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July 24, 2019

What Will Mobile App Development Be Like in the Next 10 Years.

With the consistent growth of technology over the past couple of decades, many different devices and products have become a part of our day-to-day life. Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices specifically have become revolutionary components of the 21st century.

All of the successful products, such as iPhones and Androids, contain an App Store that represents millions upon millions of apps developed by different teams. The process behind the end product takes much more work and effort than expected.

Mobile application development alludes to the actual coding and software made specifically for a smaller screen, that of a mobile device or tablet. In reality, though, the process is strategic and success is obtained by mastering various fields, including marketing, design, research, cross-compatible development, and organization.

Since there is a clear and triumphant future for mobile app development, there will be a series of changes in the process that will focus on its current strengths.

Most people believe that user experience should be the top priority when developing an app. 

While the major companies, including Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon, have dominated the mobile app markets, the smaller and unknown players in the field have been attempting to make their mark.

With all of these statistics in mind, mobile app development is, without a doubt, expected to exist and evolve in the future.

Digital Authority Partners claims that the worldwide mobile app economy is expected to hit to $6.3 trillion by 2021. The future will have more emphasis on app security, automation and optimization of the product, and you can already see the inclusion of these technologies in current applications. 

Google has been taking steps toward optimizing their apps and focusing on cross-compatibility. Also, Apple has also followed by removing outdated and malfunctioned apps from its App Store. The idea is for not only an app but also the entire app store to provide an uninterrupted user experience.

Ever so recently, Virtual Reality (VR) has become extremely popular and is considered a great piece of technology that quite literally transforms one to a whole separate reality.

VR and Augmented Reality have entered the mobile app market as unique features, where apps are being launched to experience high-quality content, giving users an experience that stands out.

The game Pokemon Go is a great example of an AR app that achieved a huge amount of popularity, creating a unique experience for millions of users.

Statistics continue to show the growth of AR and VR technology developed mobile apps.

Perhaps the best part is that there are apps already developed and launched on multiple app stores that utilize VR and AR qualities. Some of the apps using these technologies are Ikea, Starbucks, Walmart, along with many more apps that mostly represent big chain businesses across the globe.

While these apps seem to be more for entertainment and leisure, mobile apps that will be made for VR and AR will eventually be more practical. For example, any form of e-commerce, and other experiences that may require detailed visuals before purchasing.

Online shopping specifically has become a trend due to the immense amount of technology introduced across the globe. Due to its popularity, online shopping is expected to reach 100 million consumers by the year 2020. Besides, those same number of consumers will physically shop in stores that contain AR technology. 

Alibaba is one of the few apps that introduced VR shopping to its consumers in China back in November 2016. Imagine the advancement of mobile app development in the future when the compatibility of mobile apps with AR and VR will increase significantly.

With all of these new features that are expected to bloom in the future, leading mobile app developers are going to be encouraged to improve their upcoming products to function smoothly with the inclusion of AR or VR technology.

Moreover, mobile app development may shift its focus on cloud-based technology due to its multiple advantages, including reduced hosting and operational costs, seamless performance, and increased productivity. 

With the increase in usage of cloud-based technology, mobile apps will be able to reduce the load on the internal memory by receiving data from the cloud. Hence, this newly introduced process would be beneficial for both developers and business owners.

App developers and business owners should invest in cloud technology. In 2018 alone, the total global public cloud market grew to $178 billion and will continue to grow at a 22% compound annual growth rate.

According to AI specialist Carlos Melendez, “The demise of the application developer will be most noticeable in traditional, non-tech markets”. He recommends that future app developers and software engineers should enhance their skills in data science and cloud operations, and apply them to mobile app development.

Even though nobody can predict the future to its certainty, people have seen the similarities of progress between mobile app development and traditional software in the past. Software libraries began to integrate and complement each other. With that in mind, mobile app development is exactly at that point, only the libraries essentially exist in the cloud.

By saving a significant amount of money and generating stronger computing power and safety, cloud-based technology could be the next step towards the progress of mobile app development.

A lot of mobile apps make up for extremely profitable tech products today. According to the State of Mobile 2019 report, global app downloads reached 194 billion in 2018, with companies leveraging mobile capabilities having a 360% higher IPO valuation in 2018.

Overall, some of the changes above seem to be already taking place in the present day. Yes, there is cloud-based technology and there are apps that have AR capabilities; however, the growth and perhaps the eventual necessity for these upcoming trends will aid mobile app development in the future.

With AR, VR, AI, Machine Learning, and Blockchain solutions evolving every day, the future is looking bright for mobile app development. As processes get smoother, automation will play a huge role in faster development cycles. Technology is taking us into yet another golden era in the next 10 years. 





 



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