businessinfomag.uk
magazine
14
Consumers want smarter
apps
Retailers need to embrace next generation
technology such as artificial intelligence
(AI) and augmented reality (AR) if
they want shoppers to continue to use
their apps, warns mobile app developer
Apadmi. Its analysis shows that nearly
30% of consumers would like to see more
innovation in mobile apps to help create
a better, more personalised shopping
experience. More than a quarter (26%)
say they would like to see retailers
implement AI tools to remember past
purchases and recommend products and
deals based on shopping history. Nearly a
fifth (18%) think that AI in retail apps, like
chatbots or digital assistants, would be an
improvement.
Form new habits
Of the 73% of us who make New Year’s
Resolutions, 80% will have broken them
by March, claim the makers of the habit-
forming app Elephant. They say that it
takes anything from three weeks to nine
months of regular practice to form a new
habit and have developed the Elephant
iOS app to help with this process. It does
this by encouraging users to practice any
desired habit repeatedly throughout the
day, using randomly timed visual cues or
vibrations as reminders.
Impactful marketing
Shutterstock, the global provider of
imagery and music, and SharpSpring, a
global provider of cloud-based marketing
technologies, have announced a
partnership that will allow SharpSpring
customers to access Shutterstock’s full
collection of more than 125 million
high quality images from within the
marketing automation platform.
The SharpSpring platform helps
businesses improve lead generation and
engagement to drive more sales and this
integration facilitates the creation of
impactful, image-rich marketing emails,
landing pages and blog posts.
Xero has announced a series of
new integrations with business
finance apps to improve small
businesses’ access to capital
and credit. The latest business
finance apps to integrate with
Xero include:
DueCourse
enables small
businesses to get paid within
hours of sending an invoice,
rather than having to wait 30,
60 or even 90 days. This means
small business owners can focus
on doing the things they love,
rather than chasing invoices and
worrying about when they will
get paid.
Iwoca
offers small businesses
a flexible, unsecured credit line
of up to £100,000, which they
can draw down within hours of
applying. There are no upfront
fees and businesses can pay back
borrowings over 12 months,
top up or repay early with no
penalties. Having served over
10,000 customers since its
launch in 2012, iwoca is one of
the UK’s leading providers of
working capital.
MarketInvoice
is the world’s
largest online invoice finance
platform, having provided
over £1.1bn in funding to UK
businesses since 2011. This
funding, which was secured
against over 70,000 outstanding
invoices, has helped thousands of
businesses unlock cash-flow and
achieve their ambitions.
Xero expands capital and credit sources
First UK based social network
Heelo, the first social media app to be
made and released in the UK, combines
instant messaging, voice calling and video
calling with the ability to make group
video calls with up to twelve people.
Sixteen year old Khurram Asif of East
London started developing the social
network in 2014 when looking for a
messaging platform offering simplicity,
connectivity and flexibility. Compared to
WhatsApp, Heelo uses 234KB less data
on a 1GB plan, giving an additional 19
minutes of use per day. Heelo is free
to download from iTunes and will be
available for Android users in the autumn.
Click and apply
Manchester tech company Volcanic has
launched the world’s first
Augmented Reality job
board app. Point Jobs
lets jobseekers pre-load
a CV to enable one-click
applications on the spot.
Employers and recruiters
can add vacancies to the
job board for free and
drop a pin on a map to
show where they are located.
App.pointjobs.co.uk
Pay with your banking app
VocaLink, the global payment partner
to banks, corporates and governments,
has announced that Pay by Bank app, its
mobile payments service, will be available
to customers of HSBC and its subsidiary,
first direct. Pay by Bank app enables
people to make ‘digital debit’ payments
for goods and services via their banking
app, with payment made directly from
their current account. HSBC and first
direct join Barclays, Bank of Scotland,
Halifax and Lloyds Bank, which are already
signed up to deliver Pay by Bank app to
their customers.
Monitor air pollution
Transport app Moovit has added a new
feature to encourage commuters to stay
‘pollution aware’. Following a partnership
with CleanSpace, users can now use the
app to check the levels of air pollution on
their route to work. They can also sign up
to receive CleanSpace Tags, smart sensors
designed by Drayson Technologies that
collect air pollution data in their environs.
Moovit hopes the crowdsourcing of
data will help create a global map of air
pollution.
Share content anywhere
Playora allows you to share digital media
from your mobile devices to other screens
or Smart TVs anywhere in the world. The
iOS and Android app enables users to
push any image, video or webpage from
their smartphone or tablet to any of their
friends’ or colleagues’ compatible screens,
without the need for cables or streaming
boxes.
APP UPDATE
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