Trends in the mobile app development Industry

It is safe to say that smartphones have essentially become extensions of ourselves in the recent years. The importance of mobile phones in the tech world is very obvious. Having said that let us familiarize ourselves with trends that are making significant changes in the mobile industry.

1. Artificial intelligence – AI is used in a lot many ways like developing chatbots which are virtual assistants within banking apps. There will be massive changes in the customer service. Productivity will raise and costs will get lower if one uses AI well in their business processes.

2. Lazy loading – It is a process where a developer can specify which software components can be loaded into the physical storage. The main advantage of lazy loading is that it significantly reduces the application start-up time and gives way for less memory consumption.

3. IoT – There will literally be a deluge of internet-connected devices in the near future. Mobile apps can be used to control the IoT environment. We can use the smartwatches, smartphones and tablets to integrate the tools we have. This is one great benefit from IoT.

4. Cloud computing – Traditional approach of storing data on-premise, is reducing day-by-day as companies are shifting towards cloud infrastructure as everyone prefers to access data on fingertip wherever they are and whatever the device they use. All time and easy access requirement pushing everyone to user cloud storage like Dropbox, Box and google drive apps to store their data along with device storage. These apps are becoming very popular.

5. AR – Pokemon Go is an AR game app that went viral and got $1 billion in revenue. Beyond entertainment, AR is also used in brand promotion, Education, Information, sales, marketing, and alter and/or place virtual objects in real environment to see how it looks. AR translator helps user translating the text at real time when users point the camera to text.

6. Content-centered experience – It helps in removing unwanted design elements and lets the user focus on app content. It essentially assumes that users go to apps with a very clear cut purpose and this kind of design helps to give them only that avoiding all unwanted content. This trend will significantly increase and will make apps more personalized.

7. Biometrics – All latest higher end mobile devices other gadgets are having fingerprint scanners and/or face IDs as security lock. Same biometrics used in FinTech and other applications as a credentials to login. Passwords, passcodes, patterns will soon be a thing of the past and biometrics will be the norm of the day. Biometrics will improve significantly from what it is right now and it will be more secure. The use of TouchID and FaceID will be get more sophisticated and enhanced.

8. Mobile Wallets - These have started gaining traction in terms of usage. The main reason behind their adoption is that they are highly convenient. Perks like coupons and loyalty programs are also responsible for their increased adoption and use. A unique number is assigned for each device which is encrypted and stored and in addition to that a one time unique security code further increases the security for transactions.

9. Cross platform app development - Companies will increasingly turn to cross-platform mobile apps as they can be deployed on all platforms and the audience reach will be huge. Moreover development time is significantly reduced as the same code can be ported across various platforms. Nowadays React native, Xamarin and Ionic are increasingly being used for cross-platform app development.

10. Wearable market will prosper – The projected CAGR of wearable apps market is 47% between 2017 - 2023. Wearable devices will increasingly turn out to be fitness devices to compete with smartwatches. All in all wearable market will increase as more and more features are added to such devices. These wearables can now be connected to smart mobile devices like Mi Band 3.

11. Android instant apps – With these apps the user needn’t install them as they can be used on the go. This trend will increase and users will be able to use apps directly from the app stores. This will be a great way to save storage space. In the coming days one will be able to order food and clothing directly from these apps dwindling the distinction between apps and websites.

12. Battery efficient apps - One of the main aspects in the research of smart mobile devices lies in enhancing the battery life. With time the batteries in smartphones will be able to have more power from current levels. There will be more apps dedicated for the effective management of battery life.

13. Blockchain’s security – Blockchain will be helpful in sharing and recording information with various business entities. It helps in recognizing the identities of people whom we meet online. Smart contracts are based on Ethereum blockchain which will redefine the way information is exchanged with customers. All in all Blockchain will play a significant role in making mobile transactions safe.

14. Virtual reality – VR will be associated with the name v-commerce which can potentially revolutionize the e-commerce sector. Users will be able to try out store’s merchandise, gear and a lot of other products before actually purchasing them. It is also widely used in mobile VR for social activities.

15. User journey simplification – This is an important aspect that needs to be taken care of where all possible user journeys are planned for building a good UX. There are some things that need to be taken care of like linear user flow, progressive disclosure and so on.

16. In-app gestures and animations – They result in ease of use, less clutter, seamless interaction of mobile apps. As the app relies more and more on gesture controls only a few buttons appear on screen which gives way for content focused product app.

17. Full screen experiences – The launch of iPhoneX, Samsung galaxy S8 and One Plus 5T all give way for full-screen app experiences. This is like the immersive mode where the users will be heavily interacting with the screen.

By 2020, mobile apps are forecasted to generate $189 billion via app stores and in-app advertising. By March 2017, there were 2.7 million available apps in the Google play store and 2.2 million apps in the iStore. There can’t be a more clear sign of how well mobile apps are trending. We have mentioned exhaustively all the trends that pertain to the mobile app development which will greatly affect how mobile apps are developed and used in the future.

The only "trend" in mobile gaming is they tend to treat non-paying players as second class citizens. This is based on my personal experience alone. Not too long ago I installed a match-3 puzzle game featuring beloved superhero franchise and only several days playing it, I noticed the shady business practices of cash-grabbing of this game. While the superheroes themselves are free to recruit, based on your lack of draw but slots retaining them are not. You need some sort of special currency to buy them which obviously by using your hard-earned real cash. For those who don't want to spend single dime on that game, they either spend lots of time grinding your way through the game or wait for daily login bonuses. Both consumes lot of time and when you do had enough of that special currency to buy a slot, the hero you obtained my have been expired in that time. I deleted that game soon after I realize this trick.

Then I installed two rhythm-based games each with different major traits: One of them is an all-female idol themed and another one is an all-male one. It turns out they aren't any better if not worse that puzzle game I played earlier. Both are actually completely the same game in term of gameplay, interface, architecture, etc and they only difference is target audiences. The all-female idol game is obviously targeted towards lonely young men while the all-male one is for lonely young women. They are much the same old wine in two different bottles with different labels with some additives to taste little bit different to each other. Although I admit the all-female one is more polished than all-male one because it is more popular and have more active players all-around. Perhaps the worst thing about these games is the "gacha" system. You literally spent countless of dollars to unlock anything but you may not get what you want. In last year one man spent 1000 dollars in mobile version of Fire Emblem and he got are "duplicates", at least what he can tell us about it. In was reported that Japanese people spent millions of yen in last year(2017) alone because of this system. Even for few days these games overstayed their welcome and I deleted them as well.