Today, the mobile app ecosystem is considered as one of the biggest technology markets. With more than 6 million mobile applications present in the App Store and Google Play Store, it has become the core of technology. The ever-changing market and innovative technologies are bringing in numerous opportunities. Small businesses and start-ups are slowly recognizing the importance of a mobile app strategy and moving to mobile isn’t something new for them, especially in 2018.

Undoubtedly, this year is going to be huge for the businesses that are thinking with the mobile-first approach, but to keep up with these changes, it’s necessary to have an understanding of the upcoming trends. Below given below is a list of 10 mobile app development trends that are soon going to be the hottest topics of 2018.

1] Augmented Reality (AR)

According to a survey, AR/VR could reach $150 bn, with VR making around $30 billion and AR $120 Mn. Last year witnessed the two biggest tech giants: Apple and Google banking on the accessibility and development of AR. With the Google’s ARCore and Apple’s ARKit launch, we now have two strong platforms for AR app development for mobile devices.

Most marketers are viewing AR as a platform to offer a superior user engagement and we will see a lot of new, innovative AR apps in near future. Marketing a mobile app is as crucial as developing it. Without a detailed marketing strategy, your app will not gain attention from your targeted audience. It needs to be fool-proof and easy to access for every single user.

2] Hassle-free Instant Apps

At the event Google I/O 2016, Google introduced a unique feature in the Android devices called Instant Apps. The purpose is to let people use the Android apps without the need to download them. Users can try and test the mobile app with Play Store and they can download it only if they need it and have the required storage space. Wish, Buzzfeed, and Viki are some of the frontrunning applications to take this initiative.

3] Wearable Apps & Devices

Smartwatches and wearable devices have built a novel technology market. While several of these can offer independent features, they still need some support from mobiles. Moreover, most users prefer wearable devices to be organized with their smartphones for convenient access to data.

4] AMP and Lazy Loading

In association with Twitter, Google has undertaken a project named AMP, Accelerated Mobile Pages. With AMP, it is possible to create a mobile version of any web page that will be comparatively faster and more responsive.

The webpage also can be seen separately while it is loading instead of rendering the users to wait for the complete page to open and this is referred to as Lazy Loading. Both these methods can be used to accelerate the act of mobile applications when content is shown on the web.

5] IoT (Internet of Things)

Internet of Things essentially allows the utilization of the sensor technologies in machines to start automation, remote control, and monitoring. With an increasing demand for IoT, it is clear for developers to opt for the most visible choice for remote devices. A large number of IoT devices now depend on mobile devices to collect data, particularly in case of user IoT. With the rush in overall utilization of IoT, we will get more mobile apps destined for managing these devices.

6] Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI has empowered many exciting functionalities and features in mobile apps, such as behavioural targeting, personalized experience, recommendation engines, and so on. Along with these features, AI has enabled the use of different chatbots within the mobile applications.

Chatbots are the AI-powered devices that can mimic human conversations. However, very few apps today come with a chatbot, but we will see various more applications of this in future.

7] Smart Cloud Computing

The growth of mobile cloud computing has multiple benefits. With the addition of cloud computing in mobile applications, it is now much easier to store data as well as process heavy tasks on mobiles. Nowadays, most of the modern mobile apps get hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS). This improves the speed, consistency, and security of the mobile apps and allows maximum storage, analysis, and collection of the user data.

8] Blockchain Deployment

Recently, Blockchain has given rise to a sole, new type of currency, known as Cryptocurrency. It has revolutionized the approach to mobile payments. In the blockchain, we can largely see payment-based apps like Glyph, Fold, and BitPay and definitely there will be more such apps in the near the future too.

9] Easy-to-access Mobile Payments

With the growth in e-Commerce, there is also a sudden rise in the number of mobile payment apps as well as a growth in mobile banking. In addition to that, new mobile payment mechanisms have also emerged. Consider the recent idea of scan and pay structure used by Samsung and VISA cards. In the upcoming days, there will be more mobile payment apps using that and more.

10] Security for Safety

Along with mobile app development, enterprise mobile security is a crucial area of focus for iOS and Android application developers too. And with the increase in the popularity of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), there is a considerable risk of mobile applications getting affected by employees’ personal devices. Developers are focussing more on protecting the app’s security by sending verification code from scratch. Moreover, there is an awareness towards the improved use of encryption and authorizations.

Wrapping Up,

Businesses are improving the use of location-based services and geofencing to a great extent. These services have the ability to trigger specific arrangements in the apps offering distinguishing scope for personalization. Several brands are upgrading their apps and supporting location-based services, such as the support for Bluetooth beacon. Surely, 2018 is holding a lot of new, technology-driven mobile apps for everyone.