Mobile phones are a huge part of our everyday life. Consequently, mobile development is competing for first place when it comes to technology advancements.
Think about it, we use our phone for everything – socializing, alarms and reminders, personal and work calendars, monitoring our health, even paying for our food and bills. And the list could literally go on and on and on.
Naturally, as people are always looking for something new and improved, impressive advancements are being made every day to catch their attention. So it comes as no surprise that mobile development is an always renewing topic.
In this article, we will talk about the top 10 mobile development trends of 2021 that are shaping the future today.
1. 5G technology
We’ve seen this trend popping up on our 10 most popular Web Development trends of 2021 as well, and it’s no surprise it shows here too.
5G is the newest and fastest mobile internet network available – it is up to a hundred times faster than 4G. But, beyond speed improvements, the new network’s low power consumption will also allow connected smart objects to operate for months without problems.
It is accessible in numerous countries around the world already. And although the Coronavirus outbreak slowed the network’s rollout, it is still expanding in new areas.
One of the best parts of this new technology is its bandwidth. Larger bandwidth means that files download faster, and the load time for pages, videos, streams will be little to none.
It will make using the internet from your mobile device so much more relaxing, and no lagging will give a better experience for everyone who uses the internet with 5G.
2. Artificial Intelligence
There are two main types of AI: narrow and general. While narrow AI focuses on specific tasks, general AI is used in a wide range of tasks. Artificial Intelligence has a lot to offer, such as Speech Recognition, Machine Vision, and Machine Learning.
We use these in our everyday lives, whether it be using a virtual assistant like Alexa and Siri with our voices, or opening our phones with facial or fingerprint recognition. The devices are able to understand us and know who we are because of AI.
AI also plays a huge role in what we get as our recommended videos on YouTube, shows on Netflix, and music on Spotify. But AIs are also behind our customer support as apps have implemented smart chatbots to communicate with customers whenever they have a problem or question.
Without the need for human interaction, the businesses using apps do not need to hire an excessive amount of customer service employees, and customers can get faster replies to their questions.
3. Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality (AR) fuses the real world with digital imagery through your phone’s screen. It is changing the way we play, shop, or even study on our phones.
One of the most remarkable applications that took the world on an exciting journey is Pokemon GO. They used AR to make an exciting and engaging game, which encouraged people to see new places in hopes of catching a rare pokemon.
Apart from games, AR is also used in online shopping. An increasing number of stores offer the possibility to view their product in your home.
Their AR platform uses your phone’s camera to see where you imagined placing what you wish to buy and puts the item on the screen as if it was in front of you. This way, you can design your place easier and make sure that it truly fits before you decide to purchase it.
But AR also helps students in this field by showing animals, organs, or even the outer space on their phone as if it was right in front of them in real life. Thus, it gamifies learning making it more fun and more memorable. Win-Win.
And for those traveling to other countries and not so sure about the new language yet, some applications, Like Google Translate, translate signs and others text for them in real-time. How cool is that?
4. Wearables
Mobile development is breaking into the wearable market, like smartwatches and fitness tracking devices. While fitness trackers have steadily grown in sales as people’s health awareness increases, smartwatch sales have more than doubled in the last 4 years.
People use fitness trackers for health reasons like measuring their heart rate during their day or their exercise. It gives them more knowledge about their wellbeing and enables them to know more about themselves.
For those that are not dedicated to sports or health, there is a large variety of smartwatches with great designs. Using this gadget comes with many perks, such as making phone calls and getting notifications for incoming calls or e-mail messages.
5. Mobile Commerce
Mobile commerce or m-commerce enables people to buy and sell on their phones. With this development in e-commerce, people are now able to make their purchases anywhere they like.
People use their mobiles more frequently than ever before. Being able to purchase through phones is convenient for consumers and advantageous for businesses.
Mobile developments are focusing on user experience, which includes the ease of payment. There are many payment solutions to choose from; the most popular of them include:
- PayPal
- Apple Pay
- Amazon Pay
- Google Pay
- And more
There is a large number of mobile apps that have been developed to sell products. Younger generations are adapting fast to mobile purchases, it is going to boom as more and more people use their phone as the main shopping device.
6. Internet Of Things
Internet of things (IoT) refers to smart devices that we can control remotely through mobile apps. These smart gadgets have been in our futuristic view for a long time. But being able to control your home’s lights, locks, climate control, or even hoover is remarkable and very much a reality today.
Just as if you were using magic, you can control different smart things around you with just a couple of clicks on your phone. And retailers like IKEA are already offering affordable solutions to make our homes smarter. In this example, IKEA provides smart sockets, smart lightbulbs, and even smalt blinds that we control from one single app.
But even better, these smart devices almost all connect with our smart assistants. So even if you are using an IKEA smart device, you can still choose to control it via your Google Home or Alexa. Everything is connected together for your conveninace.
7. Virtual events
With Covid-19 vaccines being made, many of us are hopeful that we can soon get back to the way our lives used to be. In reality, however, even with vaccination, getting back to normal will be a slow process.
As the virus hit the offline event industry hard, mobile development has concentrated on connecting people online. A lot of virtual event platform users enjoyed streamed events last year from the comfort of their homes.
Before now, most events online have been streaming just as a video would, and only one-way communication happened. With the need for highly interactive platforms, new app development started to rise.
If you attend one of these events, you will not only be able to see the occasion, but you can participate via live chat, polls, and quizzes.
8. Blockchain
Blockchain is the technology behind the well known online currency bitcoin. It is a record-keeping technology. It can store different types of information; so far, it has mainly been used as a ledger for transactions. It has a lot more to offer to us.
As the economy slowly becomes more digitalized, this technology promises efficient recording of transactions between two parties.
Blockchain in the future promises easy access to a highly secure, digital network with whatever information you might need. Whether it be the information about houses for sale, your visa or bank details, or any other you seek, it will be available in this chain of blocks.
9. Subscription-based services
As more companies start providing subscription-based services, they may be available in sectors we might not expect.
One of those surprising sectors is the car industry. Audi select is a monthly car subscription to experience a selection of Audi models. They offer two swaps per month, insurance, maintenance, unlimited mileage, and other perks if you use the service.
In lots of professions, it is important to keep your skillset updated to stay relevant in the job market. An increasing number of educational sites offer subscriptions; an example of this is Codecademy.
They offer people the possibility to learn coding at their own pace, from the best sources available today. They help their customers land their dream jobs or keep their skills up to date.
One of the most surprising examples of a subscription service is Super, the company which provides care for your home. They help with unexpected repairs, pest control, landscaping, and whatever a homeowner might want to do around their house.
10. Instant Apps
So far, if we wanted to decide on which app to download from the possible choices, we could only look at reviews, pictures, or videos. Now with the help of Instant Apps, that is no longer the case.
The Try Now option in Google Play is a way to try out an app without having to download it. There has always been a problem with fake or non-relevant reviews, so people have sometimes got applications that did not live up to what they hoped for.
Mobile development is now solving this problem with this great improvement in testing the app before downloading it. As more and more applications offer this possibility to their potential users, there will be fewer unhappy consumers.
Mobile Development Trends Overview
Applications will never stop to grow, improve, and to develop. People have different tastes, needs, and wants as years go by and these form the changes we see in the mobile development industry. However, there is one important aspect we noticed while researching these mobile development trends – most of them overlap with web development trends we discussed before.
More importantly, more and more web and mobile development trends tend to overlap, compared to previous years. And this might come as a surprise for you if you are not that much into the development word.
However, for those who are part of this world, it was and is an inevitability. As more and more users shift to using mobile devices for their everyday tasks instead of a computer or laptop, the demand for mobile compatibility, friendliness, and responsiveness grows exponentially.
Google’s algorithms and many of the available website analysis tools today already look at the mobile versions of our websites first when scraping and ranking our platforms. So mobile-first is not an initiative anymore, it’s a requirement.
As our world moves more towards digitalization, the number of applications will keep on growing, coming out with new features and purposes. It will be exciting to see what emerges as the new biggest mobile development trend in the coming years. But more excitingly, will next year’s mobile trends overtake web development ones?
We can’t wait to find out!
