Mobile apps used for people living with multiple sclerosis: A scoping review.

Smartphone apps support people to adopt healthy lifestyles. Therefore, it is useful to understand the persuasive design strategies involved in hybrid mobile applications that facilitate behavior changes. The aim of our research is to show the ease of use of hybrid mobile applications compared to Web and Native applications. Hybrid mobile apps combine the features of Web apps and Native mobile apps. Like web applications, they are implemented in portable, platform-independent languages such as HTML and JavaScript. They directly access local device resources such as native apps. Transition to hybrid applications has been increasing in recent years with the rapid progress of technology. Although it has performance disadvantages compared to native applications, it is more preferred by software developers due to its ease of use. From the results, it has been determined that the user interface for hybrid applications is simpler to develop with its dynamic structure and it uses mobile device features better in terms of performance when used in hybrid applications.

Objectives: This research study provides an analysis model which is used to analyze the requirements of mobile native apps contextually under any domain. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Based on the background study, the research process have taken three research approaches and also have identified various activities which are performed among a native mobile app user and mobile native apps and formed them into questionnaires which are sent to different mobile native app developers of different software industries. This research process has determined the requirements based on four contexts in mobile domain such as device context, mobility contexts, user context and social contexts. Findings: These activities are mapped into attributes and contexts for modeling the requirements under mobile domain and for developing the sub models of the analysis model. Finally the analysis model is built and composed of four sub models. These sub models are content analysis model, interaction analysis model, functional analysis model and configuration analysis model. Application/Improvements: This research study provides the analysis model where the requirements are analyzed in a mobile native app under any domain such as agriculture, learning or healthcare applications. This analysis model is significant as it determines the contexts and models the contexts which are not specified in any frameworks or process models. Keywords: Configuration Analysis, Content Analysis, Functional Analysis, Interaction Analysis

Mobile apps have found wide acceptance in today’s world which heavily depend on smart technology to access data over wide location. The apps are mostly of native type which can be used for accessing data even without the internet availability. In this paper the development of mobile native applications requires the assimilation of various analytical contexts depending on the requirement of users. We have done an empirical study of various papers based on ubiquitous systems and mobile apps for finding out the contexts in building mobile native apps and the mobile contexts are such as device context, user context, mobility context and social context. We have found that the overall weight of each mobile context is an empirical study. We have taken various activities which are performed among a user and mobile native apps and formed them into questionnaires which are sent to different mobile native app developers of different software industries. The mapping is done among these activities with the attributes and their associated mobile contexts. We have identified and obtained four contexts as main requirements for developing mobile native apps under any domain. The analysis of requirements is done modeling the contexts and their attributes through OWLDL language. We have determined from the empirical study that the overall weight of device context is more than the other contexts. Hence it is clear that the device context with its numerous features have a great impact on developing mobile native apps under any domain.

We can notice that security problems of inappropriate integration of native and web technologies in hybrid mobile applications (apps) have been covered in the related state-of-the-art research. However, analyzing hybrid mobile apps' unique behaviors has been seldom addressed. In this paper, we explore the influence of native and web technologies integration in hybrid mobile apps on the generated profile of mobile applications. Specifically, we analyze the type of Security Sensitive APIs (SS-APIs) exposed to web content and identify the corresponding usage patterns by systematically tracking function-call-graphs of a large number of hybrid and native mobile apps. Our investigations indicate that the generated profiles for hybrid and native mobile apps are considerably different. Using our proposed tool, called Hybrid-scanner, for tracking and analyzing internal behaviors of hybrid mobile apps, we show that there is more trace of API calling for triggering a specific SS-API in a hybrid mobile app in comparison with Android native mobile apps. In addition, we have found that almost 40% of SS-APIs in hybrid mobile apps are invoked by third-party libraries, e.g. advertisement libraries. This knowledge, however, is crucial for designing appropriate malware detection or vulnerability mitigation strategies. Based on our results, we discuss two main approaches in Android malware analysis field and enumerate some suggestions which should be considered in order to successfully detect malicious behaviors in such new type of apps.

With over a billion mobile devices in use worldwide and nearly half a billion mobile applications on offer, software developers must make choices between developing one or more versions of native, hybrid or mobile web applications. This paper compares development approaches across these three options and compiles a set of criteria on platforms and devices that can be used in critical development decisions. Key issues for each application development approach are discussed, and a comparative analysis highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Keywords: App, mobile application, native mobile app, hybrid mobile app, web mobile app, mobile application development

PurposeMobile devices (smartphones, tables etc.) have become the de facto means of accessing the internet. While traditional Web browsing is still quite popular, significant interaction takes place via native mobile apps that can be downloaded either freely or at a cost. This has opened the door to a number of issues related to privacy protection since the smartphone stores and processes personal data. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of access to personal data, required by the most popular mobile apps available in Google Play store. In addition, it is examined whether the relevant procedure is in accordance with the provisions of the new EU Regulation.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines more than a thousand mobile apps, available from the Google Play store, with respect to the extent of the requests for access to personal data. In particular, for each available category in Google Play store, the most popular mobile apps have been examined both for free and paid apps. In addition, the permissions required by free and paid mobile apps are compared. Furthermore, a correlation analysis is carried out aiming to reveal any correlation between the extent of required access to personal data and the popularity and the rating of each mobile app.FindingsThe findings of this paper suggest that the majority of examined mobile apps require access to personal data to a high extent. In addition, it is found that free mobile apps request access to personal data in a higher extent compared to the relevant requests by paid apps, which indicates strongly that the business model of free mobile apps is based on personal data exploitation. The most popular types of access permissions are revealed for both free and paid apps. In addition, important questions are raised in relation to user awareness and behavior, data minimization and purpose limitation for free and paid mobile apps.Originality/valueIn this study, the process and the extent of access to personal data through mobile apps are analyzed. Although several studies analyzed relevant issues in the past, the originality of this research is mainly based on the following facts: first, this work took into account the recent Regulation of the EU in relation to personal data (GDPR); second, the authors analyzed a high number of the most popular mobile apps (more than a thousand); and third, the authors compare and analyze the different approaches followed between free and paid mobile apps.

Numerous mobile health apps are marketed globally, and these have specific features including physical activity tracking, motivational feedback, and recipe provision. It is important to understand which features individuals prefer and whether these preferences differ between consumer groups. In this study, we aimed to identify consumers' most preferred features and rewards for a mobile app that targets healthy eating and physical activity and to reduce the number of individual mobile health app features to a smaller number of key categories as perceived by consumers. In addition, we investigated the impact of differences in consumers' BMI and self-efficacy on their intention to use and willingness to pay for such an app. Finally, we identified the characteristics of different target groups of consumers and their responses toward app features via cluster analysis. A total of 212 participants from France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany were recruited via the web to answer questions about app features, motivation, self-efficacy, demographics, and geographic factors. It is important to note that our study included an evenly distributed sample of people in the age range of 23 to 50 years (23-35 and 35-50 years). The app features in question were generated from a 14-day cocreation session by a group of consumers from the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. "Home work out suggestions," "exercise tips," and "progress charts" were the most preferred app features, whereas "gift vouchers" and "shopping discounts" were the most preferred rewards. "Connections with other communication apps" was the least preferred feature, and "charitable giving" was the least preferred reward. Importantly, consumers' positive attitude toward the "social support and connectedness and mindfulness" app feature predicted willingness to pay for such an app (β=.229; P=.004). Differences in consumers' health status, motivational factors, and basic demographics moderated these results and consumers' intention to use and willingness to pay for such an app. Notably, younger and more motivated consumers with more experience and knowledge about health apps indicated more positive attitudes and intentions to use and willingness to pay for this type of app. This study indicated that consumers tend to prefer app features that are activity based and demonstrate progress. It also suggested a potential role for monetary rewards in promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors. Moreover, the results highlighted the role of consumers' health status, motivational factors, and socioeconomic status in predicting their app use. These results provide up-to-date, practical, and pragmatic information for the future design and operation of mobile health apps.

The global expansion of smartphones and tablets has created a huge industry of mobile applications. The cloud computing together with the mobile cloud apps, have been both gaining importance against native apps in the last years. This paper aims to perform a comparative study about the features of native and mobile cloud apps for health care. With that purpose, we have developed an academic and non-academic review of features, advantages and disadvantages of both types of apps and we have applied these features in three different health care scenarios: an Electronic Health Records (EHRs) administration app in a wide region, a heart rate monitoring app in a rural area, and a diabetes management app. It was concluded that although the mobile cloud apps offer significant advantages, which overcome the ones of native apps in some scenarios, there are other cases where native apps are the only solution. Hence, both types need to coexist for a while. As users seem to prefer native apps, a possible solution can be the use of hybrid apps, mobile cloud apps with a native container, since they get advantages from both types.

A large number of web applications are written using server-side scripting languages. Although web browsers allow clients to run these applications, it is often cumbersome to depend on desktops for the services provided by the applications. Given the popularity and convenience of mobile devices, there is a clear need to have native mobile apps driving the applications along with web browsers. In this paper, we present a solution to re-engineer web applications developed using server-side scripting languages, into native mobile apps. The solution takes source code of the web application along with its test suite as input and produces corresponding cross-platform mobile apps. The entire re-engineering process is fully automatic requiring no manual intervention at any stage. Our solution is generic enough not only to handle popular server-side scripting languages, but also to output mobile apps that support diverse popular platforms including Android, iOS, and Windows Mobile. To showcase the capability and generality of our solution, we have developed a prototype tool KIRKE to handle applications developed using JSP, PHP, and ASP.NET. We present three case studies based on real-life codebases to evaluate the correctness, coverage, usability, and performance of our solution. The results indicate that KIRKE is capable of generating a mobile app that preserves the functionality of original web application and uses resources more efficiently when compared to the web application running on a mobile browser.

Children with communication disorders experience difficulty in one or more areas of articulation and speech, language, fluency, voice and social communication, and they work with speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to improve their communication. With the rise of adoption and use for mobile applications among special education and healthcare service providers, SLPs also have implemented, and for some, contributed to the design of, mobile applications (apps) during clinical practice. However, how these mobile apps are designed and implemented for clinicians to facilitate their clients' communication and learning experiences during therapy remains underinvestigated. This qualitative research study investigates how mobile apps were designed for clinicians to target assessment and intervention goals. Additionally, it focused on how clinicians adopted these apps while integrating therapy techniques to facilitate their clients' learning. Informed by the Research, Practice, and Design for iPad Apps (iRPD) framework and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 licensed pediatric SLPs, including 23 SLPs who have used apps and 14 SLPs who have contributed to the design of their own mobile apps. Two rounds of qualitative coding via template analysis and thematic analysis were then used to analyse client and clinician characteristics, clinical practice, therapy tools, app characteristics, influential factors and app design and use recommendations. Results showed SLPs utilise different genres of assistive, educational and recreational game apps to support children's communication development when working with children who have diverse disorders and therapy needs across different age groups. SLPs who have designed their own apps emphasised the importance of following evidence-based practice, well-researched teaching methods and learning theories. Additionally, multiple financial, sociocultural, political and ethical factors contributed to the design, adoption and implementation of mobile apps during services. By understanding the clinician's app use practices situated in various therapy activities and techniques, we specified a list of design recommendations for app designers who are interested in creating mobile apps for supporting children's speech and language development. By bringing insights from both clinical practitioners as well as those with additional technical design backgrounds, this study contributes to the understanding of clinical practice needs and strategies and will lead to the most optimal app design and adoption practice to support the well-being of children with communication disorders. What is already known on the subject Speech language pathologist (SLPs) implement mobile apps for clients with diverse therapy needs, and their app adoption and use are influenced by multifaceted factors. Although prior studies have reported SLPs' mobile app use, additional information is still needed. For example, the research literature does not include how specific technology is used during therapy practice, or specific details about challenges and needs in implementing and utilising the technology. Additional research also needs to include influential factors (e.g., financial, sociocultural, political, ethical) that are considered when selecting, implementing, assessing and designing an app. The lack of research in these areas directly affects the understanding of clinical mobile technology practices and further hinders clinicians' abilities to advocate for better clinical and design decisions towards identifying and implementing effective mobile apps that facilitate children's communication. What this study adds to existing knowledge This qualitative study is the first known empirical research that interviewed pediatric speech-language pathologists who have used and designed mobile apps for children who receive speech-language therapy across different clinical settings. By investigating experiences from clinician stakeholders to illustrate a holistic overview of app design and development to deployment, this study reported finding on (1) how clinicians use mobile apps to help children to participate in different therapy activities, and (2) a list of recommended design and development guidelines that informs the design and use of mobile apps that best support and motivate children to engage in therapy. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? This study disseminates clinician-reported practices of app design and use with pediatric clients across different speech-language disorders, and identifies gaps and needs for clinicians and researchers who are interested in understanding the role of mobile technology in relationship to human communication and interaction. Additionally, the paper demonstrates that SLPs have instrumental roles rather than passive users in influencing the design and implementation of different genres of mobile apps through evidence-based clinical practice, and call for partnerships across clinicians, special educators and technologists to support children's communication development.

Smartphone's can play a significant role in maintaining decent Quality of Life for elderly people. Key factor to Smartphone's usage success among elderly people depends on the accessibility of phone interface.Indeed, there is an exponential growth of the elderly population that suffers from age-related disabilities. Accessibility problems should be in mindfor developers. To address these issues in new smart phone devices there is no proper set of guidelines available that focus on this domain. So in this paper the work focuses on: (1) a set of guidelines to keep in mind in order to achieve accessibility in mobileinterfaces for older people. This checklist is the result of a review study of the literature, standards and best practices that are being performedin this area of knowledge, (2) use of this accessibility checklist aimed at elderly people, a survey of three mobile native Apps on androidplatform has been carried out, these Apps have as aim to modify the default interface for another more accessible one.

BackgroundSickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects over 100,000 Americans. Sickle cell disease–related complications lead to significant morbidity and early death. Evidence supporting the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of self-management electronic health (eHealth) interventions in chronic diseases is growing; however, the evidence is unclear in sickle cell disease.ObjectiveWe systematically evaluated the most recent evidence in the literature to (1) review the different types of technological tools used for self-management of sickle cell disease, (2) discover and describe what self-management activities these tools were used for, and (3) assess the efficacy of these technologies in self-management.MethodsWe reviewed literature published between 1995 and 2016 with no language limits. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and other sources. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Two independent reviewers screened titles and abstracts, assessed full-text articles, and extracted data from articles that met inclusion criteria. Eligible studies were original research articles that included texting, mobile phone–based apps, or other eHealth interventions designed to improve self-management in pediatric and adult patients with sickle cell disease.ResultsOf 1680 citations, 16 articles met all predefined criteria with a total of 747 study participants. Interventions were text messaging (4/16, 25%), native mobile apps (3/16, 19%), Web-based apps (5/16, 31%), mobile directly observed therapy (2/16, 13%), internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (2/16, 13%), electronic pill bottle (1/16, 6%), or interactive gamification (2/16, 13%). Interventions targeted monitoring or improvement of medication adherence (5/16, 31%); self-management, pain reporting, and symptom reporting (7/16, 44%); stress, coping, sleep, and daily activities reporting (4/16, 25%); cognitive training for memory (1/16, 6%); sickle cell disease and reproductive health knowledge (5/16, 31%); cognitive behavioral therapy (2/16, 13%); and guided relaxation interventions (1/16, 6%). Most studies (11/16, 69%) included older children or adolescents (mean or median age 10-17 years; 11/16, 69%) and 5 included young adults (≥18 years old) (5/16, 31%). Sample size ranged from 11 to 236, with a median of 21 per study: <20 in 6 (38%), ≥20 to <50 in 6 (38%), and >50 participants in 4 studies (25%). Most reported improvement in self-management–related outcomes (15/16, 94%), as well as high satisfaction and acceptability of different study interventions (10/16, 63%).ConclusionsOur systematic review identified eHealth interventions measuring a variety of outcomes, which showed improvement in multiple components of self-management of sickle cell disease. Despite the promising feasibility and acceptability of eHealth interventions in improving self-management of sickle cell disease, the evidence overall is modest. Future eHealth intervention studies are needed to evaluate their efficacy, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness in promoting self-management in patients with sickle cell disease using rigorous methods and theoretical frameworks with clearly defined clinical outcomes.

Given the monopoly over native mobile market for certain kind of apps, a cheaper and an easier to make alternative is necessary. One such alternative are the progressive web apps which solve some of the issues related to the native mobile apps. The goal of the work is to analyse the pros of progressive web apps and native mobile apps and estimate why and at which scenarios the progressive web apps can outcompete native mobile apps in terms of the pros.

The proliferation of mobile commerce channels has fundamentally reshaped retail ecosystems, particularly in digital markets like China where smartphone adoption approaches saturation among internet users. While extant literature has extensively examined the impact of new channel introductions (e.g., online, offline, mobile) on firm performance, less attention has been paid to consumer behavioral nuances within established digital interfaces. Addressing this gap, our study pioneers a comparative analysis of purchasing dynamics across two dominant yet technologically distinct channels: native apps versus light-app channels (e.g., WeChat mini-programs). While both channels share core mobile attributes (e.g., small screen sizes, on-the-go accessibility), their divergent technological architectures (Swift, Kotlin, and Java vs. HTML, CSS, WXML, and WXSS) create systematically differentiated consumer experiences. Through econometric analysis of 185,437 transaction records from a multichannel B2C platform, we reveal that consumers tend to spend more, purchase more items, and exhibit a lower likelihood of product returns when shopping through the light-app channel compared to native apps. More importantly, these behavioral divergences are moderated by product categories, price levels, and discount depths. Our findings contribute to the multichannel retailing literature by providing new insights into consumers’ behavioral differences between the two popular, yet distinct, mobile channels. Based on these insights, we suggest that multichannel retailers should prioritize channel convenience and accessibility and reconsider their investments in mobile native apps. Additionally, retailers should tailor assortments, pricing, and discount strategies to each channel to effectively engage consumers and stimulate purchases. Our research also emphasizes the importance of aligning marketing, operations, and finance strategies in multichannel retailing.

Transit agencies have begun to provide real-time information (RTI) to riders via mobile and web-enabled devices as a method to address reliability issues. However, it is typically cost-prohibitive for transit agencies to fund custom development of native mobile apps for all popular smartphone platforms. As a result, few cities have full app portfolios that cover all smartphone platforms. This report presents the results of the OneBusAway multi-region project, a collaborative effort that enables the rapid expansion of native mobile transit apps on Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 to new cities. Tampa, FL was chosen as an initial pilot deployment site for OneBusAway multi-region in early 2013, with a successful public launch following the pilot. As part of the OneBusAway Tampa pilot, an experiment was conducted -200 users were given access to OneBusAway, while another 200 were monitored as a control group without access to OneBusAway. The results show that the primary benefits associated with providing RTI to passengers pertain to waiting at the bus stop. Analysis of "usual" wait times revealed a significantly larger decrease (nearly 2 minutes) for RTI users compared to the control group. Additionally, RTI users had significant decreases in levels of anxiety and frustration when waiting for the bus compared to the control group. Similarly, they had significant increases in levels of satisfaction with the time they spend waiting for the bus and how often the bus arrives at the stop on time. Taken together, these findings provide strong evidence that RTI significantly improves the passenger experience of waiting for the bus, which is notoriously one of the most disliked elements of transit trips. 17.