Certain best practices will help ensure that your mobile apps are nimble and responsive to user needs. This ebook offers 10 pointers for creating reactive apps that meet the challenges of the modern mobile environment.

From the ebook:

As mobile apps continue to evolve, the capability for them to operate in a reactive fashion becomes critical for ensuring engaging mobile user experiences.

But what does the term “reactive” signify? It refers to an app with a set of standard behaviors that respond to the user’s needs and actions. Examples include instantly reflecting changes in the user interface, synchronizing information across devices based upon user engagement (such as scheduling, notification, and ongoing data updates), and pushing app updates from servers to devices to ensure that the latest features are available for the user.

Let’s look at some best practices for building reactive apps in today’s demanding mobile environment. Note that certain elements, such as security (the use of encryption to store or transmit private data, for instance), should always be baked into any quality app. But since these elements don’t apply within the context of reactive apps, I’ll relegate them to the “you should be doing this by default” bin.

1. Ensure that you have the right programming infrastructure
A reactive mobile app depends on the latest and greatest in programming advances. Make sure you’ve selected the best tool for the job. One such example you should consider learning and using is Apple’s Swift programming language.

Dzone.com touts Swift as “the programming language of the future … built on a modern compiler infrastructure that provides developers with the ability to write more reliable code right from the start from Apple.” It’s open source (users are encouraged to contribute to the public source code) and can produce fast and robust applications. While it’s presented as an app builder for iOS, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, Apple says: “We’re providing binaries for OS X and Linux that can compile code for iOS, OS X, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux.”