Top 3 Trends in Mobile App Development for 2017
In 2011, I began a tradition of making predictions for the coming year. It was a pious wish because I only repeat this tradition five years later. Here is my second set of predictions about the main trends in mobile app development for 2017. It will be fun to check at the end of the year if the trends I’m announcing will still be current at the end of 2017.
1. More Augmented Reality Applications
Who was not surprised by the success of Pokémon Go? And with this kind of success comes imitation and innovation. The list of augmented reality apps for the iPhone alone is amazing. There are so many that there is no Top 40.
The augmented reality combines virtual reality and GPS location and will represent a very strong trend in 2017. Many mobile projects under development integrating augmented reality go well beyond leisure and games. These applications extend to areas such as retail, manufacturing, life sciences and more.
No worries dear gamers, no one will stop developing games. Developers are studying how they can use augmented reality applications to improve the levels of engagement of their 3D games. Initially, people feared that the GPS would transmit their location to a server. With connected objects, sensors and the Internet of objects (IOT), people are less worried about this aspect, which brings me to the next trend.
2. More Intelligent Context Applications
At present, the number of separate connected devices is expected to exceed 28 billion in 2017. Revenues and profits in the IOT industry have increased since 2015. Some believe that these revenues will double by the end of 2017. Due to this trend, if you are a developer, prepare for the demand for applications using intelligent sensors.
What is different with these “intelligent applications” compared to the old applications is that they separate the sensors on one side and the data transmission on the other. They also include a “thinking” component. Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence treat the context and location of the person or sensor (often in a connected object) and make recommendations. This “contextual awareness” allows an application like Netflix to offer programs adapted to the person connected to the platform and not to the whole household. C ‘ Is also this combination of technologies behind a health application for smartphones charged with issuing dietary recommendations for diabetics after a specific exercise to normalize their blood sugar levels. Therefore, be prepared to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning within applications even simpler to use in 2017.
Next, about 50% of respondents in an At Scale 2015 survey on Hadoop said they will make greater use of these technologies in 2017. Demand for developers capable of creating contextual and intelligent applications that handle large data is expected to grow strongly. For those who do not know, Hadoop is an open source repository application for storing and processing very important data sources. Developers will face a challenge in finding the right balance between user-friendly interfaces and reliable functionality in contextual and intelligent applications. This leads us to the third trend.
3. The user experience, the alliance of design and art
The user experience, abbreviated to UX, is the biggest indicator of success (or failure) for a mobile application and this will not change in 2017. And we will see that some features currently “fashionable” will become a fundamental part luxurious.
The design of a standardized application interface is becoming more and more common for application developers. Better still, this becomes a common requirement these days. These application interfaces, consisting of standard elements such as tabs, click buttons and easy-to-identify interaction areas, allow users to focus on the functional aspects of the application. The interface part does not interfere with the rest of the application but is also ensured with an ergonomic result. This standardization which draws UX standards upwards must become the norm.
As for the UX as a whole, graphic designers and creators will evolve and converge towards a new art form. So integrate graphics with parallax effect, grid-based interface design, split screens, engaging visuals, and micro-interactions to gain in attractiveness. The days of simplistic applications without relief are counted.
A final note on enterprise applications:
I have documented myself, and I see that there is unanimous agreement on the take-off of business applications in 2017. However, I think it is not a trend for 2017 but it has already become a reality in 2016. In fact, many of us, whose job it are to watch technology, consider it counterproductive to announce the emergence of mobile enterprise applications for 2017. They are already there, real. This is why we have made sure that you can develop the enterprise mobile applications that so many companies are looking for.
