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How to Schedule Local iOS Notifications

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

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User Testing

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.

Older Posts

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How to create a custom UIPickerView with enums and generics

A guide to setting up independent UIPickerViews

increasing conversion rates

Taking a checkout conversion rate from 45% to 65%

Updates that make a huge increase to checkout conversion rates.

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Mockk.io - our new mocking framework

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

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Google PlayStore internal app sharing

We set out to start deploying apps to internal app sharing within our CI system.

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How to update deployment scripts to use Android App Bundles

How we automate our AAB deployment to the Google PlayStore

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CameraX: An Introduction

We explore Google's answer to the complexity of the camera APIs

Given When Then - Our Testing Approach

We've been looking into why we write tests and how we go about them

Brightec's Energy Mobile App Report

Brightec Illuminates Mobile Tech for Energy Industry

Read our essential, in-depth report into engaging energy customers via mobile

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CircleCI: How to Create Signed iOS Builds

We set up nightly QA builds for our iOS projects on CircleCI so that we didn’t have to keep creating them manually.

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Android Threads & Coroutines for Beginners

What is threading? Why is it important for Android? And where does Kotlin fit in?

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How We Automate App Store Reviews into Google Sheets

We've delved into the pain of collating app store reviews - so you don't have to...

Brightec Mobile App Reviews

Enterprise Apps: Four Top Analytics Tools

As a mobile app development company creating enterprise apps, we’ve used a number of different analytics tools over the years. And there are more than ever on the market...

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Building a Fibonacci Watch Face for Wear OS

We've been exploring golden spirals and wearable devices.

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Handling International Addresses in Android

How to structure your data to handle different address formats from around the world.

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How to finish an Open Source project (gracefully)

Rate the app: our fourth and final instalment in a series about creating an Open Source library.

Top tips for using Xcode templates

We've been taking a closer look at Xcode templates - here are some of the things we've discovered.

Google PlayStore and automated deployment

We recently set out to automatically deploy an apk to the PlayStore to speed up our distribution process.

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How to start a career as a mobile app developer

Looking to take the plunge into mobile app development? Here are some things to consider.

Android Mobile App Development

Creating a Selectable Cluster Map

We explored using Google Maps to create a map with selectable markers that cluster together.

Enterprise Apps Featured

Enterprise Mobile App Development: 5 ways to plan for success

We offer insights into key issues to consider in the early stages of enterprise mobile app development.

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Our process evolution

As an agile organisation, our landscape is constantly evolving, so we thought it was time to write a new blog about our process.

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Writing an API - a mobile developer story

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

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Queued tasks on App Engine for Firebase

We’ve recently been exploring Google App Engine with Firebase. Here’s how we queued tasks between them.

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Trigger Firebase Cloud Functions

How do you trigger Firebase Cloud Functions when a file gets uploaded? We recently needed to take regularly updated text files and read them into a database. Here’s how we used Firebase to do it.

Top tips for developing multitasking apps

If you're looking at developing a multitasking app, there are a few issues you need to consider, as our colleague Rhys has been discovering.

User Testing Interviews - An Interviewer’s Perspective

What can an interviewer do to get the most out of user testing?

Coding Ideas Featured

The current state of our iOS architecture

Exploring best architectures is a constant endeavour. Here’s an update of where we are currently at.

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Apple & white label apps

Find out more about Apple's recent store cleanup and white label apps

How to work best with your designers

The relationship between developer and designer is crucial in any development team. In this article, one of our developers gives his perspective on how they can work well together.

CI and CD is important for us and our clients

It can be difficult to explain to our clients what CI and CD processes are (let alone why they're beneficial). So here's our explanation.

User knows best

How to undertake effective user testing to help you deliver the best user experience.

Why we run a Meetup (and why you should too)

The main way we support and give back to our local developer community is by running Brighton Mobile Meetup,  a monthly meetup for mobile & digital companies in Brighton. But, why?

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Encouragement changes everything

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

Why you should care whether your app was built using Google Firebase

Are you looking for a Rolls-Royce, tried and tested solution for your app? Does Google Firebase provide that and, if so, should you care?

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Overloading Swift Operators

We explore how to overload existing operators in Swift 3.x

Focus on Iconography

Why is iconography important for eye-catching and effective in-app UX?

Xcode : Setting up a Colour Style Guide for a project

How to set up a colour style guide for a project in Xcode.

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Agile Development v Fixed Price

What is Agile Development and why do we use it here at Brightec?

Apple Event 2016 - The Headlines

Our thoughts on the Apple Event from 7th September 2016. Was it all about the headphone jack?

Brightec Open Studio - Creating Company Culture

Culture can make or break an organisation. Get it right and you, your staff and your customers will reap the benefits. Pop along to our Open Studio and explore our company culture, discovering how we create and maintain it.

Coaching for greatness

How we overcame our cynicism and built a coaching structure to help our staff (and eventually our company) to thrive.

Creating a productive and collaborative office space

How to create both a productive and collaborative office space to help your business thrive

Simple user stories

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

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Spotify v Apple Music

We take a closer look at some of the interesting design issues that Spotify and Apple Music have been competing over.

Brightec on GitHub

GitHub is an invaluable resource for developers all over the world. We've collected below a selection of our own GitHub repositories and related blog posts.

How to keep children safe on an iPhone & iPad

Online safety is an issue of increasing importance for families. In this article, Andy explores some simple ways to keep children safe on iPhones and iPads.

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The Future of Enterprise Apps

Five factors that will influence the next generation of enterprise apps.

Colour ideas main

Focus on Colour

What are the key elements of a good user interface design? Well, definitely colour.

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How to set up your project to work with iBeacons

How to turn an iPhone into an iBeacon

Responsible teams

How to foster an environment where staff take responsibility

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Android Marshmallow and SimpleDateFormat

Android Marshmallow and a breaking change with SimpleDateFormat

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Creating Top Shelf Content for Your tvOS App

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

Android animations

A few solutions for easily executing Android animations

Using WebSockets to Communicate Between Two Devices

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

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Information for the Google Play Store

Your app is designed, developed and ready to go. What next? Time for the app stores.

Implications of WWDC 2015

What are the key implications for developers that came out of WWDC 2015?

Why work for Brightec?

We’re always on the lookout for skilled employees. Maybe you’ll fit in here.

Information for the App Store

So you have an app! Job done? Almost, there is a little more work to do yet.

IBDesignable and IBInspectable with CoreGraphics

Working with CoreGraphics can be a developer's nightmare. It’s our bogey-man hiding under the bed.

Mobile is reshaping the Travel Industry

The future of shopping starts here.
In July last year we built and launched the lowcostholidays travel app. We’ve been astonished by its success, shown by some remarkable results over the last 8 months. This led to the app gaining the attention of the national press in recent weeks.

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PreferredMaxLayoutWidth: Everything You Need to Know

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

7 difficulties of internationalisation & localisation

Seven of the most difficult aspects of internationalisation and localisation.

Simple Android network requests

Chris explores how we set up network requests for Android

Android Multi-Builds

Building Android projects automatically against multiple APIs

Objective-C code in a Swift project

Objective-C code is Shakespearean English and Swift is the latest London Cockney slang?

One layout to rule them all

Remember those days, the good ol’ days; when there was just one device, with one screen and one resolution?

Branching Strategy

This is the final post in the series - ‘Evolving the Dev Process’.

Code Standards

What’s the difference between code standards and code style?

Code Style expectations

How quickly can a developer start contributing good code?

Why Continuous Integration?

This is the first of a four part series - ‘Evolving the development process’. Part 1 looks at CI (Continuous Integration).

UICollectionView Tutorial: How to Create Sticky Headers with Horizontal and Vertical Scrolling

A tableview which could be scrolled both horizontally and vertically?

Buying on Mobile

Buying physical products and real-world services on iPhone

How We Created a Custom Slider with Marks for iOS

The problem came to light when we needed to set a number of marks on a music player...

What Mobile App Trends Can We Expect to See in 2014?

What are the trends in this ever-growing app world and how might they affect the apps we use?

iOS 7 Custom View Controller Transitions and Rotation

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.

How to Create an Android ListView with an Alphabet Scroller

When presenting data in a ListView it may be helpful to have a scroller down the side to allow users to quickly jump to a specific letter.

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