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Do What You Love and You Will Never Work a Day in Your Life

I have now worked for jācapps for 10 years! This company is a part of who I am and the people here are my family. Most of our clients have probably heard my name (especially for those Apple Developer accounts!) even though I don’t interact with them directly that much now. I help keep all those apps moving and working and growing. And I care about each app we put out; I honestly do.

I walked into the jācapps office a young developer just getting started in the Android and iOS world. I think Paul hired me because I was a Tigers fan and managed to impress his only previous reference point for what a developer was. In a similar way, jācapps was also just getting started in the app world – although they had been around before I came along.  I showed up at a non-descript office building, walked into a dull office suite (sorry, it’s true), and got to work at my desk in the storage room. Yep. The storage room sitting next to some shelves filled with old equipment and dusty boxes, racks of CDs, and a massive phone system. No windows.

This may sound bleak and like why would anyone sign on for this job. But what I also walked into was a 3-person team passionate about what they were doing, a boss that said “put up whatever you want” on the walls (and in my work), and the room to grow along with all of that. From that first day, I was asked what I thought and given the agency to guide what we were doing and where we would go. The first apps I worked on were for radio stations and were really, really not pretty. They played an audio stream and that was about it! But remember, this was 10 years ago so that was pretty impressive!

As the years passed, we built on this simple functionality to create some really amazing apps for our clients. We branched outside of the radio station market. I really think every part of jācapps has grown and improved: design, development, deployment. Even sales (my least favorite thing) and our office space! Before the pandemic, the team worked out of our Bingham Farms office suite. Automated sitting/standing desks, glass walls, open spaces, white boards. All the things you’d imagine in a modern tech company. And a kitchen! Our first office space had a microwave and a water cooler, so a refrigerator and working sink were big-time improvements.

But the work is what really counts. The apps we are putting out now are complete solutions for our clients. We’ve mastered including all sorts of media types and branched out to fit the business needs of many different verticals. We have dedicated web and backend developers. Even now, starting a new custom project for me is exciting! I love figuring out what parts match up with previous work and what parts will take the company in new directions. Looking back, while I might be embarrassed by those early apps – my pride in our work has been constant.

Ten years in the life of a tech company is a huge deal. And ten years in my life has also been huge. I was just shy of 30 when I started, living the single life with my two dogs, still figuring out what being an “adult” meant. What I said about the people at jācapps being family? It’s true. And not only because I convinced my brother to join the company! I was lucky enough to become friends with that small team from the start. While we don’t work together anymore, they will always be my partners in crime (the good kind). And even as we’ve added to the team, they’ve supported me.

This company saw me through a few relationships starting and ending, saying goodbye to those two dogs (and hello to a new one).  The whole company, a much bigger team than 3 people, was at my father’s funeral for support. The Friday before I proposed to my now-wife every person at jācapps wished me luck (good thing I got a “yes”). A few of the longer-term coworkers were at the wedding and then there was an office baby shower and so many thoughtful gifts for the birth of my daughter! So, when I say both the company and I have grown – you can see it’s true. I have never been more solidly “adult” than I am now: married, with a child, staring down 40.

And also, confident that I’m at the right company. I am wise enough to know none of us know the future. However, I still believe there are even greater things coming in the future for jācapps. Our team seamlessly adapted to work from home full time, has weathered the Covid-economy, and continues to truly enjoy what we are doing. I am thankful for each employee, the “higher-ups”, and each client and project that comes along – even the ones that challenge us. Here’s to another year!

Kate Coyle-Levy

VP of Software Development

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Mobile Apps Uncategorized

Holiday 2020: Bringing the Stores to You

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has touched every aspect of our lives.  Businesses have shut down, families hunkered down, and the economy slowed down. 

Concurrently, the way we shop has also changed.  If eCommerce was a slow-moving, if inevitable, train before the pandemic, today it’s a runaway freight train.  The result has been retail bankruptcies as consumers have been reluctant to leave their homes, preferring to pick up packages from their front porch.

But now businesses are re-opening, and with the holiday shopping season rapidly approaching, consumers are tired of being at home.  But they need information about what this new shopping experience is going to be like: What stores are open?  What are the new business hours?  Is there online ordering?  Curbside pickup?  What events are happening, and what health and safety protocols are in place?  And based on the past few months, the answers to these questions and others could change several times in the next few months.

Our partner company, Jacobs Media, just completed a survey of over 27,000 listeners of 355 radio stations across the US and Canada.  “Radio’s 2020 Holiday Road Map” provides the answers to these questions, and clearly shows retail customers are placing a high priority on safety (this is especially true among women).

So how do retailers communicate this to their customers, especially when advertising and marketing budgets are pinched?

We believe in the power of aggregation – bringing all of the businesses in a downtown or shopping district together to collaborate on a mobile app that answers all of the questions posed above, and provides even more.  This is a cost-efficient solution that’s in-tune with what consumers need, and puts it conveniently on their smartphone, which has become their “go to” device for shopping information.

The Covid-19 pandemic is re-writing all of the rules, and the old ways of marketing won’t be as effective – or cost-effective – as before.  Nearly every customer a retailer are trying to attract has a smartphone, so it makes sense to provide a solution where everyone in the community benefits, and your re-opening can be successful.

For this and lots of other reasons, it makes sense for merchant associations, chambers of commerce or downtown development authorities to bring all of the local merchants together into a single, easy-to-use way to find out what’s happening in your area.

The last thing a tentative, concerned consumer wants to do is venture out without the information to make their trip safe and productive for themselves and their families. Merchants can make their life easier by putting the information for all of your local businesses into one handy mobile application that can create a real connection between merchants and consumers.  And if the situation changes, push messaging will provide a fast and effective way of communication, improving your relationship with your customers in the process.

This holiday shopping season won’t be like any other – make sure your business and shopping district’s marketing plans are in-line with the “new normal.”

Wishing you a happy, healthy, and profitable holiday season.

If you would like more information from our Covid shopping study, contact Paul Jacobs at paul@jacobsmedia.com

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Mobile Apps Uncategorized

Browsing In The Aisles Has Been Replaced By Browsing Mobile Apps

For retailers, Covid-19 has accelerated the changes in shopping habits they were already experiencing. The benefits of the shopping experience – browsing the aisles, checking the inventory, engaging salespeople, and in-store events – no longer apply.  The trend in the past decade or two has been toward shopping while customers are at home – or at work or waiting in line for take-out. And increasingly, this activity is happening on mobile apps.

eMarketer just released a study from App Annie that finds in June, six in ten (59%) Americans preferred to shop using their mobile phones. And as the chart below indicates, this surge is happening among most age groups, led by an astonishing nine in ten (90%) of 25-34 year-old millennials.

Since this trend began long before the pandemic, experts in retailing expect this shift in shopping behavior to be a permanent re-alignment in the way Americans are going to make purchases in the future.  Yoram Wurmser, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence notes “We expect that the effects of the pandemic will accelerate long-term trends in mobile usage.” Although some gains with mcommerce and other mobile activities will not last beyond quarantines, the baselines for mobile activities will be higher than they would have been otherwise.”

The retailing world has been upended by Covid-19.  But those retailers that have a mobile strategy in place are much more likely to evolve their businesses and survive. Key to that survival are elements like:

  • An up-to-the-minute “catalog” or “showroom” of products and/or services.
  • User registration to better serve the consumer and maintain a closer relationship via email, push messages and other communication channels.
  • Easy access to customer support
  • Simple, ecommerce transactions that are secure, easy and remember things like product preferences and payment methods.
  • The ability to expand your trading area – more customers outside of your radius will have access to your “store” than ever before.

Most businesses can be improved by establishing a relationship with the consumer on the device they spend almost 4 hours a day on. Whatever you’re selling,  redefining, streamlining, and expanding the way you connect with customers is now just a tap away.

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Lessons for Business Owners During COVID-19

As the co-owner of two small business, I understand and appreciate all of the challenges we face in normal times.  And these are far from normal times.  We worry about the health of our staffs and the health of our businesses.  The rules that have always applied are being challenged, and we are forced to pivot quickly in order to keep everything together.

If you own a business that sells product to consumers, you know what I mean.  Pre-COVID-19 it was about having appealing locations, attentive service, and adequate stock displays.  We used advertising, social media, and other marketing techniques to drive traffic, and consumers stopped in to either browse or to buy.  Businesses didn’t require having any kind of relationship with these consumers, because they could just re-tool with more advertising and marketing.

And that’s the biggest lesson learned – in order to survive during and after the COVID-19 crisis, businesses are going to have to invest in having digital, one-to-one relationships with their customers.

I love restaurants, and here in Detroit there is a group that has six unique bistros that are really outstanding.  We’ve been customers of one of their restaurants for close to 30 years.  Like all restaurants, they are now closed, and trying to promote curbside pickup.  In the past week, they’ve shuttered two of their locations and we are in fear there could be more.

They are failing because they don’t know who I am.  Sure, the wait staff greets us when we come in because of our longevity, but the company doesn’t know us.  They have a weak email relationship with us, no mobile app, and no way to activate the thousands of customers who love their restaurants.  If I didn’t drive by their restaurant and saw the sign about curbside pickup, I wouldn’t have known they are offering it.

And looking around, they aren’t alone.  To my eye, the majority of local restaurants and retailers haven’t invested in developing digital relationships with their long-term customers and can’t activate them as shopping patterns radically change.

When things return to normal, every business needs to invest in three things (these are generalities – I’m sure there are other tactics that apply to specific groups):

  1. eCommerce – Online shopping and ordering for curbside pickup is going to be with us long after a cure is found for COVID-19.  There is no guarantee people are going to flock back into stores when this is over.  Online ordering + curbside pickup and/or home delivery might become the norm for all businesses (let’s face it, giants like Target and Wal-Mart were doing this before the crisis, and are perfectly positioned to serve customers during this disruption).
  2. Data & Database – How many businesses are like my restaurant, with long-term customers but no information on them?  This transactional relationship has exposed a major weakness in their business model.  Smart owners will immediately invest in requiring each customer to register for their email database and begin collecting information on them.  And not just demographic data, but preferences, shopping patterns, etc. 
  3. Invest In A Mobile App – While it’s obvious I would recommend this, how many businesses wish their app was on the home screen of all of their customers’ smartphones right now, empowering them to connect and shop while they are sitting around their homes right now?  Imagine having push messaging capability, communicating with customers about specials, new services, and discount programs.  Even businesses that didn’t have an eCommerce engine prior to COVID-19 could get one started now and build it up over time.

Like it or not, small and medium businesses compete every day with Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target.  And while those companies can invest millions in their digital strategies, developing a digital relationships with customers doesn’t need to cost a fortune. 

But the cost of not having a digital relationship with customers could.

We are here to help you make it through these troubling times.

Wishing all of you, your families, and your colleagues good health during these challenging times.

Paul Jacobs

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7 Lessons We’ve Learned From Developing 1,300 Mobile Apps

Bob Kernen has served as COO of jacapps, our mobile app company, for more than six years now.  And during that time, the company has grown into radio’s leading mobile app developer.
 Bob was the first person I thought of when I watched Iowa Caucus coverage Monday night. And in today’s post, he puts this debacle in Iowa into perspective – what it means to politics, and more importantly, what it means to radio. – FJ

I turned on the news late Monday night to see the results of the Iowa Democratic Caucus. After a minute or two it became obvious that the results weren’t in. After flashbacks to the election of November 2000 dissipated, I heard that the problem was with (gulp) a mobile application.
As someone who runs a mobile app company I had two immediate reactions: First, that visceral wave of nausea when the technology you’ve worked hard on fails, and second, thank goodness it wasn’t one of our apps!
Running a company of this type is complex.  It’s not just about writing code.  Great mobile apps require a strategic purpose, time and thought, quality control, graphic design, attention to the user experience, training, testing, and lot of debugging.
As we know, there are two app platforms – iOS for iPhone and iPads, and Android for virtually everything else.  Problem is, there are hundreds of different phone brands and models that run Google’s Android software.
You never want an app to go down, and you certainly don’t want to have problems like these when a) the app is only going to be used one time, and b) that one time is on national television and a presidential election is at stake.
Most of us view mobile apps as those cute little icons on our iPhones and Androids that we touch with a finger and cool stuff happens.  And when working properly, the consumer doesn’t notice just how complex this software is.
Over the past eleven years, jacapps has developed close to 1,300 mobile apps for radio stations and many other industries.  We’ve built simple streaming apps and amazingly complex apps with powerful platforms behind them that perform multiple tasks, while managing huge quantities of information. While we sympathize with the developer of the failed app used in the Iowa Caucuses, we also understand how a debacle of this magnitude can happen.

Based on the information provided so far, here’s our take on Iowa app’s face-plant, and how a disaster like this can be avoided:
1. Don’t rush it. The news is reporting this app was rushed to market in 60 days. While we appreciate that speed is important for many of our clients, it’s hard to conceive that a project this complex could be reliably done in eight weeks. It’s not surprising that there were issues.
2. Test it in the field. There have been numerous reports that in rural areas of Iowa, the app couldn’t cleanly connect to the Internet. Poor cellular coverage? What a shocker! It’s one thing to test an app in the lab (or even in a populous area) where there’s always excellent high speed Internet, but it was no secret this app was going to be used in fire stations in Pella and elementary schools in Waterloo. Simply sending someone out in the field (literally!) or provisioning the app to test in one of these places would have identified the problem quickly.
3. Test it on humans. There are also stories of how precinct captains and volunteers at local caucuses couldn’t figure out how to use the app (and in some cases, couldn’t even download it). Once again, the developer could have brought in five people from the street, handed them a phone with the app on it, and had them work through it.  And in a couple of hours, the developer would have a better understanding of how to make it more user-friendly. The people who built the app should never be the ones to test it.  These are called usability tests, and they’re effective.
4. It requires training. Most of the people reading this post know their way around a smartphone or tablet.  You’ve been downloading apps for years, and you know the in’s and out’s of how to manage mobile tools.  But many of the key spokespeople at Iowa precincts presented themselves very differently.  Some are self-described Luddites.  Other simply weren’t interested in new systems.  The developer and the Iowa Democratic Party needed education sessions so that all 1,700 precinct captains knew what they were doing.  Under the best of circumstances, that’s a heavy lift.
5. Apps are complex. People typically believe everything actually happens on your phone – that’s where the code and “stuff” resides. In fact, more complex apps are connected to a platform on a remote server that contains all of the data that flows into the app, registration information, etc.  The app used in Iowa could have failed in many different places – the app itself, the cloud-based platform, the connectivity, and more.
6. Do you even need an app? Smart brands do, of course. But for this type of “one and done” function, wouldn’t it have been simpler to create a special email box, and have them all send their results using an encrypted format that (hopefully) everyone knows how to use.
7. Don’t try this at home. Complex apps aren’t cheap, but too often people like to cut corners and either develop them “in-house” or hire a firm that has minimal experience with mobile do the job.  In every case where we’ve seen this occur, failure happens.

This is complex software that needs to be developed to handle multiple devices (how many hundreds of different Android phones are on the market?), operating systems, erratic WiFI or bad cell service, and other unforeseen events.
It’s one thing to cut a corner or two for an app that’s going to be around for years and can be course-corrected with updates over time.  But for an app that’s going to be used for just one night? You’d better make sure it’s as perfect as possible and pay whatever it takes in order to achieve that.
Every radio broadcaster needs to be part of the Mobile Revolution.  But simply checking off the “app box” by buying a mediocre product often comes with hidden costs – from operational problems to user issues.
Developing great apps is challenging, and we sympathize with the developer of the Iowa Democratic Party’s app, who clearly had a worse day than even the candidates waiting on pins and needles yesterday for the hand-tabulated results of the caucus.  But a lot of this could have been avoided.
When all else fails, try an abacus.  

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5 Tips for Creating an Effective App for Employees

When you think about having an app made for your company, you might think about an app that your customers can download and use. This can be useful, but you may want to create an app for your employees to use as well. If you’d like to make a more effective app for your employees, try these tips.

  1. Work With an App Development Company

There are programs that you can use to create apps yourself, but you may want to avoid this if you don’t have experience. The team from a good app development company can give you ideas for your employee app, and they can help ensure that the app turns out like you want it to. Plus, cost might be more affordable than you think.

  1. Ask Your Employees What They Want

Talk to your employees about the fact that you are thinking about creating an employee app. Then, you can ask them for feedback. A surprising number of employees might be excited about the idea and may be happy to provide you with input. Keep your employees’ ideas in mind when you design and create your app.
Additionally, once the app has been released and your employees have been using it for a little while, you may want to ask for their feedback again. After all, the people who use the app the most will probably be the best people to give their opinions about the app. Then, they may be able to tell you about bugs that are present or features that they would like to see added.

  1. Keep It Simple

You’ll probably want to keep your employee app relatively simple and easy to use. Employees shouldn’t have to spend tons of time learning how to use the app. Instead, they should be able to download and use it right away without much of a learning curve. Keeping the app simple will also help you keep costs down in most cases.

  1. Provide Useful Information

You might have a lot of ideas about things that you can implement in the app, but first and foremost, you will probably want to provide useful information. Employees might like being able to access the app so that they can read the latest company news and memos, for example, so make sure that you keep the app up-to-date with this information.
Additionally, think about the different types of features that your employees could benefit from in their day-to-day lives. Having the option to pull up their schedule, check out the cafeteria lunch menu, or view the events calendar can all make use of the app very helpful. You may want to add some pictures and other content, too, but useful information will probably be what makes your app truly effective.

  1. Allow Push Notifications

Your employees might live busy lives both when they are at work and when they aren’t, and it might be easy for them to forget about their employee app. If you want your employees to make use of the app, consider adding a feature for push notifications.
You will probably want to allow the opportunity for your employees to turn off these notifications if they really want to, but allowing notifications can help you make sure that your employees use the app and help them avoid forgetting anything. You can even set up the app so that it will do things like give a push notification reminder prior to an employee’s scheduled shift.
Creating an employee app could be a great idea for your business. Contact us at jācapps today to find out more about our app development services and how they can help your company and your employees.

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Happy 11 Years jacapps!

Let me set the stage for you . . . .
It was eleven years ago.  Our research showed radio had lost its portability to the iPod.
The iTunes App Store opened in July.
And in the fall, the economy went down the drain.
In the midst of all of this, our head of digital, Tim Davis, marched into the conference room to show us an app for a radio station he’d downloaded onto his iPhone (he was the only one in the company that owned one).
It was basically a streaming app, but Tim made the case to us that this solves radio’s portability problem, and since the iPhone was so cool, radio stations would want to be on it.
What did we do?  We tossed him out of the conference room.  With the economy in tatters, combined with our complete lack of knowledge about software development, it might have been one of the dumbest ideas we’d ever heard.
Until it wasn’t.
A few days later Tim told us the guy who developed the app he showed us agreed to develop for us as an outsource partner for a fair rate.  So, armed with no business plan, capital, employees, or knowledge, jacapps was born.
We didn’t even know what to call it – there was no standard for naming an app development company, so we just took the first three letters of our last name and butted it up against “apps.”  And as you can tell from our original logo, not a penny was spared in the original marketing strategy for the company!
Looking back, it was a combination of timing, good fortune, a ton of hard work, great clients who believed in us, and hiring really good people, who we like to describe as “half our age and twice as smart.”
As the company grew and we began hiring, we had nowhere to put them, because our offices were designed for consultants (read: boring).  Plus, there was no room.  Voila!  We had a huge storage room so that became the new home for the company.  Of course, we soon outgrew that and moved into much nicer digs.  Why?  Because the staff convinced us that if were going to get really serious about this company and wanted to hire great people, the environment was everything.  See, I told you they were smart.

Eleven years later, we’ve developed over 1,200 apps and are still going strong.  How did this happen?  Here are a few of the lessons we’ve learned during this grand adventure known as jacapps.
Ideas are the currency.  That had always been the mantra of Jacobs Media, but the decision to start jacapps was premised on a great idea founded in research combined with a spark.  Three years before jacapps opened we launched our first Techsurvey and quickly began asking about smartphones.  Seeing how consumer behavior was changing combined with our understanding of the radio business and its needs created a scenario where with a simple press release about our idea, a great business began.  We didn’t know much about the business we entered, but we were confident in our idea and we just went for it.  Plus, who was starting a business in late 2008 with the stock market losing 1,000 points/day?  We had the field to ourselves.
Hire people who know things you don’t.  In 2008, there were virtually no apps, so where do you look to find an app developer?  It was daunting, and we had to go out and simply find smart people.  And did we get lucky.  Kate Levy, who’s been with us close to eight years and is our VP/Development was the game-changer.  We really didn’t know what she was talking about when we first hired her, and we’re sure she hadn’t been around a couple of radio veterans, but we knew she was smart and let her run with it.  We haven’t looked back since then, and have added other great talent and leaders like Ben Levy (yes, her brother), Chelsea DuFour, Nathan Turner, and the guy who took over the company 6+ years ago, Bob Kernen.  They run the company day-to-day now – – we’re smart enough to provide guidance but to let them do their work and get out of the way.
Never stand pat.  One of the first lessons we learned was that mobile is an incredibly dynamic space.  Not only do operating systems change and new devices are constantly being released, but new features and uses kept springing up.  Looking back, it seems like the mobile space changes every 6-9 months, and like it or not, we had to be adroit.
But, change has also been the secret sauce for jacapps.  We were the first developer to recognize the impact of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and moved quickly to get them installed into our apps.  We’ve created a push messaging platform and developed partnerships with companies like Aptivada and Instreamatic.  We designed our platform to be amazingly flexible and able to provide clients the ability to change their apps as often as they’d like so their app is in-sync with their product.
The other big moment was when the company decided to expand beyond just developing apps for radio clients. When we started in the business, the hottest apps were the Zippo Lighter and iFart.  Hardly any businesses or organizations thought about having an app.  But we recognized that any company or organization can have an app, and today, our “custom” app business has developed apps for a wide array of companies – road builders, construction, weight loss, and more.
Concurrent with moving to custom apps, we also discovered that our “B-to-C” model was limiting.  Companies began to call us with “B-to-B” needs – they weren’t looking for thousands of downloads.  Instead, they had specific needs for a finite group of their customers.  Once we saw that potential, we jumped into that space as well.

And as our radio clients began to demand more complex apps that use registration and other high-level features, our work outside of radio enabled us to develop skills that could be applied to radio apps, and have led to the development of world-class apps for WTOP, Relevant Radio, the Bob & Tom Show, and more.

As I am writing this, I guarantee the team is down the hall dreaming up the next big thing.
Clients make you better.  Because mobile is such a dynamic space, we are constantly being pushed by our clients to fulfill their latest need or concept.  And because our client base is so large, jacapps has improved because of these requests.  I won’t single out any particular client or clients here but I do want to thank them for being a big part of our success, and I encourage you to keep pushing us.
11 years.
1,200 apps.
Hundreds of great clients.
And an amazing team of passionate pros who make it all happen.
That’s what jacapps is.
Here’s to a great future together.

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Mobile Apps news and press Uncategorized

jācapps Hires Anne Clark as Vice President of Sales

Bingham Farms, Mich. – October 11, 2018 – To support its ongoing growth initiatives, leading application developer we have hired Anne Clark as its Vice President of Sales. Anne has more than 15 years of experience in sales management working for multiple high-tech companies around the U.S.
In this role, Anne will oversee our’ sales organization, and client-relations activities after serving in a similar position with Cengage Learning, where she managed $105 million in annual revenue and oversaw 40 high-performing sales directors and strategic account managers who engage at all decision-making levels in the for-profit higher education market. Anne has a proven track record of implementing data driven sales strategies and establishing internal sales processes, competencies and metrics that drive efficiency and performance.
“Anne was a perfect hire for us because she has experience fine tuning and scaling a sales organization to perform at a very high level,” said jācapps President Paul Jacobs. “She has the experience and steady hand to really help us get to the next level. Anne’s great at managing complex solutions and will lead our efforts to work with bigger clients in 2019 and beyond.”
Throughout her career in the technology field, Anne has served as a collaborative sales leader focused on driving growth in changing markets.  In driving technology solutions, she has helped turn around underperforming sales teams while transforming them to become highly effective and deliver results. Previous to Cengage, Anne was Vice President of Educational Sales at Wolters Kluwer Health, where she was a key decision maker in shifting the business to an all-digital solution leveraging adaptive technology and simulations which resulted in significant growth.
“I’m proud to be joining a company that has so many opportunities ahead of it as jācapps,” Anne said. “The company has a great brand in the media business and is just now scratching the surface with all types of businesses helping them create innovative mobile solutions that solve real problems. We have the opportunity to apply these mobile technologies in amazing ways and it’s my role to let the market know about it.”

About Us                                        

jācapps is a mobile application development firm in Metro-Detroit. Our company has developed over 1200 apps since its inception in 2008, by team members who are all Michigan-sourced. jācapps developers go beyond common devices by delivering your message through the most used device in the world, as well as in the Connected Car, Tablets, Smart Speakers, Smart TVs, Streaming Devices, Wearables, and whatever comes next.
If you are interested in learning more about us, the apps we’ve build, or a product of your own, contact us at sales@jacapps.com or (248) 353-9030

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Awards Mobile Apps Mobile Web news and press Radio Uncategorized

Fred Jacobs, Media Professional Elected to National Radio Hall of Fame

We are proud to announce that Fred Jacobs, our founder of jācapps and sister company Jacobs Media, was elected to the National Radio Hall of Fame!
The National Radio Hall of Fame recognizes talent from today’s diverse programming formats, as well as the pioneers who shaped the medium during its infancy. Four of the categories were decided by a voting participant panel comprised of nearly 1,000 industry professionals. The other two categories were voted on by the public.
Now, a little background about Fred Jacobs! He graduated from the University of Michigan and has a master’s degree from Michigan State University. He worked at WRIF-FM as a program director in the early 1980s. He left the radio station and founded Jacobs Media in 1983, and created the Classic Rock radio format. He formed our company jācapps in 2008, where we developed more than 1,200 apps on both Apple and Android platforms.
Through Jacobs hard work and dedication, it made him noticed by the National Radio Hall of Fame. Not only was he just elected…he was also the first non-broadcaster to be inducted!
He joins a list of Detroit radio personalities who’ve been inducted to the Hall of Fame, including, J.P McCarthy, Ernie Harwell, Dick Purtan, Casey Kasem, and Paul W. Smith. Detroit native Jim Kerr of WAXQ will also be inducted in the 2018 class, according to a statement from Jacobs Media.
Check out the full article by the local Oakland Press here
If you are interest in us, the apps we’ve built, or a product of your own, contact us at sales@jacapps.com or (248) 353-9030
 
 

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Awards Uncategorized

jācapps Wins Bright Spots Award

Recently, on Thursday, June 14th, our jacapps team attended Corp! Magazines event hosting an awards ceremony honoring Michigan Economic Bright Spots! We have been awarded by Corp! Magazine the Michigan Economic Bright Spots, Small Business Award!
 

 
Before we get into the award itself, let me tell you a little bit about our company here at jācapps!
Through current technology, mobile apps can be very versatile solutions, for businesses and consumers alike. Not only do we have over 1100 apps and 10 years in the industry, they go beyond common devices. While many developers focus on iOS and Android applications for mobile phones, we deliver your messagethrough the most-used device in the world. As well as, in the Connected Car, Tablets, Smart Speakers, Smart TVs, Streaming Devices, Wearables, and whatever comes next. Our App Everywhere® suite allows clients to utilize apps in unique ways, as mobile is put to work outside of the consumer sphere.
Over the past 10 years, we have not only doubled our team and office size, where we are also continuing to develop for small and mid-market businesses, we even expanded our industry focus! We moved beyond radio and into the healthcare and construction industry! 
Through our expansions as a team and as a company we have grown in talent and economically. Which got us recognized by Corp! Magazine! They are honoring the companies that have continued to thrive in economic growth, expansion and hiring Michigan’s brightest talent. We are honored to be recognized by Corp! Magazine multiple times and appreciate and enjoy all of the award ceremonies we have attended!
Not only do we want to congratulate our team, we would like to notice and congratulate the other businesses who were also awarded in the same category! We were awarded the Small Business Award along side numerous outstanding businesses, such as; Charity Voice, InsITe Business Solutions, Inc., Goldfish Swim School Franchising, LLC, Simplify Healthcare, Blackford Capital, Tech Defenders, Brooklyn Outdoor, and many more!

Thank you Corp! Magazine for honoring businesses from all over and hosting a unforgettable awards ceremony!
If you are interest in us, the apps we’ve built, or a product of your own, contact us at sales@jacapps.com or (248) 353-9030