Predictions on Mobile App Development Trends for 2018: What’s Coming Next?

---

With the third quarter of 2017 coming to an end, developers start analyzing how has mobile app development arena evolved and expanded. Experts are trying to figure out the direction in which this industry is moving ahead. The results, derivations, observations and insights of these experts form the base of mobile app development  trends for 2018.

In order to understand what’s coming next for developers in the world of mobile apps, let’s first learn about the current dependency of users on mobile apps:

Connection between Smartphone Users and Mobile Applications

Examine your daily routine from start of the day till the time you go to sleep. Waking up to the sound of alarm, checking messenger to know who tried to contact you while you were asleep, getting updates on birthdays or anniversaries through social media apps, booking a cab to reach workplace, listening to music for relaxation, watching your favorite show on Netflix to ordering lunch and dinner from your preferred restaurant, smartphone user is addicted to using mobile apps.

But this is not the end, in fact it is the start of a new age that is completely revolutionized by the combination of mobile apps and trending technologies. It would be really exciting to know how far this craze for mobile apps will go in the coming year.

In this blog we shall discuss some sure shot mobile app development trends that will dominate in 2018.

1. Trend: 2018 will be the Age of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

The roots of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mobile apps are already grounded deep in the soil. The kind of response from audience is now adding to the accelerated growth of this budding concept. Forrester believes that this technology will soon replace humans with robots and decline number of jobs in customer services department in the next decade.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are adopted in mobile apps of companies to reduce operational costs and boost productivity. Apart from customer service department, chatbots and AI have also revolutionized healthcare and automobiles industry.

Following statistics strengthen the prediction of artificial intelligence as the top mobile app development trends of 2018:

* Experts from Juniper Research forecast chatbots to be responsible for cost savings of over $8 billion annually by 2022, up from $20 million in 2017.

* Gartner predicts that chatbots will power 85% of all customer service interactions by the year 2020.

* Report from IDC says that by 2019, 75% of workers using enterprise applications will take help of intelligent personal assistants for increasing efficiency and productivity.

2. Trend: Mobile Wallet Usage is Bound to Increase

Developers may get higher demand for building mobile wallets that are completely secure. Mobile wallets in form of apps that enable users to carry out financial transactions with proper encryption would be in much demand considering the rising fever of online purchase and online booking systems. iOS 11 is now pushing Apple Pay to messages as a peer-to-peer payment option.

Following graphs provide a strong base for this predicted trend of the future:

If observed the adoption rate of users in the last year, there is continuous rise in the percentage of users:

---

Image Courtesy: pymnts.com

3. Trend: 2018 will Witness Rush of Cloud-Based Mobile Applications

Being a smartphone user, you would know the dilemma of storage space when you have installed an array of applications for multiple purposes. A lot of useful data in phone memory along with information stored in different apps consume abundant space in smartphones.

Cloud technology resolves this problem by enabling the user to save all the necessary information in a dedicated cloud. With this solution, users need not worry about storage space issue in their mobile phone. Consistent experience across multiple devices using the data stored in cloud comes as an added advantage of this trending technology.

Enterprise mobility, which is a rare concept now, will gain traction with increasing number of companies adapting to this theory of mobility and cloud.

To know about the increasing usage of cloud, have a look at following figures:

Mobile cloud traffic is projected to increase to 90% till 2019 calculating CAGR of 60%. This traffic is the addition of different types such as social networking, online gaming, web browsing, video streaming and audio streaming.

---

Image Courtesy: Statista 

4. Trend: Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is the Reality of 2018

Augmented reality has penetrated mobile apps not only in gaming category but also in social media. Snapchat is fastest growing social media platform that uses the power of Augmented Reality. Tremendous increase in user engagement quotient is a motivation for mobile app development companies to implement this technology.

Instagram is another app that uses the basics of this technology and plans to expand further to make the platform more interactive and engaging. Several thoughts are on making similar other mobile apps that interact with users using AR technology. Virtual Reality will also boom in 2018 with the rise in wearables and associated mobile apps.

Augmented Reality as an emerging mobile app development trend of 2018 finds its root back in 2014 and is grooming at a rapid pace to transform mobile experience. A report by Statista forecasts mobile augmented reality applications to grow to more than 5 billion units by 2019. 

---

Image Courtesy: Statista 

5. Trend: Wearables will be the New Technological Fashion Standard

Increasing adoption of wearables is the reflection of how people are welcoming new technology trends. Wearables have proved its utility in healthcare domain to an extent that now more and more people use such device to keep a constant check on their exercise routine, eating habits and heartbeats. Style quotient simply adds to the list of reasons on why experts predict wearables as one the most promising mobile app development trends of 2018.

Both Android and iPhone smartphone manufacturers are in an outlook to build devices that support more wearables and help users synchronize their lives with integration of wearables and mobile apps. Wearables surely emerge as a prominent mobile app development trends of 2018.

Glimpse of wearables technology and its acceptance by smartphone audience:

* Companies encouraging use of wearable technology reported 8.5% increase in employee productivity  and 3.5% increase in job satisfaction.

* Sale of wearables is bound to grow exponentially from 29 million in 2014 to 172 million in 2018. As per report in CCS insight, almost 350 million wearable devices will be in use worldwide till 2018.

* As per Business Intelligence report, wearables market is bound to grow in future with an estimated increase of 35% by 2019.

6. Trend: Internet of Things (IoT) will be More than a Mere Buzzword

Internet of Things has already penetrated several industry verticals till 2017, but there is no end of possibilities or limitation of applications that thrive on this connected ecosystem. Brick and mortar stores of retail industry use this concept of IoT to survive in this fast growing digital age.

Real estate agencies leverage the power of this technology to build smart building, parking lots with sensors and even smart cities. Education institutes now enables parents, students and teachers to stay connected of the current happenings in the school area and keep a check on how children are performing with an established ecosystem of internet of things.

Healthcare domain has gone far ahead in terms of IoT and finds its application in form of remote consulting with doctor, enabling doctors to perform operation on remotely based patients and telehealth.

But this is just the start; IoT will spread its wings in the coming year with much more useful applications for users. Researchers are extensively working on the implementation of IoT to redefine automation. Considering this rapid growth of IoT concept, experts predict that this will be a major domination mobile app development trend of 2018.

As per the analysis of networking giant Cisco, the number of connected devices worldwide would rise to as much as 50 billion by 2020.

Future Outlook

The future definitely looks brighter and better with these technologies taking over mobile app revolution. 2018 will not only see rapid growth in mobile app market but also mark the entry of most innovative apps that will get people addicted to their smartphones even more.

It’s exciting for the developer community to observe what happens next in the shadow of most trending technologies of future!