Wavana Interactive Ltd

Want to join our team?

Wavana is growing fast with a steady pipeline of existing and new client work for clients in the UK, Europe and North America.  We also actively develop our own product, always trying to push the boundaries of innovation at every opportunity.  We are always on the lookout for the most talented and enthusiastic people to join our London-based team.  Right now we have openings in the following areas:

Developers 

Whether you're working in-house, at an agency, freelancing or for yourself then we would love to hear from you.  Ideally you have already done some great iOS, Android or web apps.  We are particularly looking for developers who can both work autonomously and part of a larger team, but ultimately be part of something great in a fast growing industry.

Business development 

You may already be agency-based but are looking to be an influential member of a fast-growing independent business.  If you feel you have what it takes and are passionate about growing a business then we'd also love to hear from you.

Interested?

Please email lance@wavana.com with a short cover note, including your CV or your LinkedIn profile link plus any other links you feel would help us learn more about you, such as to any apps where you have played a key role.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The PayByPhone iOS app, developed by Wavana, is currently being featured by Apple as a ‘New & Noteworthy’ app in both the UK and Canada App Stores.

We always find that features such as this help to raise awareness to captive users and are pleased that every app we have developed has been featured by Apple.

When we created Tube Exits we realised we had to collect all of the platform exit information ourselves.  It took weeks to map out the exact platform exit information for the station exits and transfers at each of the 700 or so platforms on the London Underground.  

What we didn’t fully appreciate at the time is how often the platform exits would change with TfL’s station renovations, particularly at the busiest stations such as King’s Cross, Oxford Circus and Green Park.  We did our best to keep the platform exit information as up to date as possible and meanwhile adding new features, such as a nifty journey planner, live line status information and integrating the London Overground network.  With this hard work we have now had over 100,000 downloads and grown a fantastic user base who proactively update us on the latest exit information.  With this tremendous user support we are able to send out regular updates and continue investing time enhancing Tube Exits, which we are so pleased is being reflected in the very positive user ratings:

Only hours after launching the PayByPhone Android app in the Android Market we were pleasantly surprised to see that Stuart Dredge had already mentioned the app in his Appsblog, his weekly roundup of new and interesting apps.

We are very pleased to be working closely with PayByPhone, the market leading phone payment operator for car parking, to develop its iPhone and Android apps.   The app has now launched on the App Store and Android Market and is available for PayByPhone locations in United Kingdom, United States and Canada.

For some time at Wavana we have recognised that apps will play a key part in transaction payments.   We felt that simple, secure and convenient mobile app payments will ultimately replace the need to carry cash and coins.  Last year we developed Flying Flowers, which enables users to order and securely pay for flowers ‘on the go’.  Now the PaybyPhone app represents a big step forward for the convenience of no longer having to pay for parking by coins, but also enabling users the benefit of being able to remotely extend their parking if they need additional time.

We are already exploring the potential for apps that utilise Near Field Communication (“NFC”) for simplified transactions with a touch, very similar to the Oyster Card system used on London's public transport network.  NFC is already possible on some Android devices and we hope will be likely to be available on Apple’s iOS platform within the next 6 months.

We are very pleased to be developing an app that will enable our client to engage with its clients in new and innovative ways, including providing a one touch resource to latest industry information and push notifications to keep clients up to date on the latest industry developments.  This feature alone will largely replace the need for distributing printed reference booklets, which can quickly become out of date and easily get lost amongst other paperwork.

Amongst other features, the app will also provide bespoke calculators for clients to use on the go.

This is the final part in a series of articles looking at the alternatives to native app development for smartphones and shines the spotlight on HTML 5. This article will ask the question, if HTML 5 is so good, why bother with native development?

Why go native?

There are still a number of compelling reasons why you may want to build a native app. Here are just some of them which vary by platform: -

• providing the richest possible user experience including slick animation and graphics
• push notification (where email or text message is the only alternative on mobile apps)
• charging for apps and in-app purchase
• for Apple devices, showing iAds or integrating with Game Centre.
• integrating closely with the device such as calendar, address book, alerts, accelerometer, background processing when not active (multitasking), bluetooth for peer-to-peer connectivity, third party accessories, etc.
• complex/CPU intensive operations such as image processing, augmented reality, 3D games, etc
• accessing the camera on a device

In forthcoming articles, we'll take a closer look at technologies which support web app development such as Sencha, jQTouch and jQuery mobile.

References and further reading

• Mobile HTML 5.0 - Michael Galpin discusses developing mobile web applications. Slides from his presentation are also available.
• CanIUse - browser version compatability site.
• Chitika Research - mobile penetration statistics.
• Android platform statistics - based on traffic to Android Market
• HTML 5 the end of apps? - article discussing HTML 5 v Native apps.

This is the final article in this series: -

• Part 1 : Tech Spotlight: Native v HTML 5 apps
• Part 2 : Tech Spotlight: HTML 5 technologies
• Part 3 : Tech Spotlight: Why go native?

The first article in this series looked at the alternatives to native app development for smartphones and highlighted HTML 5. This article will look at some of the technologies available.

Technologies

The overview below showcases some of the technologies available in the new standard and what they can be used for.

• Geolocation - this allows the user's location to be used within the web app, for example showing your location on a map.
• Local storage - permits simple data structures to be stored within the browser and retrieved. This could be data such as a list of favourites, user login or cached data.
• Webworkers - this allows non-instantaneous tasks that might freeze the browser to run in the background - such as downloading and parsing something from a server or processing a large image.
• Web sockets - this allows more efficient network connections between a browser and server for quicker apps and slicker user experience.
• Canvas - allows graphics drawing on a web page which enables showing things like graphics, animations, drawing apps, simple games and the like.
• CSS 3.0 - allows for better designed apps with a slicker appearance. Allows things like text shadows, rotation and styling as well as use of gradients.
• Device (camera) - allows capture of images from a device's camera
• Touch events - with obvious relevance to touch screen devices, this allows touch and multi-touch actions to be detected.
• Audio/video - media playing within the browser.
• Application cache - permits a web app to be stored within the device so it can be used when offline as well as making apps snappier to load and use.
• Meta tags - used by Apple's mobile safari browser to specify the width of content, whether the app is full screen, the colour of the status bar and home screen icons.

Adoption in browsers

Adoption of these standards is somewhat fragmented and spotty. Browsers based on "WebKit" which include Safari on desktop and mobile as well as Chrome and the Android browser are generally the most advanced in terms of support with Internet Explorer noticeable in it's lag to support them.

The table below outlines the support by browser.

To give an idea of penetration of the various browsers: -

• iOS - 99% of iOS devices are 3.0 or greater
• Android - 87% of 2.1 or greater
• Blackberry - only Blackberry Torch currently supports 6.0

In the next article in this series, we'll ask the question - why go native?

• Part 1 : Tech Spotlight: Native v HTML 5 apps
• Part 2 : Tech Spotlight: HTML 5 technologies
• Part 3 : Tech Spotlight: Why go native?

It's 2011 and another year has passed by. But in technology the years pass like dog years. It's barely believable that the term "App Store" had not entered the technology lexicon less than three years ago. Since the Apple launched the App Store, some 7 billion apps have been downloaded - that's equivalent to one download for every person on the planet. There's simply no denying that apps have changed the way people use their mobiles.

However, before Apple created the SDK for native app development they announced that the iPhone would be able to run applications created using web standards.

“Developers and users alike are going to be very surprised and pleased at how great these applications look and work on iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our innovative approach, using Web 2.0-based standards, lets developers create amazing new applications while keeping the iPhone secure and reliable.”

This approach seems to have been lost in the stampede that followed to get into the app store, but apps created for one native platform cannot be run on another and the costs of developing a native application for each mobile platform; iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Symbian and more can be prohibitive.

However, web standards have progressed slowly but surely and now represent a viable alternative approach to native development in certain cases with the benefit of working across multiple platforms including mobile and desktop.

HTML 5.0

HTML 5.0 is the next progression in web standards, but it's not seen likely to be finalised until 2022 - some 11 years from now. However, browsers are increasingly adopting the working standards and these features can be exploited today. It is worth noting that HTML 5.0 on it's own is not sufficient to build web apps, and both Javascript and CSS 3.0 are required to create apps. However, when developers refer to HTML 5 web apps, they are generally referring to this bundle of technologies.

In the next article in this series, we'll look at the technologies used in HTML 5 and what they do.

• Part 1 : Tech Spotlight: Native v HTML 5 apps
• Part 2 : Tech Spotlight: HTML 5 technologies
• Part 3 : Tech Spotlight: Why go native?