As we’ve always said, If you can dream it, we can build it — that’s our motto! Over the past decade, we’ve worked shoulder-to-shoulder with clients all around the world to commit to that motto. We couldn’t be happier to see it pay off.

And to that, we would like to extend a huge thank you to the Techreviewer team for naming us a top app development company in the US. The review list of leaders was compiled based on the expertise, experience, and reliability of the development companies. To make an assessment Techreviewer collected information about our services and client’s reviews. Their research placed us in the list of mobile app development companies out of over 500 competitors. Here’s to a big win for Dogtown Media!

As a prominent iPhone app developer in San Diego, we here at Dogtown Media, foster a collaborative experience with our clients to take their dream concept and turn it into a reality. We emphasize an iterative approach of ideation to creation to deliver functional apps that solve real-world problems. It’s these principles that have allowed us to thrive as an app development agency since 2011, and receive awards such as this one!

Our Reaction

To receive this recognition puts us over the moon! It’s always deeply satisfying to receive awards such as this, signifying we are on the right track! We also want to thank each and every one of our clients who believed in our mission to bring their innovative app ideas to the market. 

When we receive this type of feedback it reinforces that we as an app development agency are on the right track. We’ve worked tirelessly to deliver high-quality projects to our clients. This award shows we’re on the right track. We can’t wait to continue on this journey and help our clients develop new exciting revenue opportunities.

With the help of platforms like Techreviewer.co, we hope to continue to reach a greater audience of companies where we can deliver value through our application development services. Here’s to a successful 2022! We hope our dedication to our craft continues to foster these exciting accolades!

Our Reaction

Techreviewer.co is an online agency reviewing platform that conducts annual research to deliver market leader lists. Based on their industry-leading investigatory practices, Techreviwerer is able to identify market leaders are for a given industry.

Techreviewer prides itself on delivering high-quality agency rating services as an independent IT market research and analysis company. The platform helps to find the best companies that provide high-quality IT services for an array of services. As a result of objective market analysis, the Techreviewer platform determines the most successful and reliable IT companies in the industry. Techreviewer’s ranking lists help organizations select the right technology partner for their business needs.

From tweaking the way users

If you’re a longtime Instagram user then you likely know that Instagram feeds used to only exist chronologically. That all changed in 2016 when Instagram switched to an algorithm-based feed to create an optimized content delivery system for users. This algorithm, however, has been a sore subject within the Instagram community and has sparked immense criticism surrounding the social media platform.

As a leading app developer, it’s our driving commitment to stay ahead of all things tech trends. We understand how dynamic the mobile app development space is and it’s our goal to look through the noise and understand the important changes in the trajectory of the app development space. To that, it’s important to assess any major changes that come about for these massively influential apps. So let’s dig in!

The Future of Instagram:

If you’ve gotten used to the current UI/UX of Instagram, sorry to say, things are about to change. Instagram users have created such a commotion around the issue that during a Senate subcommittee hearing in December, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, promised the chronological feed would make a comeback due to its profound popularity among users. And, as promised by Mosseri, Instagram is now working on new feed options that are being tested in three different versions:

Home 

The “Home” feed is one that active users will be familiar with as it’s how Instagram organizes their feed currently. With help from an AI-based algorithm, the “Home” option monitors past activity and suggests new posts for users based off of this data. 

Now, as we discussed briefly, this is the same algorithm that has created an ongoing uproar by the Instagram faithful. So, going forward, this option will allow users to view more posts from users and accounts they don’t currently follow, but they won’t be forced to use this option as there will be others to choose from. 

Following

The second option is the “Following” feed, where users can choose to display posts from the accounts that they follow in a chronological order – the option that Instagram users have been begging for. In other words, the “Following” option is the full-fledged Instagram experience, where content is presented in an organized, chronological manner. 

Favorites

The final option is the all-new “Favorites” feed, where Instagram users will be able to see posts from accounts that they mark with a star. With this option, users are able to limit the number of posts they see on their personalized feed. In other words, the new “Favorites” feed will be populated with content from the accounts that a user chooses (i.e., friends, family, and/or certain creators).

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It: A Lesson for Developers 

So, why is Instagram reverting back to a chronological feed? As a top iPhone app developer in Chicago, we get this question a lot from our clients as we bring their innovative mobile app ideas to the marketplace. 

Well, a better question may be to ask why they broke away from the chronological option in the first place? As we discussed previously, Instagram parted ways with chronological order in favor of an AI-powered predictive algorithm that was intended to study users’ interactions with the app and display results based on this data. In essence, Instagram was basing user feeds on things they’ve viewed in the past, a common AI practice in the ecommerce space. 

However, Mosseri and Instagram recognized that with this new algorithm there was a rapid decline in the number of people checking their feeds regularly, suggesting that the AI algorithm was not showing users what they wanted to see. So, Instagram is choosing to revert back to the old chronological way as this feed option will allow users to customize the app to their liking, in turn generating higher engagement with the app. 

The fact of the matter is that Instagram had a feed option that users enjoyed as it was accurate, quick, and simple, and yet the company opted to “fix” that option and rely on an algorithm that ultimately failed. In other words, the chronological option should have never gone away in the first place. Instagram is an app designed for users to browse and discover things they like, and relying on an algorithm to choose these things for users is simply counterintuitive. 

Nevertheless, Instagram is finally getting it right (again). These new feed options will give users the freedom to virtually hand-pick their own content in descending order as they scroll down from the top of the app. And, while the new options are still in the testing phase, it is suspected that these options will be rolled out to select users soon and the global rollout will be completed within the first half of 2022.

If you can dream it, we can build it. Since Dogtown Media first opened its doors in 2011, we’ve striven every day to hold true to that motto. We’ve poured our blood, sweat, and code into over 200 projects in an effort to turn our clients’ dreams into beautiful, unforgettable mobile products. It looks like our hard work is paying off — TopDevelopers.co recently recognized Dogtown Media as a top U.S. mobile app developer!

At Dogtown Media, we take a collaborative approach to working with our clients. We guide them from ideation to post-launch to ensure their final product is functional, durable, and solves real-world problems. Having a solid foundation of the basics is a necessity to accomplish this. But so is staying on top of the latest advancements.

Mobile apps have exploded in popularity over the past few years. Simultaneously, the art and process of mobile app development and design have evolved. To survive and thrive in this industry, it’s imperative for firms to stay on the cutting-edge of innovation. To effectively deliver solutions for business hurdles across various industries, Dogtown Media has expanded our expertise over the years to offer services in artificial intelligence (AI) app development, the Internet of Things, medical app development, and more.

We’ve come a long way since our humble beginnings, but we always try to remember one key principle: Top-quality mobile apps are the result of innovation, passion, and hard work. This award from TopDevelopers.co lets us know that we haven’t forgotten that! Have a look at our portfolio in order to get an idea of our work process.

Thanks so much to TopDevelopers.co for recognizing us! We’d also like to thank our clients, team, and community — we couldn’t have done it without you.

Who is TopDevelopers.co?

TopDevelopers.co is a widely respected directory and review platform for B2B IT service providers. They take a neutral approach in analyzing the companies. The team of analysts at TopDevelopers.co vets the companies through stringent parameters which ensure that only the most competitive firms, businesses, enterprises, and entrepreneurs are filtered through their process. This helps the service seekers in getting a ready to use pool of companies from which they can choose the appropriate firm according to their need.

At Dogtown Media, we specialize in mobile app development, grounded with expert knowledge in the internet of things, fintech, medical tech and user interface design. We are determined to take on your next project and create an app that will help your business grow.

Clutch, a company that publishes unbiased reviews of B2B companies, has featured us once again in a recent press release of top California mobile app development companies.  We’re excited to share that we have been featured highly in their directory list of the top mobile app developers in California. This honor adds to our previous recognition as a top California Mobile App Development Company on DesignRush.

Clutch’s ranking algorithm takes many pieces of information into account when displaying companies on their directory pages; the most important part of Clutch’s ranking algorithm is client reviews. To date, we have received over 20 positive reviews. Our clients aren’t shy to share their successes with Clutch:

“Dogtown Media developed a solution for a project considered impossible to do in the tech world.”

“They were extremely responsive and supportive and I never felt like I was working on anything on my own.”

“Their work has made my life easier by automating features in the app that I was doing manually.”

In addition to our feature on Clutch, we were also mentioned on their sister-site, The Manifest.  We are pleased to announce that we were listed as one of the top mobile app development companies in the world on The Manifest.

Here at Dogtown Media, we are ready to improve your business by creating vital apps that will allow your business to access your consumers at all times.  Our team will work directly with your business to assess how to stand apart from competitors as well. We look forward to taking on your next project!

Each year, Clutch publishes a press release naming the top service providers within certain industries. We’re proud to announce that Clutch has named Dogtown Media among the world’s leading mobile app developers this year.

We’ve also been listed on Clutch’s sister website, The Manifest, a B2B news website that helps buyers through the process of selecting a vendor. Manifest also ranked Dogtown as one of the top app development companies in the world.

Founded in 2011, Clutch is a Washington, D.C.-based research firm that leverages unparalleled market insight to determine the leaders across numerous industries. With unbiased case studies, industry trend analysis, and business market comparisons, Clutch’s data-driven platform allows clients to find and connect with top-tier companies who can solve difficult challenges.

Clutch’s directories adhere to this meticulous, data-centric approach; it’s organized to list the most credible firms first. Credibility is gained by attaining client testimonials and market presence. Essentially, the directories allow potential buyers and clients in need of partnerships to visualize their different options with a holistic perspective of each company.

Check out some of the reviews we’ve received so far below!

Webdam is a digital asset management software company. We re-developed their platform from the ground up. Here’s what they had to say:

“Dogtown Media’s work was a massive improvement from the previous app version and received high praise from customers… They were extremely responsive and supportive, and I never felt like I was working on anything on my own.”

We also got the opportunity to help the University of Oklahoma improve its app with more student-centric functionalities and geolocation capabilities. Here’s their feedback:

Another client required an app for the University of Oklahoma. Here’s what they had to say:

“Dogtown Media’s expert team inspires confidence throughout the project by communicating clearly from the start. They bring creative ideas to the table at a reasonable value… Their work has made my life easier by automating features in the app that I was doing manually.”

The past few weeks have been surreal for Dogtown Media. Recently, we made the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the United States for the second year in a row. Not long after, we were honored again by being included on Clutch’s list!

Both are incredible awards we couldn’t have imagined attaining when we first started developing in L.A. in 2011. We’d like to give a big thanks to Clutch, Inc., our team, clients, and community — none of this would be possible without you.

From humble beginnings as a mobile app developer in Los Angeles, we’re extremely proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far and we’re also very excited to see where the future takes us. We can’t wait to create more amazing mobile experiences for the world to enjoy.

If you have an idea but don’t know where to begin, reach out anytime — if you can dream it, we can build it!

Augmented reality (AR) is regularly in the news these days, but the New York Times has decided to literally put it in their stories via mobile app. Is this the dawn of a new era for journalism?

Immersive Journalism

After announcing that it would start enhancing stories with AR development, New York City‘s famed publication quickly followed up with a small demonstration — the ability to see a newspaper honor box right in front of you. Called an honor box because “you’re on your honor to take just one copy after depositing payment,” says the New York Times. The newspaper dispenser could be seen from all angles and with sophisticated detail through their iOS app.

Following this, the renowned NYC news source published its first feature leveraging AR development. In the article, you get to “meet” four of the athletes competing in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea this year. The Olympians include snowboarder Anna Gasser, hockey goalie Alex Rigsby, figure skater Nathan Chen, and speed skater J.R. Celski. Instead of a traditional introduction with the Olympic competitors, you get to see them in midperformance, true to scale, from all angles.

Bringing a Story to Life

To accomplish this feat of putting the four athletes in your room, the New York Times needed to capture them from all angles to produce a three-dimensional scan that could be viewed from all angles. Of course, to capture them in action, the competitors had to simulate their movements in certain scenarios.

This means that Alex Rigsby had to demonstrate proper posture in guarding the net against a flying puck and Nathan Chen had to show how he braces his body to rotate during his quadruple jump. This allowed the New York Times to derive greater insight into each of these athletes’ nuances, and add more depth to the AR interactivity. When you pace around Nathan delivering his quad, the exact angle he needs to hit for an optimal spin is highlighted through your phone.

This intuitive organization of information was key in delivering an elegant experience. With this first feature, the New York Times focused on “zoning” the information in a way that felt natural as you interacted with the AR image. For instance, if you were to zoom in on J.R. Celski’s hand as he leans in for speed, you’d receive haptic feedback through the phone, which would then inform you about the subtle plastic caps covering his fingers for protection against touching the ice at high velocities.

A New Era of News?

While the AR experience is only available for iOS right now, the renowned news publication is hard at work utilizing Google’s ARCore for the Android version. This first piece demonstrated a new horizon for the journalism space that the New York Times will continue to expand on.

As Graham Roberts, director of immersive platform storytelling at the New York Times, puts it, “We are extending stories beyond the inches of a screen — and in so doing, envisioning a world in which devices begin to disappear and the spaces around us become the information surfaces themselves.”

As app developers know, Mark Zuckerberg will not rest until Facebook is a one-stop online media powerhouse. So how is Facebook going to beat YouTube, one of its biggest rivals for our attention spans (not to mention advertising dollars)? In addition to its new video tab Watch, the platform is trying to broker a deal with music publishers so that users can safely upload content featuring copyrighted songs.

By offering record companies and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars, Facebook is making a strong bid to cut in on YouTube’s supremacy in the online video space. App developers are well aware of what the prize is: billions in advertising dollars. But in order to rake in those sweet ad revenues, Facebook has to ensure that Watch takes off. Fresh off its launch, the new feature is in need of content. Not yet open to the content creators out there in the general public, Watch only features video from Facebook’s media partners (and early reports indicate that a lot of the content is pretty weak). If people are able to post videos with their favorite songs without having to deal with rights issues, they may be more enticed to give Watch a try.

Rumor has it that Facebook may also be making a play for Vevo’s library of music videos. YouTube’s deal with Vevo has been very fruitful, giving users access to more than 200,000 music videos. The deal between YouTube and Vevo is ending this year, giving Facebook a perfect opportunity to scoop. Zuckerberg believes that video is critical to his platform’s growth over the next couple of years. Adding music videos to original content and user-generated videos (featuring the hottest tracks) could make Watch a viable competitor to YouTube. It will be interesting for NYC app developers to see if Watch has wings.

Uber is no longer leaderless now that Expedia exec Dara Khosrowshahi has filled the empty throne that once seated Travis Kalanick. As Android app developers know, Khosrowshahi has his work cut out for him. Cleaning up Uber’s messes and rehabilitating its public image is going to be a long and arduous process. As he stated in a memo to his former employees at Expedia, “I have to tell you I am scared.” But of course running the $70 billion ride-hailing juggernaut has its rewards too.

Under Khosrowshahi the company is already starting to make big changes. Uber is now nixing its policy of tracking users for the five minutes following their ride. Enacted last year, the policy angered privacy advocates and Android app developers (especially since the company only tracked users with Android phones). Ostensibly a way “to improve pickups, drop-offs, customer service, and to enhance safety,” the policy seemed like an overstep, especially from a company already under scrutiny for so many shady practices. Customers could turn off the tracking by shutting off the app’s location services, but doing so forced users to type out their pickup locations, undercutting the convenience of the app.

As the Electronic Privacy Information Center said in a harsh 2015 complaint against Uber, its policies “ignore past bad practices of the company involving the misuse of location data.” As Los Angeles Android app developers know, asking for too much information is a great way to lose users. Of course, Uber has weathered its controversies so far without significantly dwindling in popularity, but its lack of trustworthiness is bound to catch up with it. Here’s hoping that Uber continues to make the changes necessary to regain the trust of the public. If Khosrowshahi keeps up the good work, millions of Uber users can stop feeling a weird mix of guilt and paranoia whenever they open the app.

Everyone in tech seems to agree that the future is in augmented reality, but a clear AR leader has yet to emerge. Google and Facebook have a head start on the competition, but Apple threw its hat in the ring at this week’s WWDC with ARKit, its new AR platform. Apple can now claim that it has “the largest AR platform in the world.” This is great news for iPhone app developers looking to break into AR and its seemingly endless possibilities.

The ARKit makes the imaging and tracking built into iPhones and iPads available to developers instead of forcing them to create their own from scratch. It utilizes something Apple is calling “world tracking,” a form of machine learning that maps out various points in an environment and tracks those points so that perspective and scale change accordingly as users move their device around. It’s impressive, but it’s not quite the AR breakthrough iPhone app developers have been craving — at least not yet. Unlike Google Lens or the AR ambitions Facebook unveiled at this year’s F8, Apple hasn’t emphasized the camera as a sort of automatic search function, which seems to be one of the most potentially revolutionary aspects of AR. Overall the WWDC announcement was surprisingly light on prophetic speechifying about the ways AR and machine learning are going to change the world.

But maybe Apple knows that kind of talk ultimately doesn’t matter, especially if it has its long game in place. As soon as iOS 11 hits, Boston iPhone app developers will be able to deliver their AR creations to iPhone and iPad users. People won’t need to buy a new device akin to Google Glass or Snap Spectacles — their AR device is already in the palm of their hands. Google’s Tango project is not on every Android device, and developers working on AR for Facebook are exclusively tied to the Camera app. ARKit will be on every iPhone or iPad running iOS 11, and developers will be able to incorporate its features into independent apps. All of this bodes well for Apple in the chess game that is the AR field.

Every year, the Washington, D.C.-based research firm Clutch releases their findings on the best mobile app developers in various major markets. The criteria include the company’s specific areas of focus, experience, client satisfaction, industry recognition, and market presence. Clutch’s analysts perform highly detailed client interviews to really get a feel for what each app development company brings to the table. To make the Clutch top ten is a big distinction, a sign that you’re doing the kind of work that clients love. This year, Dogtown Media is honored to make Clutch’s list as one of the top ten mobile app developers in Los Angeles.

There’s some stiff competition among L.A. mobile app developers, so everyone at Dogtown Media’s offices is really proud to rise above the rest of the pack. We take every element of app development seriously, from concept, UX and UI design, and coding to monetization, marketing, and distribution. That’s why it’s such a thrill to be recognized for our technical know-how, customer satisfaction, and dedication. With a nearly even split between projects for small business, midmarket, and enterprise clients, we have experience developing apps on a variety of scales. But no matter how big the project is, we always approach it with the same amount of attention and passion.

According to Clutch analyst Amber Dewey, “The leading companies in our research have proven their ability to handle projects of any size and complexity, and create impressive mobile apps and custom software solutions that help push each client’s business further, whether it be internally or in the marketplace.” That sounds about right. While Dogtown Media is glad to be hailed as one of the finest mobile app developers in the city, we’re not going to rest on our laurels. We’re going to keep up the hard work so that we make next year’s list too.