Where we write about how we build, what we learn, and what's next.
Latest Post
AI Design Tools: Why Speed Is Cheap and Judgment Isn’t
Six months of shipping with Claude, V0, Lovable and Stitch: generation is now a commodity. What stayed expensive is knowing what to discard.
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AI Design Tools: Why Speed Is Cheap and Judgment Isn’t
Six months of shipping with Claude, V0, Lovable and Stitch: generation is now a commodity. What stayed expensive is knowing what to discard.
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Spec-Driven Development with AI: A Spec Kit + Claude Code Case Study
195 tasks and a working full-stack app in two hours of generation, then four days of stabilising it. What Spec Kit moved, and what it did not.
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Harvest + Forecast MCP Connector: From Spreadsheet Work to One Prompt
A production MCP connector unifying Harvest and Forecast, so planned-versus-tracked hours is one prompt instead of a spreadsheet. The core is open source.
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The Rise of Agentic Programming — and Where It Starts to Struggle
Porting 90k lines of Swift to Android with one developer and agents produced 40k lines of Kotlin in a fortnight. Where the gains stop being linear.
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ElevenLabs Voice AI Agents: Pros, Limits & When to Use LangGraph
ElevenLabs ships a working voice agent in days with no engineering. The limits show up in long multi-turn dialogue, memory and control over logic.
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Liquid Glass vs Material 3 Expressive: Next‑Gen UI Design Compared
Apple's Liquid Glass and Google's Material 3 Expressive both arrived in 2025. What each one actually changes in depth, shape, colour and motion.
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Prompt-to-UI… Jumping on the Hype!
Describe a product, get an interface. We put the prompt-to-UI tools through real design work to find where the generated screens stop holding up.
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DrillRoom v3.0.4 Released, now with LiquidGlass look
DrillRoom 3.0.3 and 3.0.4 add iOS 26 compatibility and the LiquidGlass look. Also fixed: progressive drill editing and artefacts in exported videos.
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Building a Scalable Video Streaming Solution with AWS: A Complete Guide
Adaptive bitrate streaming on AWS MediaConvert, S3 and CloudFront, with signed URLs. The architecture and the decisions behind each component.
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Evaluating LLMs with LangChain: Testing & Benchmarking Methods
Three ways to evaluate an LLM in LangChain: model-as-judge, deterministic tests, and off-the-shelf evaluators. Where each one earns its cost.
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How We Redesigned Instagram Personalization to Improve User Experience in 2025
A UX study of Instagram users aged 25-34 who do not post: surveys and interviews pointing at four places the app could hand back control.
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Sustainable UX or Greenwashing? A Critical Look at Energy-Smart Design
Dark mode, system fonts and lighter images do cut a page's data load. Where that stops being sustainability and starts being brand positioning.
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Sonia: AI Agent for Sales Ops Automation & Faster Deals
Sonia is an internal agent that estimates effort, drafts decks, moves HubSpot deals and finds leads. What it took to put it in front of a sales team.
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Designing Trustworthy AI Assistants: 9 Simple UX Patterns That Make a Big Difference
Nine UX patterns that decide whether an AI assistant feels trustworthy, from setting expectations to giving users control over what it remembers.
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Building AI Agents with LangGraph vs n8n: A Hands-On Comparison
We rebuilt the same Slack HR assistant twice, once in LangGraph and once in n8n. What the identical logic cost in each, and where they diverge.
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Beyond Tools: Why Designers Must Lead the AI Conversation
Figma AI, Relume and V0 all sell speed, and speed is the easy part. The argument for designers shaping these systems rather than inheriting them.
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How Specialized Studios Accelerate Digital Product Development
OrangeLoops runs embedded React Native, QA, Cloud, UX/UI and R&D studios rather than departments. How that structure changes delivery on a project.
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QA Trends 2025: The Future of Software Testing
AI test generation, self-healing scripts, low-code platforms and shift-left data practices. Which 2025 QA trends actually change a team's workflow.
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UX/UI Trends 2025: The Future is Adaptive, Ethical & Incredibly Immersive
Five UX/UI shifts for 2025: adaptive AI interfaces, invisible UI, immersive 3D, ethical design and inclusive defaults. What each asks of a design team.
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Mastering Quality Assurance: Writing Effective Test Cases for Software Success
A test case is inputs, expected output and a pass/fail rule. How to write ones that catch edge cases rather than restate the happy path.
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React Native New Architecture: Turbo Modules, JSI, and Fabric Explained
React Native's new architecture removes the asynchronous bridge. What JSI, Turbo Modules and Fabric each replace, and what that means for an app.
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Vision Pro Spatial Design: A UX Perspective on Innovation and Challenges
Vision Pro replaces controllers with gaze, gesture and voice. A designer's read on what spatial UI gains from that, and what it still gets wrong.
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Optimizing LinkedIn Notifications: A Case Study on UX Improvements
A UX case study of LinkedIn's notification load, built from personas and research, ending in concrete proposals for giving users control back.
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How Push Notifications Can Improve Your Mobile App Strategy
Marketing pushes, timed reminders and silent background updates are three different mechanisms. Which to reach for, and what each costs in attention.
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AI Conversational Agents: Everything You Need To Know
The questions clients actually ask before commissioning a conversational agent — scope, data, handover, cost — answered from past OrangeLoops projects.
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Pros & Cons of Developing an AI Conversational Agent
Chatbots cut handling cost and free staff time; they also fail in ways a script cannot. An honest ledger before you commit budget to one.
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Kotlin Multiplatform: Innovating Mobile App Development
Kotlin Multiplatform shares business logic across iOS and Android; Compose Multiplatform extends that to the UI. Two approaches we shipped, compared.
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Expo vs. React Native CLI: Which is Best for Your Mobile App Development?
React Native's docs now point new projects at Expo. What that changes about native modules, builds and ejecting, and when the CLI still wins.
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Master LangChain: Building Advanced LLM Apps in Python
LangChain's Python API in the parts that matter: prompt templates, chains, output parsers, chat history, tools and agents, with working code for each.
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Transform Your Space: How to Use ARKit in VisionOS for Augmented Reality Decor
ARKit in visionOS gives you sessions, providers and anchors. How those three fit together to place virtual objects against real walls and tables.
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Customized Navigation Solution Based on User-Centered Research
A client platform with three nested hierarchy levels resisted standard navigation patterns. How research shaped a custom one, and what it cost.
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WWDC 2024: The Future is Now with VisionOS 2
visionOS 2 adds main camera access, object detection and better window handling. Which of the first version's gaps that closes for developers.
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Can’t-Miss Boston Tech Events in 2024 (June-December)
The Boston tech calendar from June to December 2024, across AI, cybersecurity and software development, with dates and official links for each.
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Building a Hello World in Vision Pro
visionOS gives you windows, volumes and spaces. A walkthrough of the smallest app that uses all three, from an empty Xcode project to a running build.
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Seeing is Knowing: Enhancing Test Strategies with Visual Testing
A misplaced button on one device passes every functional test. Where visual regression testing fits alongside a suite that already goes green.
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Elevating Image Management: An AWS Use Case Example
An image pipeline on AWS that serves thousands of uploads a minute, close to the user and sized to the slot. The architecture, component by component.
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Beginner’s Guide to OpenAI
How GPT models, tokens and the OpenAI API actually fit together, with code for both the raw endpoints and the Python module, from a standing start.
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Vision Pro vs. Quest 3: Navigating the Frontiers of XR Technology
Vision Pro and Quest 3 make opposite bets on passthrough, input and price. What each choice means for the kind of app worth building on it.
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Embracing Product Discovery Best Practices for Market Success
95% of new products fail, usually by solving a need nobody had. The discovery practices that surface that mismatch before it reaches a roadmap.
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Tech Game Changer: Why Companies Are Outsourcing
Outsourcing and staff augmentation solve different problems and fail differently. How to tell which gap you actually have before you fill it.
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Boston’s AI Pioneers: How These Startups are Transforming Industries with Artificial Intelligence
Boston AI startups worth watching in 2023, and what each is actually shipping, from drug discovery to logistics rather than another chat wrapper.
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Announcing DrillRoom v2.0 and v2.1: Harness the Power of AI for Your Cue Sports Training
DrillRoom 2.0 adds a Drill Editor for custom drills and a new coach; 2.1 builds on it. What changed for players tuning their own practice routines.
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Boston Most Innovative Startups: Who to Watch in the Local Tech Industry
Boston startups redefining their sectors in 2023 — wearable performance data, diamond security tags, AI-driven marketing — and what each is betting on.
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Integrating AI into Mobile Apps: Top 10 Lessons Learned
Ten lessons from running computer-vision models on the phone rather than the server, drawn from the Loog magic mirror and DrillRoom.
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Mastering the Dark Art of Effort Estimation in Software Projects: Best Practices for Engineers
An estimate is often a commitment in disguise, which is why bad ones cost budgets and morale. Practices that make engineering estimates hold up.
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Boston’s Most Exciting Tech Events in 2023
The 2023 Boston conference calendar, from robotics to biotech to developer summits, with what each is worth attending for and where to register.
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Embrace the Future: Top 4 Game-Changing Tech Trends of 2023
Adaptive AI, superapps, green technology and extended reality, and what each of the four asks of a business that decides to act on it in 2023.
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5 UX/UI Design Trends You Need To Know in 2023
Five shifts in UX and UI for 2023 — ML-driven personalisation, AR and VR surfaces, and the accessibility work each of them quietly assumes.
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The Top Product Discovery Questions
A set of trigger questions for discovery sessions, arranged to make sure a whiteboard conversation covers every base before anyone specifies a system.
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DrillRoom v1.3 – Now with multiple profiles!
DrillRoom 1.3 adds multiple profiles, so a household can share one device without mixing up training data. What else shipped in the release.
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DrillRoom, Cue Sports Development App v1.2 released
DrillRoom 1.2 introduces a leaderboard ranking players by attempts, time or success ratio. The rest of what changed in the cue sports trainer.
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WWDC 22: Top Takeaways For Developers
The WWDC 2022 announcements that actually change what developers build, from iOS 16 lock screen customisation onwards, picked out of five days.
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List of Climate Tech conferences in 2022
Climate tech events running in 2022, in person and hybrid, with dates and focus areas for anyone tracking emissions work rather than the hype.
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Fixed Bid vs. Hourly Rate: Software Development Costs
Fixed bids buy certainty and pay for it in scope rigidity; hourly rates invert both. Which contract shape fits which kind of software project.
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Async/Await vs Coroutines From a Native Developer Perspective
Swift's async/await and Kotlin's coroutines solve the same problem from the same idea. Where the two diverge, read from iOS and Android in parallel.
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OrangeLoops recognized as a Top App Development Firm in Massachusetts
OrangeLoops was named a top application development company in Massachusetts. What the ranking is based on, and what the team has built since 2015.
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What’s new with DrillRoom v1.1: Visual diagrams of billiard drills and more
DrillRoom 1.1 adds visual drill diagrams, more coach voices, challenges, and accounts with subscriptions. Months of work, organised into four pillars.
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How to build a long-term software development partnership
The first few months set the tone for a development partnership. Concrete habits that keep one productive past the initial project.
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5 reasons to build your MVP with React Native
One JavaScript codebase deploying to both stores changes what an MVP costs to test. Five reasons that matters, and where the approach has limits.
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Our Ultimate Guide to Turn Your Business Idea into a Viable Mobile App
A ten-step route from business idea to shipped mobile app, built around research and iteration rather than the assumption that the idea is right.
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WWDC 21: Top Takeaways for Developers
The WWDC 2021 announcements worth a developer's attention, ShazamKit onwards, pulled out of five days of an entirely virtual conference.
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What’s New in ARKit 5?
ARKit 5 at WWDC 21: location anchors in more cities, App Clip Codes and face tracking on the ultra-wide camera. What changed since ARKit 4.
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10 Key Considerations for Choosing a Software Company
Ten things to check before signing with a software partner — track record, technical depth, communication, ownership — and why each one bites later.
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DrillRoom: AI-powered billiard training iOS app
DrillRoom is in the App Store: an iOS app that tracks pocket billiard drills with AI so players can see their performance rather than guess at it.
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The Top Web App Development Trends for 2021
The web app trends we expected to shape 2021, from AI features to progressive web apps, and what each one asked of a development team at the time.
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The Top AR & VR Trends for 2021
Where AR and VR were heading into 2021, with ARKit 4, ARCore and Oculus each pushing a different edge, and the use cases that stopped being demos.
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Apple’s November 2020 Event: The Future of Mac
Apple's first Apple Silicon Mac chip, the M1, and what an ARM MacBook changed for anyone shipping software to it. Everything from the November event.
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OrangeLoops Named as a Top Mobile App Developer in Massachusetts
OrangeLoops was named a 2020 Clutch leader for mobile development in Massachusetts, on the strength of client reviews rather than a submission.
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Improved Conditional Styling in React Native
The array-and-boolean pattern for conditional styles in React Native gets unreadable fast. A typed alternative that keeps the styles declarative.
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October 2020 Apple Event: Hi, Speed
The iPhone 12, 12 Mini and 12 Pro led Apple's October 2020 event, with the HomePod mini alongside. What was announced and what it meant at the time.
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Apple Event September 2020: What’s New?
Apple Watch Series 6, the Watch SE and a new iPad carried Apple's September 2020 event. The iPhone 12 did not appear, despite the rumours.
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Hand Tracking & Body Pose Detection with Vision Framework
iOS 14 gave the Vision framework hand tracking and better body pose estimation. We tested how accurate it actually is, with code and sample output.
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Open Source React Native App Template
What changed in the OrangeLoops open-source React Native template — the boilerplate and configuration a new app would otherwise assemble by hand.
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What’s New in ARKit 4?
ARKit 4 as announced at WWDC 2020: location anchors, depth from LiDAR, expanded face tracking. A read from the talks, before any hands-on time.
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The Best Virtual Tech Conferences in 2020
When COVID-19 cancelled the 2020 conference season, many events went fully digital instead. The ones worth attending, and how to get into them.
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Contact Tracing at Industrial Facilities in times of COVID-19
Quarantining a whole crew can halt an industrial site. How contact tracing narrows that to the people actually exposed, and what it takes to deploy.
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What Does Coronavirus Mean for the Tech Sector?
When movement of people stops being a given, the technology that carries work remotely stops being optional. The trends we saw accelerating in 2020.
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OrangeLoops Recognized As A Top Mobile App Development Company In Boston
MobileAppDaily listed OrangeLoops among Boston's top mobile app development companies. What the listing looked at, and what the team was shipping.
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The Best iOS & Swift Conferences in 2020
The iOS and Swift conference calendar for 2020, with dates, cities and ticket prices — and the coronavirus update that overtook most of it.
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The Best Upcoming React Conferences in 2020
The React and React Native conference calendar for 2020, with dates, cities and ticket prices — and the coronavirus update that overtook it.
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Top 5 Useful Libraries for iOS & Android Development
Five third-party libraries we keep reaching for on iOS and Android, two per platform plus one shared, and the everyday job each of them removes.
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What’s New in ARKit 3?
ARKit 3 with iOS 13: people occlusion, motion capture and simultaneous cameras, tested on the developer beta rather than read off a slide.
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Kezmo, our enterprise chat & task manager for teams, is now open source
Kezmo's community edition is open source — a React front end on a Java backend, deployable on premises as a Docker image. Where to get the code.
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Apple Special Event 2019: What’s new?
Apple Arcade, Apple TV+, the Watch Series 5 and four iPhones. What the September 2019 Special Event actually delivered against the rumours.
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A Look at Flutter from a Native Developer
A native mobile team's honest first run at Flutter: what the framework makes easy, what it makes strange, and where the Dart code stops reading well.
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Open Source Templates for Building React & React Native Apps
Starting a React or React Native project means picking libraries and wiring configuration first. These templates make those choices once, in the open.
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OrangeLoops is Proud to be Reviewed as a Top Boston Software Company
A five-star Clutch review from a client CTO put OrangeLoops on Boston's top app developers list. What the review said and what it was based on.
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Introduction to Web Authentication (WebAuthn)
WebAuthn lets a server authenticate a user with public key cryptography instead of a password. How the authenticator types differ, tested first-hand.
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Free training resources for learning React.js
The React tutorials and courses OrangeLoops hands its junior developers, in the order they work through them, with the HTML and CSS groundwork first.
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What does 5G mean for Mobile Apps?
5G is sold on speed, but the change that matters to an app is latency and what it lets you move off the device. Written as the rollout began.
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Getting started with Machine Learning in Mobile App Development
Core ML and ML Kit both put a model on the phone, and they are not equivalent. What we found running each of them on a real mobile app.
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Introducing IdeaSource: Open Source platform for open innovation
IdeaSource is a deliberately minimal cross-platform app for crowdsourcing ideas, built as a sandbox to learn React Native front to back. It is open.
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ARKit 2: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Days of hands-on testing with ARKit 2 in 2018, before the 2021 rewrite: what it did well, where it fell down, and what was simply not there yet.
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Top 10 Mobile App Development Trends for 2021
Ten trends we expected to shape mobile app development, from on-device AI to 5G. Written in 2019 and updated through 2020, so read it as a record.
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Generating REST web services from PostgreSQL tables
An open-source Java utility that generates beans, JDBC data access objects and Jersey endpoints straight from PostgreSQL tables. Why we built it.
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A slack alternative that runs on a Raspberry Pi
Kezmo's community edition ships as a Docker image, and a Raspberry Pi 3 runs it well enough for a small team. What self-hosting actually costs.
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How to build your customer support chatbot with DialogFlow
Building a customer support chatbot on Dialogflow: intents, entities and fulfilment, and where a scripted flow stops being enough for real users.
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How can you make UITableView / UICollectionView with dynamic headers
OLSDynamicHeaderViewController is a small iOS component for headers that respond to scroll. What it does, and the code to drop it into a project.
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Will chatbots really kill the app store?
A 2016 argument that chatbots would replace apps, answered from a team building a messaging platform. Where we agreed, and where the case broke.
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What to expect from TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley?
We exhibited at TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley to launch Kezmo. What the table actually gets you, and whether it is worth it for a startup.
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Kezmo is finally available to the public
Kezmo is public: an enterprise chat tool built on the argument that treating everything as a message loses the agreements and the owners.
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Kezmo is going to TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016
OrangeLoops took Kezmo to TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2016, exhibiting in Startup Alley as part of the Uruguay pavilion.
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How to create a Kanban board with jquery
Building a drag-and-drop Kanban board in the browser with jQuery, from what the columns and cards have to model through to the working code.
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Why email based enterprise collaboration is broken
Email survives as the fallback for collaboration because it is universal, not because it is good at it. What it does well, and where it fails teams.
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Enabling messaging and file transfers between nearby iOS and Android devices
Sending a file to someone standing next to you should not route through a datacentre. What it takes to move bits directly between iOS and Android.
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Opportunities in the enterprise messaging and collaboration market segment
Why a team with years of SharePoint consulting behind it decided the enterprise collaboration market still had a gap, and built Kezmo into it.
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We are hiring
OrangeLoops opened programmer positions in 2015, with Objective-C or Android SDK experience welcome. A snapshot of the team's earliest days.
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We are OrangeLoops
How two developers who spent a decade building enterprise systems on Microsoft technologies came to start a product company. The founding story.
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That's all for now. Stay tuned for new posts.
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