Now that we are in the second month of 2015, hopefully you are able to write today’s date without cursing at yourself for mistakenly writing “2014,” and scribbling a 5 over that 4. Even if you are, there’s a lot to expect in mobile in 2015. From wearable advances to mobile app evolution to changes in the way we make phone calls, here’s what we predict will happen in 2015 mobile. WiFi Calling For those who fight the good fight against low mobile reception, WiFi calling is the answer to boost mobile signal without draining battery life. As such, 2014 was a big year for WiFi calling as T-Mobile and Sprint made a push to expand coverage to hot spots with WiFi access. This means the pressure is on the remaining mobile carriers to support WiFi calling. Not only will mobile carriers support WiFi calling, but they’ll also promote the feature to fill in the missing spots on the map where reception is low and frustratingly not connected. Wearables It’s hard to imagine wearables truly taking a permanent hold on the appendages of America, but 2015 will be a big year for their advancement. Smart watches for example haven’t quite captivated consumers due to low battery life and overreliance on mobile phones themselves, however things are changing. Apple Watch is on its way, set to release in early 2015. This is an exciting move for the company that changed the way we listen to music and use telephones altogether. Not only that but consumer interest in the wearable subject has improved, as a Forrester survey of 4,500 US adults found that 42% of respondents would be interested in purchasing a wrist-based wearable. This is up 28% from 2013’s survey, a tangible nod that signs are pointing to wearable use. With the biggest companies putting skin in the game and consumer interest increasing, the wearable game is going to get a lot more interesting. Mobile App Advertising Mobile applications are positioned to play a larger role in the 2015 world of marketing. Mobile devices are used at a significantly higher rate than a desktop, and 80% of that mobile use is spent on apps. So it naturally makes sense that a mobile application would be used to promote businesses as well as offer important tracking user information. Vincent Tessier of LAPLACEMEDIA puts it well as he predicts, “For 2015, we expect that both programmatic and native advertising will dramatically change the face of the mobile advertising industry. Brand budgets will continue to rise as best practices from mobile pure players have been learned in terms of tracking and native, as well as programmatic is bringing effectiveness in reaching the right audience.” Hardware Advances The aforementioned Apple Watch is one such example of advances in mobile hardware that we can expect in 2015. Google is set to release its modular smartphone Project Ara, introducing users to the concept of swapping out components of the device they find useful or not.  Aside from the release of big projects from industry giants, we can expect to see more hardware integration as apps integrate with devices and utilities for everyday life. Expect to see more app integration with smart homes, medical devices, etc. Apps Breaking Apart, Becoming Singularly Focused We’ve traditionally been supporters of the concept of building apps incredibly skillful at one thing. You nor your app can be everything to everyone, and building applications that users love involves keeping it simple, usable and solving one problem exceptionally well. We are now seeing other companies realizing this seeming truth, as mobile apps are not only being built with a simple focus, but already successful apps are breaking their functionality apart into separate apps. As we recently mentioned, Facebook spun out their Messenger function into a separate app - and we can expect more of this looking into 2015. 2015 is shaping up to be an exciting year in mobile, app development, and technology in general. What are you looking forward to most in 2015 mobile? Let us know in the comments below.

Shopping cart abandonment is an all too familiar term for owners of ecommerce websites.  Someone clicks on your website, likes what they see, puts an item into their online shopping cart but, somewhere during the checkout process, clicks off the website without buying the item.  We have been developing ecommerce websites on different shopping cart platforms in San Diego for more than 10 years and, in our experience, the best ways to avoid shopping cart abandonment are: The main goal for having an ecommerce site is to sell the products offered on your site, so be sure that your website's design encourages this goal.  Are the shopping cart and checkout directions clear to your customers?  Buttons should be easily visible and labelled with appropriate names.  Payment and shipping forms should be simple, clear, and concise.  The more streamlined the checkout process is, the less likely you are to lose a sale. Be upfront with your customers about any other costs, like shipping, that they will have to pay for.  A lot of websites do not display the shipping charge until all of the payment forms have been filled out.  At that point, your customer expects to pay $40 for a purchase and then finds that, with shipping and tax, it is going to cost them $60.  This hidden cost does not encourage consumer confidence, so let them know about any additional charges before they start checking out. It's always a good idea to display payment options and credit cards accepted on the shopping cart so customers will already have the right credit card in hand when they begin the checkout process. Make yourself available to answer questions that may come up during the checkout process.  A lot of last-minute questions may come up that could derail the sale, such as return policies and shipping dates.  If you have an email address and phone listed on your website's shopping cart, customers can call with questions and give you the opportunity to encourage that final sale. Do your online industry research.  Make sure the pricing for the products offered on your website is competitive.  One of the consumer benefits of Web 2.0 is that customers have the opportunity to shop the Internet for the best deals.  You won't see too many sales unless you've got a comparable price. Test regularly and refine your site.  Track your customer's progress through the website and shopping cart forms to figure out where customers are getting stuck or abandoning their shopping cart.  Based on these results, modify your ecommerce's site design to encourage more customers to complete their purchases.

by: Robert Wang Better thank your lucky stars. On October 5th, Adobe announced a workaround to the iPhone's complete incompatibility to Flash. The company showcased a handful of apps, developed in Flash and directly converted to a fully functional iPhone compatible form, in front of a live audience at the annual Adobe Max event in San Francisco. In enabling the channels of conversion, Adobe has opened the floodgates for ever greater volumes of 3rd party applications. Now it’s anyone’s game—provided you can make it past Apple’s heavy-handed censors. By using Flash Pro CS5 (slated for public beta later this year), aspiring developers might finally get their very own piece of the much-sought-after Apple pie. The iPhone/Flash incompatibility has long served as a source of annoyance for many a user: causing anything from minor style disruption to the total catastrophic failure of entire websites. Over the past decade, Flash has grown from amusing novelty to one of the primary mediums of content delivery on the internet. Flash is used to power everything from animated ads, to video players (the likes of which have granted YouTube and Hulu their runaway success), to full on media platforms from which complex applications can be run—all on a lightweight, easy-to-install standalone program. So why hasn’t Apple included Flash functionality on the iPhone? Due to the nature of the Flash player, it would, to be blunt, cut into Apple’s profits. Apple is currently maintaining something of a totalitarian regime over the software and hardware rights to its creations. Users can only gain additional content by purchasing it through the Apple regulated iTunes store…and Apple aims to keep it that way. So will you ever be able to stream that new trailer off MovieFone? Don’t bank on it. The Flash player actually violates the Apple Terms of Service, in fact any sort of plug-in to the Safari Browser would represent a breech in contract. But it’s a start, and with greater pressure to ease up on content restrictions arising from competition like the Google Android, it’s only a matter of time before Apple is forced to reconsider its policies. However, with html 5 in full swing, the need for dynamic content plug-ins like Flash and SilverLight is significantly reduced—potentially to the point of obsolescence. Html 5’s design means that the potential and power behind web apps freshly created on its platform will be unparalleled: faster, more immersive, and ever closer to being indistinguishable from their offline brethren. To date, Apple, Google, Mozilla, and even Microsoft are doing their best to promote it. With the lines already drawn, it’s going to be a tough, uphill battle for Adobe. Is it time to ditch your Flash books in the closest dumpster and move on? Has Flash become so prevalent that it’s now an irreplaceable Internet staple? Look for Barefoot Solutions to weigh in on the debate soon. In the meantime, let the games begin.