The end of 2018 is approaching fast, and it’s been a great year of significant transformations, especially in the mobile technology domain. With an upward surge in the usage of smartphones and tablets, people are relying more on their mobile applications.
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Top Mobile Apps Development Trends 2018
Today, mobile apps have ingrained in our daily life and transformed the way we communicate. Now we don’t call cabs, instead, we use Uber. We don’t look for jobs in the newspaper, because LinkedIn is much easier. We capture our candid moments on Snapchat and share it on Instagram and WhatsApp using stories.
In a nutshell, we spend a major chunk of our time using mobile applications. And the fact, there were 178 billion apps downloaded last year indicate how radically the mobile app industry is progressing. In other words, mobile apps are no longer the icing on the cake instead, they’ve become the cake itself.
Considering the skyrocketing popularity of mobile apps, business enterprises of all sizes are embracing app development strategy with open arms. However, just adopting a rock-solid mobile app development strategy won’t help you in achieving success, you should also be aware of what’s trending in the mobile app development arena.
To help you out, we’ve curated a list of some of the most exciting and important trends of mobile application development that are ruling in 2018 and will go beyond.
1. IoT and Wearables Will See a Massive Boom
The word ‘smart’ is no more limited to smartphones. With the advent of the Internet of Things, commonly known as IoT, it has expanded to smart homes, smart offices, smart health, smart education, and even smart cities. According to a Gartner report, the number of connected devices will grow to 26 Billion by 2020.
This clearly indicates that the Internet of Things is here to stay as the chief mobile app development trend in 2019 and beyond. Furthermore, Google, Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and LG are already offering a wide repertoire of wearable devices that includes smartwatches and fitness bands.
With industry giants investing heavily on wearables, it is clear that the users’ demand for wearable apps will boom in upcoming years.
2. Blockchain
Within a short span of time, this technology has gained huge attention across the world as compared to any other technology. However, if you think Blockchain is associated with only Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, you’re misled, since this technology is being incorporated in several mobile applications ranging from healthcare, finance to retail – to strengthen the security. (Top Mobile Apps Development Trends 2018)
With blockchain gaining immense attention, business organizations are expecting to see it as a popular mobile app development trend in everyday life and business.
3. On-Demand Mobile Apps
Another disruptive trend in the mobile app development industry is on-demand mobile apps. The rising popularity of on-demand mobile apps such as Airbnb, Grofers, Uber, and Peapod has set an example and consequently, business enterprises are looking forward to delivering on-demand services to their customers.
Whether it is about food delivery, cab booking, laundry, hair cutting, or car cleaning, on-demand mobile app development are here to stay in the coming years.
4. Cloud-based mobile apps
With the rise of mobile cloud computing in the last few years, the app developers are making such applications that would use the cloud as their storage platform. The cloud-based mobile apps require less internal memory since they store all the information in a dedicated cloud and directly fetch data from it.
With the advent of this new technology, the users don’t have to worry about the storage issue on their devices. Also, cloud-based mobile apps minimize the chances of data breach. That’s why they have become a must-have for enterprises of all sizes.
5. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
AI and Machine Learning has been a center of attraction and attention for years. Over the past few years, this technology has been evolving at a great pace and playing a vital role in the app development market. If reports are to be believed, the AI industry will experience a significant growth of $42 billion by 2020. (Top Mobile Apps Development Trends 2018)
Furthermore, Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google stated at the Google I/O 2017 that we are shifting from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world. This clearly indicates that artificial intelligence is a hot emerging trend of 2018 and beyond.
It offers users with advanced functionalities like predictive analytics, AI-powered chatbots and machine learning, gaining insights by analyzing voluminous data sets, and identifying the complicated patterns.
This may be the reason why business organizations are showing a great interest in this technology to develop their AI-powered mobile apps.
6. Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Will Go Mainstream
Last year, Apple and Google invested heavily in AR to exploit its true potential. As a result , Google has come up with ARCore, while Apple launched ARKit for developers to create meaningful mobile solutions.
With the introduction of Google ARCore and Apple ARKit, we have 2 robust platforms to infuse AR in our mobile applications. Though both the technologies – AR and VR have already transformed the entertainment gaming industries, we can also expect these technologies to go mainstream in other industries as well. (Top Mobile Apps Development Trends 2018)
7. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Accelerated Mobile Pages, commonly known as AMP will have a strong influence on mobile app development. It is an open-source initiative which is built to improve the page load speed of a website on the mobile devices. Besides augmenting the page loading speed, it also provides an option of isolated search index for the mobile web.
Final Words
The mobile app development industry is evolving at a great pace. Business enterprises that are unable to keep pace with the aforementioned trends will be left far behind. Thus, it is important for you to be well prepared and adopt these trends on time so that you can thrive in the competitive marketplace.
Mobile Apps Development Trends in 2018
- Developing Mobile Apps? Top Trends Ruling in 2018 and Beyond - October 24, 2018
Thanks for sharing the blog. The progressive web app is becoming a new sensation in the app development industry, I am also working on it. And hope to see more development on PWA.