It’s not news that companies widely rely on mobile apps to deliver their services and increase customers’ awareness. Especially when people get so passionately engaged with social networks and messengers – for most of the smartphone users, checking notifications on the screen is the first thing to do in the morning. Titled as micro-moments, these short interactions define the directions of the mobile app trends in 2018 – as companies are trying their best to make them significant, pleasant, and profitable.
Thus, the technological development continues, and mobile apps become more and more sophisticated, innovative, and interesting for users. So, what to expect from IT market this year? Here’s an overview of mobile app development trends 2018, following the experience of the most successful companies.
RISE OF MACHINE LEARNING
Artificial intelligence is surely one of the most prominent mobile app industry trends. Wonder why? Among all, because of object tracking, text detection, and image recognition. And because it’s always a pleasure for a user to interact with an app that adapts to the individual needs. With machine learning, all this is possible – thanks to the enhanced analytics and highly personalized approach.
CHATBOTS
Another mobile app trend that makes a buyers’ life easier. More and more companies choose to launch a bot and/or create a messenger with a bot for their services. And users love chatbots: they make communication so simple and enjoyable. In combination with AI instruments, these two mobile app technology trends offer user-oriented service and provide the best product descriptions that drive users to go and buy. And, to be honest, chatbots do their job much better and faster than humans – even those working on 24/7 support.
CLOUD TECHNOLOGY
This innovation is not new, but now it’s truly among the most determining mobile app market trends. With the growing usage of space and the increasing amount of apps, the need to save storage on the mobile phone inevitably appears. Therefore, we currently experience the rise of cloud-based apps – meaning, among all, Dropbox and Google Drive. And they provide real advantages for businesses. Among all, clouds help to keep confidential data safe and provide a centralized location along with a quick transfer. The last but not the least, the cloud apps save money – because there’s no need to pay for hosting and equipment to contain greater storage.
AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) AND VIRTUAL REALITY (VR)
An overview of mobile app design trends in 2018 won’t be accurate without mentioning AR and VR. The potential of these technologies is truly enormous. To start with, they promise a significant enhancement of wearables – so they can look better and work better. And the same time, all these habits trackers and exercise assistants will be rather better integrated with smartphones than presented in a greater amount – at least, this year.
In addition, AR becomes an essential part of a smartphone design. As for the recent news in the field, the new LG V30S ThinQ and ZTE’s Blade V9 smartphones use augmented reality features in their cameras, including scene identification, color recognition, and stickers set for better photographs. For sure, all the other smartphone brands will try their best to introduce their vision of AR and VR in the future designs.
And finally, with the appearance of VR, the shift towards event-driven interaction became possible. Virtual assistants provide information about locations, travel dates, weather forecasts and many other things and make us use smartphones more often. Moreover, the greater integration with social media and an ability to supplement the reality with essential virtual information within an app empower various industries with an amazing tool to increase a business model effectiveness.
INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT)
By entering the physical market and providing a connection between real world and software, IoT has already established the powerful network where the real world is controlled by smartphones. It’s already evident that IoT is an essential part of a real estate market (from smart parking lots to smart cities) and a healthcare sector (considering the appearance of a remote connection between doctors and patients). In the near future, the number of examples and the list of industries involved will inevitably grow – simply because it’s very convenient for users to gather all the needed information and make a purchase.
Empowered by AR potential, the IoT trend is about to gain even more tools to address customers’ needs and create the full virtual picture of a product before its purchase. In this context, IoT starts using the potential of social networks, meaning an ability to monitor “things,” post about them, and share their experience. At the same time, the niche of IoT applications is still not occupied sufficiently and offers great opportunities for those businesses that are ready to occupy it.
SAFE MOBILE PAYMENTS
Payments with smartphone raise popularity each year, and 2018 is not an exception. Nothing new for users – we already live in the world where Google Pay and Apple Pay exist. But the trend is developing, and Apple already works on enabling peer-to-peer payments for iOS 11. Simultaneously, the role of mobile security increased – so users can actually trust in the service and use it without fear of being robbed. And, together, stronger security and a greater user-friendly experience encourage users to pay more and more by using their smartphones.
BLOCKCHAIN
Surely, the hype around blockchain turned it into the loudest innovation among mobile app latest trends. What’s it all about? Simply put, blockchain is a digital space for decentralized transaction based on cryptocurrency. It’s just appeared but still on the uprising. Operating on the basis of collecting ‘completed’ blocks, that is ranged in chronological order, the technology enables to get rid of centralized recordkeeping and make partner payments without third-party approvals. This brings the reality of mobile payment to a new evolutionary level we’re about to witness this year.
BEZEL-LESS SMARTPHONES
The era of big phones is seemingly over. With the appearance of iPhone X, the trend towards creating narrower smartphones with bigger screens is already here. The new aspect ratio is 18:9, instead of previously traditional 16:9. So, the new smartphones enable seeing more content while scrolling and allow greater multitasking opportunities. In the niche of budget smartphones, the trend is the same. They are also bezel-less and have little RAM and storage due to the little space needed for operating.
5G IS AROUND THE CORNER
5G debut is one of mobile app future trends that are possible to predict already. It promises a dramatic acceleration – dozens of times faster than what we have now. Among the bright perspectives that businesses and industries are about to capture, a greater speed of downloading and uploading content will increase the brand engagement. Because of this, being the first smartphone and the key carrier to support 5G is the nearest competition IT market will face – and it will happen this year.
ACCELERATED PAGES
Finally, the appearance of accelerated pages is also an inevitable 2018 trend. Users become impatient, and businesses work hard on making their web pages both mobile-friendly and fast. And these efforts are surely rewarding – in terms of increased click-through-rate, effective advertising indicators, and leading page rankings. As another way to protect the bounce rate, lazy loading make it possible to load images only if the user scrolls to its place – not to make user interaction poor.
