4 Top Mobile App Development Trends to See in 2017

The global revenues generated from mobile apps is expected to grow by a staggering 962.5% from 2011 to 2017. Besides the current markets actively performing in the usage of highly popular apps, there are also a number of other top contenders emerging in the industry. It’s no surprise the value of mobile app industry is expected to surpass the $100 billion mark by the end of 2020. Let’s explore the hottest app development trends developers can willingly anticipate to work on in 2017.

1. Paramount interest in mobile IoT

During 2015, about 80 Internet of Things (IoT)-based acquisitions were done around the globe. While by the emergence of 2020, around 28 billion separate and connected devices will likely be registered. Due to evidence provided by the booming revenues and profits acquired from the IoT industry, it is a fact the figures will display twice the numbers in the course of next 12 months. The challenge and opportun ity will be for the developers to create high-performance apps that cater smart device sensors to safely transport confidential information via Wi-Fi networking.

Do note the independent and less reliant on paired iPhones nature of Apple Watch, which shows the opportunities for IoT is only going to get bigger.

2. Heavy emphasis on security

As the mobile and app industry is soaring, so is the associated threats and attacks to security. A mobile banking feature—two-factor user authentication is becoming quite common. In 2016, it was declared in Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) that all iOS apps must be installed with a strict App Transport Security (ATS) by the end of 1st January. Further Apple developers has also insisted of featuring stronger data encryption in all new apps.

With a number of fragments and decentralized integration of OS, the security pertaining the Android system will always be looked with a bit more suspicion. Despite this, Google is still working to keep things under strict radar by implementing much thicker automatic security upgrades and a granular app permissions model (for all latest android versions). The by-default security measures instilled in Android devices are coming out healthier. So in 2017, we can easily expect the security aspect to be one of the top-most priorities in app development.

3. GPS usage to become a commonplace

Developers around the globe have reported they are registering a large number of projects to create apps that can use navigation/location-tracking functionality of the phones. Further, industries including automation, retail, IoT, etc. are calling for a huge demand to include GPS-driven apps in their daily operations.

By watching Pokémon Go acquire global recognition in 2016, adding augmented reality (AR) to the arsenal of app development is very much at the attention. The AR is something mobile gaming developers are highly interested in to increase the level of user experience and engagement with the software. Initially users were hesitant in allowing their locations to get detected through enabling GPS, but the issue is gradually minimizing.

4. Big data apps on the high

As per the survey figures given by Hadoop—a popular open-source software platform used for distributed processing and storage of huge datasets, about 76% of the users acknowledged they will be using the tool more often in 2017. So it is very important for developers to find the perfect balance between user-friendly interfaces and reliable, advanced functionality applied to these large data apps. It is not far when we’ll be watching forefront mobile apps that will successfully mix cloud connectivity, IoT, and big data processing features.

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