The mobile app development industry is growing rapidly. In fact, it’s now worth $77 Billion and there are no signs of slowing down! There has been a huge swing from native to cross-platform app development over the past few years and these trends are likely to continue as we head deeper into 2018 and beyond.
As more and more businesses go online, the demand for apps continues to increase exponentially. The question is, what can we expect from this industry moving forward? We’ve decided to take a look at the top 10 app development trends that will come into play during 2018 and 2021: let’s dive right in!
1 – Mobile First Indexing Will Continue To Gain Traction
Webmasters have already been taking advantage of mobile first indexing for the past few years. Google’s plan is to begin indexing webpages that are best suited to a specific user’s device, be it desktop or mobile. While this has already been standard practice in 2017, we can expect this to become even more prevalent throughout 2018.
2 – Voice Assistants Will Continue To Grow In Popularity
Voice assistants have increased in popularity year after year and there doesn’t seem to be any stopping them! This trend will continue into 2018 due to the widespread adoption of voice-controlled speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home. Businesses with attractive add-ons such as games and other multimedia content will reap the rewards of this emerging trend over the next couple of years.
3 – Chatbots Will Continue To Gain In Importance
According to iOS App Development Company expert’s, Chatbots have been around for a while now, but they’ve never gained the widespread popularity that many brands and marketers had hoped for. Despite this, their importance will continue to increase over the next few years. The reason being is that companies are expecting them to interact with customers in a more natural way rather than having to navigate through menus and forms on a website.
4 – Cross-Platform Native Apps Will Emerge As A Clear Winner
We can expect cross-platform native apps to gain traction against single platform development during 2018 and beyond. Companies such as Uber previously chose React Native from Facebook due its ease of use when compared with other platforms such as Ionic or PhoneGap. However, as these frameworks develop further and provide a much more stable user experience, cross-platform native apps will become a clear winner.
5 – More Businesses Will Adopt Progressive Web Apps
As the name suggests, progressive web apps combine the best of both worlds by providing a mobile app-like experience with improved load times and offline functionality for users where there is no internet connection available. This has become an attractive option for many companies due to its ease of implementation and cost savings over traditional mobile app development platforms such as Xamarin or Cordova.
6 – There Will Be An Increase In Augmented Reality Based Games And Apps
Augmented Reality gaming was one of the biggest trends that emerged during 2017 and this will continue into 2018 and beyond. This will be a great way for businesses to interact with potential customers by creating compelling AR content that can’t fail to grab their attention.
7 – Machine Learning Will Continue To Grow In Prominence
2018 has already seen a huge increase in the number of companies looking to implement machine learning into their upcoming apps as it provides numerous benefits including increased speed, better user experience, improved app security and marketing automation. The popularity of machine learning will continue to grow as more games and apps adopt this technology over the next few years.
8 – Blockchain Will Gain More Recognition Within The App Development Industry
The rise of Bitcoin led people to believe that blockchain is just a fad, but this’t be further from the truth! Blockchain is here to stay and we can expect more businesses to adopt this technology within the app development industry in order to reduce costs, increase security and improve user experience.
9 – Companies Will Start To Invest More In The App Development Industry
The Australian Government’s recent announcement that they will be reducing the company tax rate from 30% to 25% should have a positive impact on the local economy which will enable companies to invest more money in R&D. This means that we can expect an increase in app development across a range of different industries during 2018 and beyond.
10 – Augmented Reality And Blockchain Will Emerge As Clear Winners Over The Next Few Years
Augmented reality and blockchain have emerged as two of the biggest trends in 2017, but these will only become even more important during 2018 and beyond. We can expect to see a rise in the number of games and apps that use these technologies over the next couple of years.
Conclusion
The app development industry is constantly evolving and we can expect to see a number of interesting trends emerge in the coming years. Some of these include more businesses adopting progressive web apps, an increase in augmented reality based games and apps as well as companies investing more money into R&D which will lead to increased innovation within this space. Which trend do you think will have the biggest impact on your business over the next few years? Let us know by commenting below!
