Mobile apps are taking over the business world on a massive scale. No matter the business’s size, mobile applications are providing a way to reach billions of users in one go.
Thus, not only saving time but also turning out to be a cost-efficient method to accomplish business goals.
Whether it’s gaming, marketing, e-commerce, entertainment, social media, healthcare, education, public relations, every sector is coming with its exclusive versions of mobile apps.
As per stats, mobile apps are expected to generate a revenue of $935 billion by 2024.
With the increase in competition in the mobile app development industry, new methods and trends are being introduced to level up the quality and user experience provided by mobile applications.
We at eSparkBiz will give you an overview of the latest mobile app development trends that are changing the face of the mobile app industry.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is ruling the mobile app development trends. One of Snapchat’s major features and a reason for its likeability is the use of AR technology for various face filters and games.
The sole purpose of AR is to give a rich user experience by superimposing digital content with real-life things, places, and anything that can be captured through a camera. It enhances the user’s environment by adding 3D visuals in real-time to give a realistic experience.
Apart from face filters offered by multiple apps these days, AR is turning out to be a useful component in various technical and non-technical fields.
IKEA Place is an app that uses AR to help users with their home decor.
It allows the user to view and place different home decor items in the area captured by the user’s mobile camera. It gives a realistic view to the user of how the chosen home decor product will look in their home.
AR apps are in demand in different industrial fields like healthcare, gaming, photography, education sector, fitness, interior designing, fashion, make-up, car-selling, retailing, and real estate industry.
Some major examples of AR implemented apps in these fields include Google Lens, YouCamMakeup, Quiver, Suggestic, BooksARalive, and Cube-Tastic.
Chatbots
Who thought that technological advancement would eliminate the requirement of support teams to handle any device? Whether it’s an app or a website, or any smart device, Chatbots are being installed in them to provide online assistance. Nowadays many company available in the market where you can build chatbot for your website as per your requirements.
Mobile applications like Google Assistant, Alexa, Apple’s Siri, or Echo by Amazon are a few among the well-known chatbots.
Apps like Facebook messenger use Chatbots that help the user by answering frequently asked questions.
Another giant organization in the food industry, “Domino’s” uses chatbots for pizza ordering. It has introduced a chatbot named “Dom,” enabling users to order pizza directly via Facebook messenger.
All these chatbots are serving the purpose of giving an extraordinary user experience along with smart customer service.
Opting a Chatbot is beneficial for both the user and the business owners in the following ways-
Benefits of using Chatbots for users-
- Saves a lot of time
- Provides online information within seconds
- Acts as a user assistant
- Gives a smart user experience
Benefits of using Chatbots for business owners-
- Cost-efficient
- Lessens the reliability on humans (customer support team)
- Serves more customers in lesser time
Beacons
A technology that uses wireless Bluetooth signals to transmit data and interact with intelligent devices that are operated by power cells is known as Beacons. They provide location-based services and are used in multiple industrial areas.
One of the rarest technologies in mobile app development, Beacons, is proving beneficial for retailers. From providing notifications regarding promotions, events, sales, and discounts to smooth store navigation, Beacons are seen as the future of smart shopping.
Mobile apps with Beacons help business owners with proximity marketing and personalized user experience. From tech-giants like Apple (iBeacon) and Google (GoogleBeacon) to small-scale retail stores, the beacon technology is evolving as a major mobile app development trend.
As per the report by Grand-view research, the beacon market is estimated to reach $58.7 billion by 2025.
One of the purposes of introducing Beacons was to give an out-of-store shopping experience to the customers. It does so by reaching out to the potential buyers within the beacon range via smart signals or notifications on smartphones.
Beacons are generally considered to provide more accurate location tracking than GPS.
An example of Beacons in the food and beverage industry is Starbucks. Whenever a customer passes by or enters the Starbucks coffee shop, they start receiving notifications about the new coffee flavors, pricing, and offers.
Artificial Intelligence
The current mobile apps are still far away from unleashing the real potential of artificial intelligence. But we cannot deny the fact that Artificial Intelligence is one of the oldest yet most used mobile app development trends.
Implementation of Artificial Intelligence in mobile applications makes them much smarter and interactive. Features of Artificial Intelligence have truly evolved the mobile application industry.
Some AI features include-
- Speech recognition
- Text recognition
- Face recognition
- Machine learning
- Chatbots
- Biometrics
A recent example of an AI-based mobile application that received a terrific response from the customers is “Faceapp.” The app intelligently enabled people to view their images of different ages.
Netflix and Amazon have improved their overall app functioning and enhanced the user experience quality by implementing Artificial intelligence features.
With the help of this technology, the business owners will have a share of benefits, and it will ease out the entire process of handling smart devices for the customers.
The apps built using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are proving highly beneficial to businesses involved in healthcare, e-commerce, social media. It is estimated that around 80% of retail executives expect their companies to adopt AI-powered intelligent automation by 2027.
IoT
IoT-1.webpAnother useful technology and one of the most common mobile app development trends, “IoT,” makes the functioning of apps smarter than ever. It connects smart devices to transfer data and perform multiple functions.
The retail industry is making the most out of this trend by using IoT devices and connecting them with smartphone apps.
Smart home being a major example of IoT based mobile application, is doing a tremendous job. With this app, you can set the temperature and monitor other related smart devices in the home from a distant place.
In retail stores, IoT apps help in providing customer service without any human intervention. One of the benefits of using this trend for business owners and marketers is that it allows them to gather loads of customer data.
This data helps them to understand customer buying behavior and their personas which helps the business improve themselves.
App developers want to create mobile apps that can create more impact and IoT can be a profitable choice for them. This technology offers services like data monitoring, data analytics, location, and asset tracking, etc.
Healthcare, farming, education, retail, traffic management, customer service, and supply chain management are the few areas where IoT-based applications are seen to have a bright future.
M-Commerce
Consumers of smartphones and tablets are increasing at a rapid rate worldwide. This increase in demand has created an opportunity for businesses and services to reach their target audience through mobile applications.
M-Commerce is one of the most popular mobile app development trends that is proving to be a win-win situation for both the customers and the business owners.
In the highly competitive era of mobile applications, app developers are focusing on making their applications hi-tech which can perform functions like money transactions, online purchasing, and selling of goods.
Amazon, Myntra, Walmart, eBay, Google Pay, Paytm are some of the commonly used M-commerce mobile applications.
This mobile application development trend is turning out to be fruitful for not only the business tycoons but also for the small-scale industries, local groceries, and stores.
As the number of M-Commerce apps is increasing, this trend has made developers become more creative and is also pushing them to leverage their technical knowledge.
M-commerce is basically allowing you to do business online via a smart device, typically a smartphone. It eliminates the need to promote or sell products door-to-door.
M-Commerce apps are being used in the following sectors-
- Health care medicine
- Hotel reservations
- E-ticket booking
- E-payment
- Sales services
- Gaming
- Retail
5G Network
WearablesA trend that is being said to revolutionize the mobile industry is expected to be introduced by 2021. This trend is the 5th generation of mobile networks that ensures high data speed, rich user experience, and low latency.
It is a misconception that 5G is the enhanced version of 4G. You might not know that this revolutionary mobile app development trend is entirely a new radio technology and has a different network infrastructure.
Various companies have already started designing their devices that can support 5G. However, the impact of 5G still needs to be seen, but it is estimated that this technology will increase the implementation of wearables and ensure more safety and security of mobile apps.
According to a report, the number of 5G connections will be around a 1.4billion by 2025.
5G will enable developers to create apps that can perform extremely well and offer high-level functionality. 4K video streaming, higher speed, improved visual quality, heavy VR and AR components and features might be seen in the 5G apps shortly.
This implementation of 5G will also help developers create apps with a rich user experience that is the ultimate goal of an app. 5G apps are expected to offer features especially in the gaming sector that would reduce the buffering time.
Wearables
Wearables are smart devices like smartwatches, smart jewelry or accessories, or sensors that come in-built in different objects or on your outfits, etc. According to the report by Statista, the wearable market is expected to generate a revenue of US$ 17,834 Million in the year 2021.
These wearables are making smartphone applications much smarter. Moreover, wearables are capable of collecting a huge amount of data; this data can further be used in different ways.
Mobile applications are being developed that can connect with these wearables and allow the user to control and manage the wearable with the help of their mobile phones.
It opens a new opportunity for the developers to come up with some extra-ordinary mobile and web solutions.
Since wearables are low-energy consuming devices and majorly use GPS for location tracking services, it is a tough job for developers to build an app with mobile app development services that leverages all the features of wearables.
Also, this trend is seen to influence future mobile users by integrating their day-to-day activities with smart devices.
Way Forward
We have given you an overview of the most popular mobile app development trends opted for by the developers. These trends are a result of advancements in technology and the changes in the needs and demands of users.
As the lifestyle of people is changing, so is their usage of mobile applications. Whether it’s a healthcare app or a grocery shopping app, all a user wants is a rich user experience.
Also, one major aspect that every mobile app development company is forced to focus on these days is ensuring the security and privacy of the data. Since from a small message sharing to huge money transactions, everything is now relying on a smartphone, there is an increase in cybercrime.
Thus, security is one of the mobile app development trends that will not lose its value for ages. Keeping these factors in mind, now you can choose any of the above trends for developing your apps that can stand out in the mobile app industry.
