July 2017 Summaries

ASO (App Store Optimization) is essential for increasing an app's visibility, downloads, and rankings in the app stores. It involves setting up the app with relevant keywords, descriptions, and other details to make it more discoverable. Experts or tools like App Annie, Sensor Tower, Powering the discoverability of innovative mobile apps, Deep App Store Optimization and App Ecosystem data., StoreMaven, Appfigures, TUNE, AppTweak, App Radar, Apptopia, Priori Data, yellowHEAD, Gummicube, TheTool, SplitMetrics, Best self-serve A/B testing platform, SearchMan, Real-time monitor for users reviews, RankMyApp, Metrics Cat, Meatti, CodeNgo, and Refection can help optimize app store performance. These tools provide various features such as keyword ranking tracking, analysis, ASO in the iOS App Store & Google Play Store, predictive testing machine learning algorithms, market research, A/B testing, organic traffic monitoring, user reviews analytics, artificial intelligence, self-publishing services, and stability and performance monitoring to help developers increase their app's visibility and downloads.

The developers at Instabug implemented the View Hierarchy feature to provide users with more detailed information about their UI, including where defects exist and how to fix them. The feature uses 3D layers to visualize the app views and inspect each layer's properties. However, calculating the visible frame of a UIView proved to be challenging due to clipsToBounds and UIScrollView issues. To overcome this, they developed an algorithm that recursively captures intersections between superview and subview frames, taking into account clipsToBounds and scroll view cases. Additionally, they leveraged data structures like linked lists to capture screenshots in the main thread while avoiding UI freezing, allowing for efficient and asynchronous execution of each node's task. The View Hierarchy feature was released in February 2017 as part of the Instabug SDK.

In the development of the View Hierarchy feature for the Luciq SDK, the team aimed to enhance user interface (UI) debugging by letting developers inspect app views in 3D layers. Initially inspired by Xcode's View Hierarchy tool, the implementation faced challenges, such as calculating the visible frame of UIViews and managing performance issues related to capturing screenshots. The visible frame calculation required a recursive approach to capture intersections between superviews and subviews, which was complicated by factors like the clipsToBounds property and UIScrollView behavior. The performance challenge of freezing the UI during screenshot capture was addressed by using linked lists, enabling asynchronous execution on the main queue, allowing the UI to update and display an activity indicator between tasks. This iterative process overcame the initial limitations of static screenshots, ultimately providing developers with a more dynamic and informative debugging tool.

Instabug is a company that empowers mobile teams to maintain industry-leading apps with mobile-focused, user-centric stability and performance monitoring. The author, Nouran Ghannam, joined the team as a Growth Marketer in May and was surprised by how much she enjoyed wearing the company's t-shirts, which are given out to employees. She realized that Instabug is an awesome place to work because of its strong community, global presence, and support for women in tech. The author appreciates the casual culture, where people order food together and share meals, and feels grateful to be part of a company that values diversity and inclusivity. Overall, Nouran's experience at Instabug has been positive, and she is proud to be part of a team that makes a difference in the world.

Nouran Ghannam shares her experiences as a Growth Marketer at Luciq, highlighting the unique company culture and camaraderie among colleagues, dubbed the #BugSquad, who often commute together and engage in enriching conversations. She appreciates the global nature of their work, connecting with people worldwide, and the sense of community fostered by visits from prominent figures like Amr Awadallah of Cloudera. Nouran emphasizes the company's informal yet inclusive dining habits, where employees frequently gather to eat and socialize, and praises Luciq's commitment to supporting women in tech, which surpasses the average representation in Silicon Valley. Through her narrative, she expresses pride in working for a company that values diversity and fosters a supportive work environment in the tech industry.