Top app development companies interview: Multidots

Gautam Lakum is Project Coordinator at Multidots. The mobile app development company was founded in 2009 by Anil Gupta and Aslam Multaniand and is located in Ahmedabad, India. The company employs more than 125 IT professionals and developers.

What does Multidots Solutions do?

We develop mobile apps using native Android SDK for the Android phones, iOS apps using Objective-C and Swift, hybrid apps using Ionic for enterprise companies, startups, small businesses. We work on IoT and Bluetooth apps as well. We follow good development practices using Git, CI, Code and quality reviews, etc. All our Android developers are “Google Certified Associate Android Developers” which makes our whole team stronger.

What clients have you worked for?

We have worked for many small and big companies, and enterprises as well. We have worked on social apps for the media and marketing company BlueFusion, a dating app (OnDaySix) for an entrepreneur, apps for startups like DryCleaner and DriverButler, Bluetooth-based products like Cliki, job board apps for the hiring firm Career Hub, business apps for a few enterprise companies, a healthcare startup like mBono, a social app focused on music (Aurafy), a car auction business like Flipped.ca, a Beacon based solution called Beaconly, and more.

If you had to choose one category, what kind of app do you think is your mobile app development company’s specialty?

We would choose social network apps as our specialty because we have worked on more than 5 social network apps having different purposes.

What is the average budget of the mobile apps you develop?

It is around $30-40K.

Do you develop all mobile apps in-house or do you outsource some parts of the process?

We develop all mobile apps in-house except if a client wants an app on the Windows platform. The benefit of doing all the work in-house is we have full control over the development process. It reduces internal operations and it increases the productivity, effectivity and saves time. We outsource the work only if a client wants an app on the Windows platform or if clients have their own team working on an specific part of the mobile app.

Which would you say are the best mobile apps that your company has developed?

URateIt: this was our first mobile app in the social network app category and it was quite a big one. It took almost 6-8 months for us to get it completed. The concept is that users can create creative polls using text, images, audio and video and that can be shared with their contacts via text messages, social profiles, etc. This app could be a great tool for the businesses and people to know people’s opinion through polls e.g. someone is buying a car and wants others’ opinion. They can create a poll with different cars options and car photos. The same way one can create a poll using audio or video. They can also choose design templates that can be applied to the polls. So this way, users get a lot of options to create creative polls and roll them out to their contacts. We did the integration of all social popular social apps, developed an ability to embed images, audio and video for the users, and many more social features.

Cliki : this was our first mobile app based on the Bluetooth technology. Mobile users are used to playing songs, record audio and video, access Google Now, take photos using the camera app, turn the flashlight on/off, send walkie-talkie messages, SOS, etc. But to do all these tasks, they need to interact with their phone directly. Cliki’s Bluetooth button allows users to do all the above tasks with a very few physical interaction with the phone. All they have to do is, download the Cliki app, pair the Cliki Bluetooth button with the mobile device, setup actions, and that’s it. You can perform all the above actions by a few clicks of the Cliki button without opening your phone. Our team worked with Bluetooth characteristics and HID controls in this app.

mBono: this is a healthcare startup. It allows users to get their health/body reports sitting at the home. Let’s say a user wants a blood report. Then they just have to pass through a few steps of the app. Then a person from the nearest pathology laboratory will go to the person’s home to collect a blood sample and then the user will get the blood report delivered through the app in digital form (images and pdf).

Career Hub: this app allows users to find jobs around them relevant for their profession. This app has a good use of Google Maps APIs.

3rdi: it’s an app for those who want to meditate. The app plays great quality meditation audio by which users can do meditation. The challenges here were that the app was weighing approx 2.5 GB of audio files. So we had to reduce its weight and we made it to 50 MB. Another challenge was achieving the animations that are being played when users complete specific meditation levels. We achieved the animation using HTML5 and CSS3.

Do you prefer to build mobile apps with native, hybrid or web languages?

We prefer to build mobile apps with native languages because of the performance benefit. Hybrid or web languages can’t match the native performance and experience. But in the end, it’s up to the client’s need and purpose. If we’re building an MVP or clients want to validate a concept and not having enough budget, we prefer to go with hybrid languages.

Let’s focus on iOS and Android mobile app development. Which are the Pros and Cons of each platform?

Which one will evolve more within the next 5 years?

I feel Android will evolve more than iOS in the coming years. But you can’t actually decide that. Google is working to make Android a billion company and it’s an open source. Android has had many features since its initial years. Apple has now made similar features available for people in the iOS. Google and Apple, both are working to connect all the devices used in the daily life. On the other hand, Google is working on Android Things for the IoT. At the end, the time will say who has evolved more. But personally, I want both to evolve equally because that will give a great experience and products to the consumers.

Which device is the best in the market right now?

Personally, I love Google’s services and so, Android. So I can choose any of the premium Android smartphones as the best device. But specifically, I would choose either Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy S8. Pixel, because it is brought by Google and any new innovation by them is available to Pixel phones first. Galaxy S8, because Samsung is dominating the smartphone market in Android worldwide. They’ve always come up with something innovative with the device and services every year. As I am leading a team who works on both Android and iOS, I can’t love one and hate another. I also love iPhones because of their simplicity, performance, iOS updates, etc.

And which device do you feel more comfortable developing an app for?

In Android, it’s Google Pixel because it runs the stock version of Android. And so, there is no chance of having a ROM related issue in the app that you develop. In iOS, you have no choice to choose a device for the development. :)

Why is AppFutura useful to you?

We have came across many platforms. They are either a listing platform or a bidding portal. AppFutura provides both at the same time. Also, Multidots is looking aggressively on growing with the mobile app development team. We found that AppFutura can be that platform for us to grow.

Go to AppFutura's Multidots developer profile to get more information about them.

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