Mobile applications of the future

Disclaimer

This article is a subjective opinion of the author who needs objective assessments. I would be glad if it gives food for thought to those who care about the future of the global mobile industry. I hope for a constructive discussion and thank you in advance for the feedback and comments on the text.

Changing the paradigm of using mobile applications

In the existing paradigm of using mobile applications there are 2 mandatory elements: a mobile device (now it is mainly a smartphone or tablet) and, in fact, an application.

In the future, applications will go far beyond existing mobile devices, and the understanding of mobile devices will expand significantly. Mobilization expects not only TVs, game consoles, smart watches and Google Glass, most industries and non-production areas will use applications instead of desktop software. "Mobile" will be the world around us.

Mobile applications will finally go beyond the limits of online, it will happen massively. Already, for the active use of applications, users receive bonuses that can be implemented not only in other applications, but also in ordinary life, offline. Discounts and gifts for purchased material goods, free tickets, the right of priority choice with a limited offer of anything, and much more will be available to active users in the near future. The usual pattern of consumption will change.
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Reorienting to corporate users

What will be more effective for the manufacturer?

1. one or more large systems that manage the production cycle and are characterized by the high cost of development, deployment, maintenance, support, refinement, difficulty in understanding by new employees, or
2. a set of simple applications that are responsible for each process or group separately, which are combined into a common information space, where it is possible to provide fast data collection and analysis, effective identification of "bottlenecks", rapid system refinement due to component interchangeability, in general, maximum integration of subjects and production facilities.

The correct answer of the head of the future company is the second. People have become accustomed to living in a world where, for each need, imposed or real (and the first becomes the second very quickly), a mobile application is created. They will no longer be able to live differently.

The rapid growth in popularity of smartphones and tablets amid falling interest in desktops speaks for itself. The Flurry website provides information that, tracking 400,000 mobile applications, they collect statistics of 3.5 billion sessions per day.

Mobile applications, addressed to Big Data in the cloudy environment, will allow building such production management systems, document management, accounting, finance, logistics, marketing, personnel, in which all problems, issues, tasks, even the smallest, will be solved many times faster and easier Since every working moment, the production operation will be literally in the palm of your hand and in the hands of decision makers.

From the future demand we move on to the future supply. The vast majority of mobile applications in the consumer market do not generate revenue for customers. This is a global industry reality, with which many have already come to terms, making applications for brand promotion, raising awareness of the product or for the pleasure of the user and selling advertising opportunities. Gartner's ubiquitous analysts predict that by 2018, less than 0.01% of consumer mobile apps will be profitable. This is due to the highest competition, which continues to tighten. This will not just spur, but will force mobile application developers to reconfigure business to consumers in the corporate sector who are ready to pay for the optimization and automation of business processes at the entrance, realizing that Freemium in their situation is not a non-constructive approach.

A key success factor is technological and / or product innovation.

Why innovation, not design, for example, or speed? Yes, because the demand for innovations is consistently high now and will grow in the future, when fashion is changing in design. Today, flat is dominant, but this concept will change as well, until one day everyone is bored. The speed of work is another story, the “hardware” in devices develops so fast that even super-heavyweights from applications will be bright in the future. If we talk about the corporate sector, the “hardware” on such devices and now is of a completely different order than on the end-user gadgets, especially the budget models.

The lack of profits from the sale of mobile applications in the consumer sector will make technological and / or product innovation the main and only significant criterion for success. The same trend will be traced in the corporate sector, where the implementation of these innovations will be profitable at the start and highly profitable at the finish.

Imitation of a game format - a way of penetration into the most profitable segment

According to Distimo , in 2013, 63% of total revenues from applications in the App Store provided the game. Over the years, the figure is adjusted, but essentially nothing changes. The gaming format of the application, or the addition of mini-games in in-app-s significantly increase the chances of success in the mobile industry. Already, the game format is skillfully used by applications for children and social networks.

For example, developers of educational applications should think about using a game model for the development and subsequent sale of trainings. Music applications for amusing a huge audience of music lovers around the world can think of the functionality that allows you to easily and quickly mount your own video on your favorite song from sample, captured and manually cut video content, especially since fans have already flooded with similar YouTube videos, i.e. they are already accustomed to such “games”.

In other words, a gaming format with varying degrees of complexity can be adapted for almost all types of mobile applications and be used in other, besides gaming, market segments.

The main promotion channels are installations and presets in the physical and virtual memory of the smartphone.

The highest competition in Google Play and the App Store does not allow most promising mobile applications to realize their potential even partially. This problem worries all participants in the mobile market: customers, developers, corporations and even users, which means that the situation will change in the near future.

All popular smartphones already have some popular applications installed, in the future the main part of such applications will be, if not in the device’s memory, then on your virtual disk, the rental of which will be provided free of charge, along with the purchase of a gadget. Applications will be added there automatically based on your demographic data, geographic location, behavioral aspects, personal and professional interests.

Each of us will, willy-nilly, get a personal, family, worker, thematic “mini-market” or “mini-store”, where only friends (community members) or experts you add in this subject area will put asterisks, that:

• will relieve the user from having to look for something (to which everything goes),
• provide a ready-made collection of applications that is relevant to the needs, tastes and preferences of a particular user,
• will increase user confidence in the ratings and ratings of mobile applications.

Instead of conclusion

The development of the mobile application market has changed us just as the emergence of personal computers and the spread of the Internet.
Over time, we learned to get up from behind the computer, go out of the Internet, which itself can be disconnected for non-payment, or the quality of the connection can leave much to be desired, whereas the mobile device is almost always with us.
Together with the ability of many mobile applications to work offline, such an “inseparable” connection between man and technology brings them to a new level of interaction. A little more and it can be called a relationship, because for a long time they are separated only at the time of sleeping one and recharging the other. As a rule, this time is the same.