other.

It's that time of year again. So what did we learn from WWDC 2015?

Meet our Android-enthusiast, Alistair

‘Anyone want any cold pizza?’ Our thoughts on the Apple Spring Forward Event.

In this article, we explain one of the most confusing UILabel properties - preferredMaxLayoutWidth.

Drum roll please. Our Head of Product quite likely never feels full, but Jotham is overflowing with ideas to turn your project visions into accessible digital products that people will love to use.

What are the best content delivery platforms for applications?

This week we’ve been playing desk roulette at Brightec HQ.

Way back at WWDC 2014, there were a number of noteworthy releases from Apple. One that gathered perhaps a little less attention was the adoption of the XLIFF file format.

Would there be an ‘iWatch’? What would the iPhone 6 deliver?

Native mobile app or swanky responsive website? Which should you pick?

Is there really anything worse than someone else’s code?

Google IO is their annual developer conference here are our thoughts.

Custom iOS7 Transition
iOS 7 introduced a whole bunch of new APIs for developers to sink their teeth into but one of the standout APIs is the ability to create custom UIViewController transitions. Unfortunately it's also one of the most confusing.

This article will explain the process we went through to build a custom Android media controller, as well as a sample project to help you build your own.

A how-to guide on writing tests within Kotlin Multiplatform.

Jonny is our latest junior developer, here’s his experience of working at Brightec so far…

"What is an Android Spinner?" – A common question with a less than obvious answer. In this article, we look at what an Android Spinner is and where it is used.

How to implement certificate pinning in Kotlin Multiplatform using Ktor

We wanted to make sharing our apps with testers easier, Nick explains how we went about it

Remote working games and working from home activities for you and your team.

Our Stand-Ups weren’t serving us as best they could, but its nothing a freshly brewed coffee couldn’t solve.

Creating a phone number which plays podcasts over the phone from an RSS feed or JSON object

Like many, I have been thrust into the completely new situation of leading our team remotely.

Using motion can subtly educate Android users about how objects move and interact with each other

Is it just me or do the words ‘refactor’ and ‘rearchitect’ fill you with dread?

WFH. Social distancing. Furlough. These are some of the terms that have become the new normal in this strange time.

Using the new and improved AnimatedVectorDrawable to pause and seek your animations.

A simple solution to securely storing client and application secrets when using Google Cloud Platform

There are many control flow statements in Swift, far too many to cover in 1 post. Here we'll just briefly look at the if and guard statements.

A standard feature of most programming languages is enumerations, allowing you to define a group of related items.

These are some of the common ways of working with arrays.

How is it possible that after five years in Vantage Point, we’re leaving behind a space that reflected our values for so long? I thought I’d take a few moments to explain our thinking and what might be next.

A great-looking, seamless retail app design that focuses on delivering an exceptional shopping experience is the holy grail for successful online retail business.

Meet Rob. The latest talented developer to join our team.

This glossary explains some common app development terms you'll come across when working with us

No one could forget Josh, our Creative Director at Brightec.

When it comes to online shopping and retail apps, the moment of checkout is a decisive point in the shopping flow.

When one of your customers chooses to download your retail app, they’ve made a commitment to you.

When it comes to ecommerce app creation, a customer-led approach is key.

How are you going to make your retail app offering really stand out from the crowd?

If you’re thinking of developing a mobile commerce app for your retail business, the biggest question you’re probably asking yourself is: how do we create something our customers will genuinely want to use, and keep them coming back?

You know how it is. People ask how you are, and as humans, we tend to give a generic answer. We can tell you we’re doing well. But what’s really going on behind what you see and hear from Brightec at the moment?

How to use JAXWS to generate HTTP client code using the Gradle Kotlin DSL.

Alistair pinpoints how and where to define your user-facing strings.

Brightec wouldn’t exist without Andy, and his garden shed

Like many organisations, Brightec were introduced to a new word earlier this year - ‘furlough’.

This blog summarises what I’ve learned and the resources I used to build an iOS app from scratch

Perhaps the most important part of software development is acquiring feedback from users. There are multiple efficient ways to do this for mobile app development. Two of the most prevalent are Firebase App Distribution and Testflight. Here are the pros and cons of each and what we use them for.

Meet our Technical Director Chris. He'll hate that we've written an entire blog about him.

A team that eats together, stays together…. And we’re doing the best we can.

At Brightec we are colleagues but we are also friends. We value our connection as a team and whilst another lockdown means we can’t meet socially, or share lunch times in the same way, it hasn’t beaten our spirit. Feeling connected is key.

There’s nothing like the perfect image to make your app shine. But what if you want your app users to actually engage and interact with an image? Maybe they want to zoom in, pan around, really get to grips with the pixels?

The UK App Awards announced the 2020 winners via Twitter on Thursday 12th November and Brightec were popping the virtual champagne to hear our Waterstones app was named Best Retail/Shopping app of the year.

Steve explores the role virtual reality could play in future software development

When lockdown started, I used to think that the main risk to the productivity of my working day would be interruptions from my kids...

Work meetings can easily be seen as a necessary evil, something as an individual you have to endure whilst as an organisation you have to initiate.

How can you customise the Braintree dropin UI in React Native?

2020 is a year no-one will forget for a multitude of reasons. Here's the year at Brightec in review

This series explores the principles that have helped shape the creative teams I have worked with, as well as myself

What if I was bold enough to say that developing empathy is the most crucial skill that any creative team can continue to grow. Would you agree?

Openness, honesty and frankness lead us to the most creative and best work.

We could be utterly passionate or utterly considerate, but the middle ground is where we want to be.

A sound understanding of what it is to do creative work and get the job done is vital for team health and long-term client relationships.

Knowing where inspiration comes from means that our 'creating' doesn't become a factory line of churning out the same old thing.

Why is it so important for developers to keep the end-user in mind?

Don’t forget you’re in good company

Over the years, I have learnt a lot about how best to run teams. Although the job is never ‘done’, the last 12 months’ events have prompted an opportunity to write a blog series exploring the most poignant lessons that have stuck with us at Brightec.

We’ve developed a Slackbot to help you track your team members happiness, and improve your team’s wellbeing.

Meet Georgia, our globe-trotting Head of Operations

This blog briefly explores each of the main design tools we use at Brightec to demonstrate how, and why, they are used.

In light of Covid restrictions, we’ve had to completely reassess how to run user tests to be both safe and effective. Here’s what we’ve discovered so far

And, a lesson in why you should name everything semantically

For non-designers, it can be hard to understand why the process can take so long - surely it’s not that hard to make an aesthetically pleasing app that users will come back to? And isn’t that the most important thing? Spoiler alert: no.

Not all heroes wear capes, some wear dinosaur-print yoga leggings, and a bobble hat (indoors)

Effective data analysis can help businesses in many areas. But how do you get to a position where you can analyse the data?

A guide to setting up independent UIPickerViews

We love to learn by studying and sharing the knowledge of our business and the projects we work on. We never want to settle for ok and testing our apps with real users enables us to continually improve and deliver products that exceed expectations.

Using Google Pay and ThreeDSecure with the Braintree Drop-in UI returns a CardNonce instead of a GooglePaymentCardNonce. Here's the solution to that

This series celebrates the achievements, acknowledgements and awards we have won

We value the joy in both life and work. A good balance between the two goes hand in hand with productivity.

As an employer, we recognise our responsibility to support our staff. Our ethos is for work to be enjoyable but that life, health and happiness are more important.

Multi Schema WSDL and separate packages

The events of 2020 gave most of us cause to rethink the ways we work.

There’s no denying how satisfying it is when your camera magically knows what you're pointing it at. But often it's not quite right. So, we need the ability to focus the camera ourselves.

Joining any new team can be daunting. And probably never more true than joining a team renowned for its outstanding company culture.

Here we explore some key reasons why every Software Developer should blog

The Brightec team is delighted to have been recognised as the Best App Development Agency of 2021

We look at what's involved in creating and testing a Custom Hook

Brightec has begun the discovery phase of development for Ricardo’s proof of concept app, and it's a project that is geographically and ethically close to our hearts

Do you subscribe to the philosophy that pull requests should be a pleasure to review? This blog explores several ways in which this can be achieved.

It’s all very well having the best idea for an app, but you’re going to need your final product to match that great idea you had at the beginning. That’s where QA comes in.

What is the best way to set up iOS local notifications using custom UIPickerViews?

Why setting up automation is always worth it

Before we welcome the new year, let's first reflect and appreciate all that came in 2021

Is there an easy way to improve font management across a multi-disciplined team?

Jotham shares the spreadsheet he uses to guide our clients in building out a product backlog

His Uncle invented the Black+Decker Jigsaw; a claim to fame that has us in pieces. But it's no puzzle where our Head of Design gets his creativity from…

We’re a team fuelled by continuous improvement and vast quantities of coffee, pastries and dad jokes. If pressed, we’d say it’s the coffee that keeps us grounded…

Using React Native in the real world - how to build an RPM meter to measure the speed of your record player / turntable.

Almost two months in, and it still feels like a dream that I was able to break into the tech industry from a non-traditional background, and start working for a company that truly cherishes its employees.

Why proof of concepts matter

What you can do to give a developer the best chance of finding the bug, recreating it and thus, squashing it as soon as possible

Brightec favours flexible working, over remote working. This blog reflects on the last few years, our decisions and the choices that led to where we are now

A historic look at the blog posts around Brightec's relationship with office spaces

We’re an extra two years older, but we finally got to celebrate our journey so far.

Calm, curious and playful, meet Seun

We’re loving working in-person with the team again, and welcoming clients to our new home on the river

Unavoidable hybrid meetings require careful thought to be effective.

Firebase offers an ‘out-the-box’ functionality to customise In-App Messages. But there is an easier way

Our Designer Elle won the DevelopHER Award for User Experience

Our values are the basis for how we conduct ourselves, make decisions and grow as a team.

At the end of a busy year, we’ve taken a moment to pause and reflect on all this year has been.

We look at how some of the AI tools work, why Google needs to respond to OpenAI and Microsoft and what this means for the sector.

How to configure Ktor in a Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile project to trust all SSL certificates

We've been running regular R&D sessions since the end of 2014, and this is what we’ve learnt so far.

In this blog post, we'll explore the importance of creativity and innovation in the tech industry, to celebrate World Creativity & Innovation Day this Friday (21st April).

We explore Test Driven Development with an AI twist!

We are so proud that our new studio has been awarded Best Working Environment (Silver) in the UK Company Culture Awards.

We’ll be covering some of the basics to make our React Native apps more accessible to all users.

How RFCs can help your team collaborate asynchronously, streamline planning, and create more effective technical plans

Introducing Dan; our fun, adventurous and passionate nomadic Software Engineer

A guide to mastering the Art of Push Notifications for mobile app development

Meet our curious and determined Software Engineer, Mo

What do we mean when discussing accessibility, what standards do we align to, and why should we and our clients care enough to invest in this?

What are some of the thought-processes and tools we use at Brightec to ensure we are meeting, and indeed exceeding, accessibility standards?

The role of a UX designer ensuring a good accessibility experience doesn’t stop at the development stage

In this series, we look at navigating Accessibility in UX Design; Defining standards and the opportunities to take an accessible-first approach when building apps

How can UX Designers optimise typography for accessibility?

Meet Ben, Brightec’s Product Manager

Why asking ‘why’ is vital in good mobile app development

I love helping individuals and teams grow and succeed and overcome bigger and more audacious challenges. It doesn't happen on autopilot, even with great people. Actually, having the best people makes it an even more difficult, but crucial, endeavour.

We want to articulate our job roles and responsibilities as effectively as our company culture.

In this series, we peer inside one of the mechanisms that helps drive and shape the software engineering team at Brightec.

This blog is an insight into the thinking behind creating our new software engineering career framework.

How to take an extended break that benefits you and your company

This blog outlines the career framework we settled upon for our software engineering team at Brightec.

Meet our free-spirited designer, Annie

Mastering Slack: Best Practices and our tips for Streamlined Communication

Brightec firmly believes it is possible to experience joy in work and through work. In this blog, we take our eyes off the mince pies for a few minutes to look back at our highlights of 2023.

In this blog we’ll uncover the mystery of retainer agreements; what are they used for and what are the benefits of having one?

What does it mean to be a Customer-centric business, and why does it matter?

With all the energy of a loveable puppy, Simon brings a wealth of creative expertise and strategic vision to the Brightec team

We are excited to announce that Brightec has acquired the software tool CommunityLoop.

We’ve put together a list of 10 things we’ve done to promote our team happiness level

Our operations dashboard enabled us to spot an opportunity to utilise time for team building. This blog explains the thinking behind ‘The Brightec Holiday Hackathon’ and how it played out for our team.

Miro has been a key tool for Brightec’s User Research for several years now. This blog looks at how we have harnessed its AI tools to streamline our process.

Insights and considerations of using Kotlin Multiplatform as a Software Engineer

We can now use async and await to help write cleaner code with Swift 5.5

To celebrate world art day, we spoke to two of our talented Design Team to find out what’s inspiring them right now to create their best art.

In the first of this four-part series documenting our journey to building an inspiring company culture, we focus on training.

In 2023, Brightec was named one of the top 100 Inspiring Companies in the world. It took a while for that to sink in.

Our small team of 20 people in Shoreham serves Global brands like Waterstones and Virgin to develop award-winning apps and deliver best-in-class results.

We know we do a great job because our clients tell us so but it was an absolute honour to earn this accolade.

Here are some of our favourite tried and tested ways to serve our team and be a great employer

Feeling rewarded is a key factor in preventing burnout in the workplace. In this blog, we share some of our favourite ways to acknowledge great work and support to our team

So far in this series, we’ve looked at training, motivation and reward. But what about where, when and how the work happens?

Are you an iOS developer looking to streamline your app development process and build more maintainable, scalable, and resilient applications? If so, you're in the right place. In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll unravel the complexities surrounding The Composable Architecture ( TCA), empowering you to harness its full potential confidently. We've got you covered, from understanding the core concepts to setting up your Xcode project, defining state, actions, and reducers, creating composable views, and managing state changes effectively.

We'll also delve into advanced techniques like navigation, routing, and dependency injection, ensuring you're equipped with the tools to tackle real-world app development challenges head-on. Along the way, we'll discuss testing strategies, debugging techniques, and provide insightful examples to solidify your understanding.

In the first part of our comprehensive guide on demystifying The Composable Architecture (TCA) for Swift we explain the fundamental principles of this revolutionary approach.

In the second part of our comprehensive guide on The Composable Architecture (TCA) for Swift, we look at the practical implementation

In the third part of our guide to mastering The Composable Architecture for Swift we look at managing state changes and effectively using stores

This blog series concludes with a look at the testability of TCA

How we deliver meaningful, successful Design Sprints for our clients

Here’s a proven fresh approach to blog writing that works for us

Once you've drafted your shiny new career framework – how do you roll it out?

Moving from being an expert in your field to managing a group of experts can feel like a huge change and a challenge that many people will face during their careers. I have now had the privilege of managing a team of engineers for over 18 months and these are a few of my thoughts on the process of moving from being a Software Engineer to becoming an Engineering Lead.

As I celebrate my 10th anniversary with Brightec, I want to share ten big mistakes I've made along this incredible journey and how they've helped me embrace our value of making things better.

Here are a few ways I've found to help get me back to the state of mind in which I love what I do

Our Delivery Manager was once a Chemistry teacher, but we ‘zinc’ she’s in her element at Brightec

In this article, I'll make the case for why the answer is "Yes, you absolutely should learn software engineering."

If your clients can’t justify the expense of a custom Vision OS app, is there a more cost-effective approach? Yes, there is.

A simple, effective approach to mastering complex product decisions

We are looking for a creative and ambitious individual to join our marketing team as a Communications Coordinator.