How many apps do you use everyday? Probably more than 10. If you are a millennial, you probably open your app more than 50 times a day. Thinking about it, it shouldn’t be a surprise.
With over 2.9 million apps on the Google Play Store, most people spent over 90% of their internet time on apps. As numbers keep growing, it’s essential for a business to improve mobile app development with catchy trends to stand out from competitors.
We all want to make a seamless and engaging mobile app for our costumes. Yet, innovations and updates for mobile apps are faster than ever, and understanding what works for your business and what doesn’t can be tricky. After all, if a new technology becomes a trend, it doesn’t mean that it is an ideal fit for your business.
Here is an overview of the most relevant 2024 mobile app development trends to help you discover which of these solutions can be the right strategy to scale your business and team.
Trend 1: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)
After ChatGBT and Open AI, the first question that comes to mind is: Are generative and automatic technologies going to replace us all? None can answer this question, and despite predictive software, the future is uncertain for us all. What we do know about the future is that you will probably still need to hire good developers, and that it’s important to understand how AI and ML can support your business growth.
Over 97% of mobile users already engage with AI tools such as voice recognition or virtual assistants. In the last few years, the AI app sector recorded a boom in revenue, with a prediction of 38.3% annual growth rate in 2028. These numbers are there for a reason. AI and ML integrations are essential to improve the mobile app experience for your customers.
App Sector Forecast Annual Revenue 2023-2028 ($ bn)
From analyzing extensive data for better decision-making to learning from users’ interactions, AI and ML tools are a great support to target your app experience for your buyer persona.
For example, if you have a fitness app, you can improve AI and ML to provide targeted recommendations on diet and exercise for your subscribers, improving their individual experience without adding new features but optimizing the services you already have based on your customer’s individual needs.
Main trends in mobile app development with AI and ML
In short, here are some AI and ML features that can bring your mobile apps to the next level:
- Chatbots: What would we do without them? Implementing AI and ML for chatbots can support your team in satisfying your customers without overworking your customer service team.
- Predictive Text: After Google Search, predictive text is a great tool to improve and search suggestions based on your users’ input.
- Personalization: ML algorithms can organize content based on your users’ preferences – would Netflix even be a thing without ML recommendations?
- Navigation: If you provide renting services, you can use AI to implement navigation options and services for your users.
ML and AI tools can be a great support for your team but are not perfect. For example, AI tools still have some biases, and the final output still needs to be double-checked. Or the blooming computational demand for these types of tools will impact costs and efficiencies in the near future. However, when talking about future mobile app development technologies, it’s impossible to know have a look at them!
Trend 2: Internet of Things – Connectivity & App Integration
The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been around for a while now – just think about smart home technologies like remote thermostats or home security systems. To put it simply, IoT refers to the network of devices connected to the Internet.
Back in 2023, the global Internet of Things market reached $318 billion, of which $226 billion of that comes from software like mobile apps.
Furthermore, Statista predicts an increase of 1.6 trillion by 2025, earning a top spot among the top application development trends.
But where will the IoT most impact the future of mobile app development technologies?
- Smart Home Applications: From Google Home to Alexa, to Apple’s HomeKit, people are getting used to controlling their homes with phones every day, making IoT connectivity and integration a top priority for most users.
- Health and Fitness Tracking: After Apple Watch and fitness apps, IoT can be a great support to connect different services and data to enhance your usrds’ experience.
- Automotive Integration: From location tracking, to door lock/unlock, and home temperature, app integration is certainly one of the main IoT features to improve your mobile app experience.
Connectivity is a great strength, but it comes with some weakness. To make mobile apps work with IoT, make sure to improve and maintain your software security over time!
Trend 3: Cross-Platform App Development
Thinking about the future of mobile app development technologies, cross-platform development must be on the list.
Providing a unified API, this framework allows developers to write one code script that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Working on Android and iOS, companies like Skype use this framework to expand their services worldwide.
According to Statcounter, mobile app operating systems are estimated at 67.56% and 31.60% of the market share, making cross-platforms an effective solution for different businesses.
Benefits of cross-platform development for business
- Cost efficiency: Using codebase for multiple platforms allows cutting on budget and optimizing existing operations.
- Time savings: One adaptable code script allows speed up development cycles, leaving more time to your team to take care of details and improvements.
- Consistent and uniform user experience: It simplifies the user experience providing a consistent design and functionality across different platforms.
As for mobile app development trends mentioned above, there are some pitfalls, such as a weak responsiveness of native apps or a limited access to native features, that can slow down your app performance. However, in the right industry, it can balance costs and time for your team, highly improving the general performance.
Trend 4: Augmented Reality (AR)
After PokemoGo, we can’t say that Augmented Reality is one of the latest mobile app development trends, but it’s emerging every day more as an effective and original solution for diverse businesses.
From virtual training to onboarding processes, AR is becoming the top choice for the majority of businesses. Statista predicts a market growth up to $52 billion by 2027. This mobile app development trend is particularly important for numerous industries, especially:
- Retail and E-Commerce
- Education
- Travel and Tourism
- Healthcare
AR, especially when combined with AI and IoT, can lead to innovative and original interfaces. However, it requires strong maintenance. Besides your industry, it’s good to consider the size of your business before jumping into this attractive new trend!
Trend 5: Security, Privacy and Blockchain
Mobile app development does not only relate to innovations and funny gadgets. Indeed, security and privacy are also growing trends. Businesses of diverse industries must protect their users from risks like app vulnerabilities and cyberattacks, addressing issues like data breaches, unauthorized access, or malware.
Also governments and institutions are implementing their regulatory frameworks to ensure a clear policy to protect data and users. Regulations like EU & GDPR, California & CCPA, USA & HIPAA are particularly important for mobile apps dealing with health metrics and sensible data.
How to make this mobile app development trend a reality for your business?
- End-to-End Encryption to protect data transfers between the app and server.
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to provide multiple forms of identity verification.
- Secure Coding Practices to protect the app architecture from various security threats.
However, among the strategies to improve app security, blockchain is always a trend. This popular technology doesn’t allow changing data without impacting other blocks. In terms of security and privacy, this technology brings other applications in app development trends, including:
- Secure financial transactions
- Identity verification
- Decentralized mobile app development services
- Tamper-proof data management
Notorily, blockchains have some pitfalls like high energy consumption, scalability challenges and initial significant investment. However, for some businesses it can be a great addition to existing systems to scale and expand your business worldwide.
What is the Future of Mobile App Development?
It’s impossible to predict how the future mobile app development trends will evolve from here. What is important to know is how to pick the most relevant shifts in technology and entrepreneurship and adapt them to your business. Remember when people didn’t believe remote companies could have survived? And yet, some of the most successful business today picked the trend and saw something other managers didn’t.
After all, it’s not the right trend that will help your business grow, but making the right decision with your team. So, before reading about all mobile app development trends you can find, see with your team what need to improve your services and products, exploring how these trends can adapt to your business – instead of adapting to them. We cannot predict the future, but we can definitely help you hire the best developers to grow your team!
