The days of neighborhood scouting for apartments are long gone, and for many online search sites the sun is (hopefully) setting on Craigslist hunting. As one of the top-tier apartment rental search engines, Apartment Finder is taking only what seems to be the natural next step in mobile offerings: an iPad application.
With several apartment search applications already on the market and the sales of tablets at less than half of what was expected in 2015, Apartment Finder sought to set itself apart by fully adopting Apple’s new software language that can enable them to continually grow the app.
The application is developed in Apple’s most recent and well-acclaimed language, Swift, which is praised for its ease and simplicity. Officially announced in 2014 at WWDC, the language was particularly developed to aid in creating intuitive applications at a faster and more efficient rate.
“With this new iPad app build, we’ve gained significant experience with the Swift language,” says Apartment Finder president Marcia Bollinger. “We plan to extend our Swift development experience to our iPhone mobile app as well and will add log-in functionality to integrate features across all our products including our Android mobile app and new website. For example, our visitors will be able to save favorites in one place and have it available across any of our products.”
Experts from IDC, a technology market research company, cited in March that 2015 tablet sales growth would increase by only 2.1 percent to 234.5 million units, compared with its previous forecast of a 5.2 percent increase.
Influenced by the uptick in tablet-laptop hybrids, the tablet sales growth for the next five years is expected to increase by single digits. But perhaps the new Apple language will pique interest once again toward the large, hand-held devices.
“We’ve wanted to release a tablet app for some time now,” says Bollinger. “In many ways, it’s almost expected that a business such as ours would have an iPad app available for our visitors. With Apple’s new Swift development language, it seemed like a perfect time for us to learn the new development language and create this new product.”
Currently, about two-thirds (62 percent) of apartmentfinder.com’s traffic originates from a mobile device, so creating a user interface that was seamless and easy-to-use with its mobile apps was key.
The larger resolution expands on the experience users have on the Apartment Finder mobile apps with similar capabilities. Immediately upon opening, users can enter their desired location or use their current one to search for available properties, with advanced options to help narrow results down. In addition to the standard list and map view, users can search through nearby apartments with rent specials. Searches can be reviewed and saved to a “favorites” section.
The app features a bevy of information for users to browse through, including community highlights, photos, floor plans and landlord information.
And the company just recently released enhancements to its mobile platform, which included a widget offering access to renter reviews, advanced search technology and industry-first on demand coupons.
Bollinger continues, “the initial iPad app will be a great foundation for upcoming features and product enhancements for Apartment Finder.”
Email Kimberly Manning.
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