Mobile applications have become a part of our lives now. There’s no debate that they’re the absolute best platforms when it comes to reaching a wider audience.
That’s exactly why we’ve been seeing a prominent rise in the demand of mobile app development services compared to any other digital or development service.
State of Mobile Apps in 2020
Web applications (in most cases) can’t survive until they have a mobile app version for the users as well let alone other traditional mediums like television etc.
The data from 2019 suggests that the state of mobile applications is truly astonishing in 2020.
204 billion downloads in one year is beyond understanding.
At the same time it also points out that there is an abundance of mobile applications in the digital sphere in almost every industry.
The question now is how your app stands out in so much saturation? The answer is keeping your development style and process up to the latest trends of the market.
6 Emerging Mobile App Development Trends in 2020
Let’s look at all of the technological advancements you can use for your mobile application’s development;
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Having face recognition features in your mobile apps is not what AI is limited to. In fact, one can argue that this specific feature (and many others like this) is no longer unique; it’s a standard for most of the apps today.
Remember how face synchronizing automatic filters and stickers made SnapChat dominate the social media industry.
Virtual app assistants like Siri and Google assistant are some other perfect examples of putting artificial intelligence and machine learning which revolutionized the potential of applications.
Talking about its implementation in the future, there’s no certain answer to this. Every industry can put it into use based on a contextual analysis of its needs.
For example, if you have an online retail store you can use search patterns to personalize the products suggestions for your users. This way you can get a higher conversion rate in return.
All you need to do is to understand and find ways you can put behavior patterns into action to solve various problems.
- Scaling M-Commerce
For the people who are unaware, M-commerce is not different than eCommerce other than the fact that it’s carried out on mobile.
In simple words, M-Commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services through mobile devices such as smartphones. From the past few years the growth of M-Commerce has been un-ignorable.
According to a data-driven estimate by Oberlo, the ecommerce sales are believed to hit 2.96$ trillion in 2020 and 3.56$ trillion in 2021.
It’s evident that mobile ecommerce is booming. But does your mobile application offers the right integration and empowerment for it?
Your application should have supportive payment gateways and should simplify complex shopping processes. Apple Pay and Google Wallet are two most famous applications which have empowered online buying/selling of goods and services through mobile.
Also Whatsapp Pay has been in the news recently which has taken it to another level allowing users to send money just like they’re chatting.
Hence making your applications friendly for online transactions would be a key component for a lot of mobile applications and introducing some unique touch in it could in fact be revolutionary.
- Apps For Foldable Devices
Mobile phones have made very rapid changes in their designs in the past decade or two. Starting from the flip phones to smart-phones the technology has went pretty advanced.
And last year we’ve seen foldable devices making a comeback. First Samsung Galaxy Fold and later Huawei and Motorola also joined the club.
If we look at the data driven market research done by USA today in 2019 it revealed that 17% of iPhone users and 19% of Android users are actually excited for more foldable devices to come in the future.
Thus the growth of foldable devices is certainly predictable. That’s for the hardware side. However the gap you can fill with your mobile app is in the software side.
Mobile applications created dedicatedly for foldable smartphones and tables have the potential of standing out in the market.
First of all because it’s targeting a very specific area so there’s a lot to discover. Secondly, because the competition in that sphere isn’t that high yet so your app can make its mark.
- Grip the 5G Technology
As we all are already aware that 5G technology is on the verge of launch. It’s believed that this will be one of the greatest technological advancements we’ve ever encountered and almost all tech industries will be impacted by it.
One can simply estimate the potential this technology can bring by the fact that 5G is going to be 100 times faster than 4G.
It is estimated that nearly 1.4 billion devices will be in use of 5G network till 2025.
The emergence of 5G is going to boost up the potential and in fact the user-expectations of the mobile apps. Mainly the areas it’s going to be serving are the following;
- 3D Gaming
- Augmented Reality
- Data Security
Now what does this mean for mobile apps in 2020? It means that the applications will now be much faster and have higher endurance towards heavy functions and abilities.
This would give developers an entire new dimension of testing innovative attributes and aspects of mobile apps.
- Apps for Wearable Devices
The market for wearable tech devices is huge and is still growing. Wearable devices like
- Smartwatches
- Fitness trackers
- Smart eyewear
- Wearable Camera
Out of all these types, the one that has been the most in demand is the Wrist wear which estimates to contribute $41,576 million by 2022 to the whole industry.
What’s good about most of the wearable devices is that they allow you to use them (for various purposes) right the second you want, without even having to take them out of your pocket.
However all these wearable devices are also dependent on a viable and functionally supportive application to perform at their best potential.
What developers need to pay attention to is being innovative in finding ways to bridge mobile and wearable devices.
Having mobile applications integrated with other devices will expand its potential tremendously.
- Leveraging Augmented Reality
One area which can make mobile applications absolutely limitless is Augmented reality (AR). In simple words AR means integrating digital information and data with physical world in a realistic manner.
One simple, example of it would be Pokemon Go. The game let users play through their smart devices in combination with actual physical places. Pokemon Go might be a good example of this concept but still it’s not all of it.
Mobile applications when made to partially merge into the real world can do wonders.
Let’s take Google Glass and Microsoft HoloLens for example. Although we haven’t adopted these technologies properly yet, still there’s enormous potential for them to rise.
Developers need to imagine beyond mobile phones only when we talk about mobile applications. The time when having Google Glass and many other similar type of gadgets in your house will be common isn’t far from today. And having applications and softwares to fulfill various needs in a segregated manner would be the real challenge for developers.
Conclusion
Technology shifts and evolves way faster than what we can measure. New trends and techniques will be introduced every time a prominent shift occurs in the tech world.
In order to stay relevant and serve the market with its exact requirements one have to keep searching what’s the latest “big thing” or have the potential to become one in the future.
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Usman Akram is a digital marketer and SEO specialist who’s passionate about experimenting and discovering new SEO tactics and strategies to dominate search rankings while bringing an unmatched user-experience. His main areas of interests are; digital marketing, SEO, web/mobile development trends etc. As of now Usman is serving Buzz Interactive, a leading digital marketing agency as the head of SEO.
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