Mobile App Development Trends that Drive the Industry in 2022

By Oleksii Tsymbal

The pervasiveness of mobile apps in our society is staggering. Mobile applications are a golden opportunity for many businesses to connect with their customers in unique ways. Understanding how these applications are developed can help business owners strategize how to make a stake in the market and keep their businesses competitive. Let’s talk about some of the most important mobile app development trends that drive the industry forward in 2022.

The State of the Mobile App Development Market in 2022

The mobile app development market is growing rapidly. According to Allied Market Research, in 2018, the mobile app development market size was $106.27 billion. It is expected that this value will reach $407.31 billion by 2026. At a CAGR of 18.4% from 2019 to 2026, it is undeniable that this industry is important to consider when looking to maintain a competitive business. According to Statista, the total revenue of the market is expected to reach $465.70 billion this year, exceeding the figures from Allied Market Research.

Due to this unprecedented growth, focusing efforts on quality mobile application development is key for the success of a business looking to connect with customers on a daily basis through their smartphones. Following the industry trends listed below will help you do this as efficiently as possible.

Provide Immersive Experiences with AR Integration

One of the most promising trends in mobile application development is mobile augmented reality technology. With the ability to overlay information and objects onto the real world with the cameras on the user’s device, there are a seemingly endless number of possibilities in areas such as ecommerce, artificial intelligence, navigation, healthcare, tech support, learning, and more. The ability to utilize AR experiences at home can enhance remote shopping. Virtual try-on solutions are a popular choice for applying this technology.

The future of augmented reality technology is dependent on a few factors: camera quality, processing power, and artificial intelligence. The better we get at analyzing environments, processing complex scene data, and being able to render it more true to life, the more immersive and useful AR mobile applications will become in every industry.

Reach More Users with Wearable Devices

Wearable devices are an important step forward in the mobile app development market. One of the most important aspects of wearables, especially smartwatches, is their potential to aid in a wearable internet of things ecosystem. This is especially important in the healthcare industry. Since smartwatches essentially act as medical IoT sensors worn on the wrist for most of the day, they are extremely effective at collecting data that can help with diagnoses, tracking health over time, and powering artificial intelligence programs that can analyze health trends. Wearables are also helpful for e-payments, allowing users to more elegantly make contactless payments with smartwatches.

Another useful application of wearable devices for mobile app development is location tracking. Whether through GPS or other kinds of beacons, this makes tracking devices and by extension, people, easier. This can be used for navigation, personal safety, security purposes, and more.

Enhance Corporate Security with Mobile Device Management (MDM)

Mobile device management implementation is an important part of mobile app development. Also called MDM, mobile device management is all about how enterprises take control of a fleet of devices used by their employees. The most important driving concept behind MDM is security.

The ability to access company data on these devices must be controlled and keeping privileged access on these devices out of the hands of the wrong users is important. For example, mobile devices used on the sales floor of a major retailer might become misplaced and be acquired by unauthorized users. If payment card data happens to be stored on one of these devices, it could result in dangerous data breaches and identity theft.

Aside from physical protections like security for keeping the physical devices in the right hands, software protections like MDM are important for preventing unauthorized use and access. Mobile device management facilitates file sharing as well as identity and access management. MDM is compatible with bring-your-own-device solutions, meaning that significant savings can be made instead of purchasing an entirely new fleet of devices. A reliable identity management system is critical for the security of an enterprise, its employees, and its customers.

Use Flutter for a Quick Start

One of the best ways to start with a mobile application is to use Flutter. As a solution for building cross-platform apps, Flutter is a great way to get started with any project of this type. Some of the main advantages of Flutter as a cross-platform framework are that it utilizes the same UI on all platforms, reduces development time, and has similar performance to native applications. According to Statista, 42% of developers utilize Flutter.

Flutter is gaining popularity due to the fact that it is ideal for cases of limited time to develop an application, dynamic change in application logic, and products with complex design and animation. That is why this framework is often used to create PoC solutions for iOS and Android where the feasibility of the idea had to be tested. If you need to develop the first version of a product and bring it to market quickly, or you are not entirely sure about the technical implementation of your business idea, you can start with rapid development based on Flutter to stay within cost-effectiveness.

Adopt AI Technology

Artificial intelligence has profound implications on the future of mobile app development. With a great demand for personalized experiences in mobile applications, artificial intelligence is a key player in achieving this goal. This is due to the ability of AI to take personal data from users and craft more personalized experiences with that data, such as suggesting features or activities to them based on their usage. This is seen most often with digital assistant applications but is also seen in ecommerce apps.

Some other applications of artificial intelligence technologies for mobile applications include speech recognition technology, chatbots, natural language processing, machine learning, biometrics, image recognition, and more. The implications of having artificial intelligence onboard a mobile device are profound. It’s important to note that every use of AI is unique. When it comes to the benefits of AI-powered systems, MobiDev CEO Oleg Nola explains that “AI offers solutions to tasks that couldn’t have been solved before or to tasks where the solution was complicated. It helps to simplify the process. You can take advantage of AI by analyzing data and automating decision-making for the business. So, in general, AI-powered systems are more capable.”

Artificial intelligence is also making its way into budgeting software applications for consumers using smartphones. Since users add their own data about their personal finances, it’s a simple matter for artificial intelligence to analyze the data that they provide and make suggestions on more effective money management.

What’s Next for Mobile App Development?

The future of mobile app development is defined by the trends discussed previously. This will lead to the emergence of new solutions based on these technologies, unique and innovative combinations of these technologies, and entirely new ideas. The mobile app development market will flourish as smartphones become more powerful and more prolific. These advances will expand the use cases of mobile applications as well, leading to more opportunities for businesses to make connections with their customers.

About the Author

Oleksii Tsymbal, Chief Innovation Officer at MobiDev. We run a software engineering company with offices in the US, Ukraine and Poland. I’m a part of the business team and in charge of marketing and innovative technologies. I lived in Kharkiv, a great city that today is under Russian attack. So had to move to safety along with our Kharkiv office. Today I’m working in Chernivtsi, missing my native city and recently renovated apartment. But most of all I miss my family as I had to send them abroad, and my parents who refused to leave Kharkiv.