Geolocation in a mobile app — a way to provide the most interactive user experience

Published in

The Startup

8 min readMar 7, 2019

With rapid evolution of the technology behind smart phones the geolocation has become a vital part of mobile user’s experience. It allows the people to interact with the world that surrounds them, to find the solutions to their problems nearby and provide the most immediate user experience. Geolocation applications are a gateway that blends in the digital and real world and their popularity is steadily rising.

This technology opens wide opportunities as to what your app can do, in what ways it can help the users. Over the last decade a range of startup emerged that got their fat market share thanks to clever and innovative implementation of this tech. What kind of benefits does it offer? How can you monetize the project? In this article we take a closer look at geolocation in the mobile market.

So what kind of apps are we looking at here?

Navigation apps

Examples: Waze, Maps4Me, MapQuest

One of the most obvious ways to use the feature that is the scope of this article is to help users find their way to an unknown location. These applications can be used travelling by foot, bike or car. They may also suggest using the public transport and build routes that would avoid traffic jams.

Social apps

Examples: Banjo, Facebook

We can’t omit the social applications as well because they represent a significant part of the market. They serve to get in touch with people in the local area and discuss location based content. Providing the users with the most up-to-date information that is relevant to them is a great way to attract and maintain an audience.

Networking and dating

Examples: Hppn, Tinder, Bumble

These applications serve to find specific people near your location that you might be interested in and ensure your interests are similar enough. The rest is up to you — get in touch and arrange a meeting! Built-in messengers are usually a part of the project.

Weather forecast

Examples: The Weather Channel, AccuWeather

Every mobile user likes simplicity in his/her application. Why make a person search for a specific location if it can be determined automatically? Provide the weather forecast for the place where the device is located instantly and get people to use the application on a daily basis. It’s a great way to build a loyal audience!

Health and fitness apps

Examples: Moves, RunKeeper

These applications generally track your activities throughout the day and provide an overview to help you keep on track. It may count how many steps you took or record the stats of a jogging session. You can also share the track you ran with your friends and show off — an efficient way to boost your motivation!

Lifestyle and hobbies

Example: Interester

These apps help you find like-minded people with common interests (hobbies, sports etc) in the local area. It’s much more fun to do it with friends! The aim of this project is to help people get in touch and maintain their motivation by participating in group activities.

Recommendation apps

Examples: Foursquare, Yelp.

In a dense urban environment information is plentiful and so are the businesses — yet finding the exact spot you need may be challenging. This is where the recommendation and review apps truly shine. The advertisement will always drawn a cheerful picture for the prospective customers, and the apps provide the much needed critical view from the people who actually had experience working the specific business.

Learning more about the companies located nearby helps the people make informed decisions. The latest achievements in the field of AI allow to detect fake reviews and reduce their amount to minimum.

Traveling apps

Examples: TripAdvisor, Airbnb

Another area where geolocation plays a vital role is the travel app segment. They are focused around the needs of people who are currently on a business or tourist trip and need to solve certain problems (with accommodation being the most obvious example) on-the-go. Delays may cause inconvenience or even ruin the plans. Given that the visitor might not know the language of the country he’s visiting well enough to interact with the locals, it can actually be immensely helpful.

Apps for on-demand services

Examples: Uber, Flizit

The mobile applications that are the scope of this article can be used by a particular enterprise to promote itself on the market or to create an online marketplace for a particular industry. This range includes on-demand services like taxi, cleaning etc. In this case the project provides income either by attracting new customers or by making the existing client base more loyal.

E-commerce

Examples: Groupon, AliExpress shopping

The importance of e-commerce apps in this niche is hard to overestimate. It is one of the major factors that shapes the digital landscape and makes the deals more accessible. Users want to get their hands on whatever they pay for as fast as possible and providing online access to the local markets takes the interaction between merchant and client to a whole new level. International trade also benefits from these project as they allow to easily calculate the tax amounts.

Event apps

Example: Plancast

The applications we are looking at help users find events near them and participate in exciting activities in the local area. Some projects also feature a possibility to book tickets online. The active community members also have an opportunity to organize a meetup and reach wide audience!

Local experts and real-time knowledge

Examples: Here On Biz, Bizzy

Ever wondered how to find a solution to a specific problem in your area? The best way is to ask a person who really knows a lot on the subject — this is exactly what these apps aim to do. They provide expert advice based on the user’s location.

A wide variety of possibilities

This is not a comprehensive list of possible use for the technology — it is certainly much wider with new projects emerging in the market on a daily basis.

The means described above are not the only way to turn a profit. If there’s an app that the people use on a daily basis (for instance, to check the weather forecast), the product owner can earn revenue by displaying relevant advertisement to the viewer. This is reliable source of income that allows to maintain the project and to invest in its development.

Geolocation apps are diverse — this technology has found its way in almost every area of the modern market. The implementations of this solution differ and it takes expertise to integrate it seamlessly in a particular field. The specialists of the Octodev team will can make it happen. Feel free to contact us today for more information!

The tech behind geolocation

How exactly does your device determine where you are at the moment? The core of the geolocation algorithms is the widely known GPS technology. By reading signals from the satellite a civilian grade device will determine where you are with an accuracy of about 50 meters which would be insufficient in a densely populated urban area. Luckily, there are other means that enhance the locating capabilities:

Signals from cell towers are used in combination with the above mentioned tech to boost the results.
WiFi access points can contribute to the process as well — the signal strength is used to determine how far you are from a certain facility. With hundreds of routers scattered throughout the city it is pretty useful and reliable.

With all these solutions an application can track your location with an accuracy of 2 meters. The coordinates are then placed on maps with the use of special toolkits and displayed to the user or processed further.

Accuracy is a vital component for this kind of applications because it will have to work properly on a device that is moving with the user (who could possibly be driving at the moment) — every second the location needs to be precisely calculated. This means that there is no compromise when it comes to performance in location based app development. It takes a skilled team to accomplish the task and deliver an app that will actually help the users that will have real value in the market.

At Octodev the quality of code is a cornerstone of our business. We do our best to create a reliable solution and we know how to optimize the algorithm. We will help you create a useful and robust application that works perfectly well under heavy workload.

Security concerns and how to handle them

Please keep in mind that the users reveal their location at their own discretion, and following the global security paranoia, many of them will be anxious about sharing personal information. This means that the user should get some solid value in return for his decision to give up a certain part of his privacy.

It also means that certain security measures should be implemented in the application to avoid data leaks. You don’t want to expose your users — even a minor breach will result in major reputational issues. Application should be developed by a reliable team that understands the possible threats and attack vectors and can mitigate the risks. Comprehensive testing should be conducted before the project is released into the market. Quality assurance plays a vital role to negate the chances of failure and ensure stable performance.

If you are looking to develop an application with geolocation usage, the Octodev team will be happy to assist you in your efforts. Please contact us today to start working on your next project!

This article was originally published on the Octodev Blog.

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