Chat-based mobile application

Long gone are the days when people exclusively relied on phone calls to connect. Nowadays, when people don’t see each other, they move towards messengers — both text and video methods — instead of calling. At ABCloudz, we understand the importance of user interaction when messaging online and we can provide the means to make it a striking experience thanks to solid technical background and interactivity features.

If we talk about the chat feature in apps it is generally utilized in two scenarios: when it’s the main app-selling point, or when it’s a cool addition to already existing functionality inside an app.

Being different implementation-wise, we enable both options and bolster them with modern-day technologies to support safe and snappy connection.

Technical aspects

Because we come from the data world, we pay extra attention when designing the future-state architecture. In both cases, you pick a technology that facilitates your goal the best — Ejabberd is a great choice for standalone chatting, while Openfire makes it a great secondary feature in apps.

Unlike its Java-based counterpart, Ejabberd provides vast opportunities for growth and supports retrieving messages even in offline mode. This is a solid advantage for an app that puts its focus on communication — users often use private messages as a kind of storage.

On top of that, Ejabberd allows for displaying users’ last activities, SSL security measures, various plugins, and push-notifications in offline mode.

Keeping your data private

We put extra emphasis on using two-factor authentication to make apps immune to breaches from all possible attacks. During the first log-in, we ask for a customer’s phone number and send a verification code for them to enter. It is a complex system that contains numerous phases on the server side.

We implement registration in several steps: the initial registration saves credentials on the server and then uses an API to ask the XMPP server to create an account. The backend server gets the info and duplicates it for storage. After a user logs in, the service layer will receive a query from the client to send user credentials. The server verifies and matches this data and returns it back to the client to then validate credentials with the XMMP server.

Despite sounding like a convoluted route — the whole process is done instantly, and the user is free to log into the chat.

Glorious user experience

What makes the experience even better is the interactivity features. We add sound effects to emojis, a valuable feature for Android smartphones that don’t have such capability by default. The support for Google keyboard is another step to add typing convenience and tons of icons, animations, and images.

When it comes to the interface, our developers know how to make menu navigation and buttons placement intuitive. We also enable sleek animations using Lottie and tune their performance based on the app needs.

Checklist of must-have features

If it’s a chat mobile application development, we always implement the following features:

• Chat list. All the previous chats will be stored in a separate menu and available for viewing, editing, and deletion
• Creating new chats, groups, adding friends. To make it a fully-fledged chat platform, we always add social interaction features
• Sending texts and all sorts of files between users, which is the cornerstone for chat-based apps
• Safe end-to-end encryption for extra privacy

Our dev team is proficient in making chatbots that are powered by machine learning algorithms. Thanks to Google Dialogflow and Amazon Lex, bots are capable of recognizing text and voice speech and its tone determined by neural networks.

Mobile apps gain

The prospects are limitless.  And believe it or not, these days many people abstain from phone calls altogether and prefer using messengers. The reasons are aplenty: work environment, sleeping schedules, and the inability to send cat pics using voice. By making your own app, you can benefit from selling virtual goods for users’ interaction, be a 3rd party platform for commercial offers, become a platform for corporate groups, and more.

Reach us out

Contact us and explore the possibilities of chat-based mobile apps. Social interaction is the key to keeping users busy, and we make sure your app supports every present-day chat feature.

Enhance your business with a neat mobile solution — our devs know quality and create apps that are scalable, secure, and fast-running.