Six Mobile Development Trends of 2024

Hi there! Vlad Karm speaking — Founder and CEO of Sunrise Apps, Mobile and Web Development Company.

It’s important that companies intending to create a mobile app are aware of the technologies and processes that will predominate in the near future. Wielding that knowledge will help empower quality products and prevent budgetary resources from going down the drain.

In this article, I’m going to tell you about 6 latest trends in application development, that is — what technologies, what processes, and what approaches companies will use to create new products under changing market conditions.

Cross-platform development of mobile application

Why should a business spend loads of money when it can make products in a much more inexpensive way? Cross-platform mobile application development is a good example of how to do just that. Aside from entailing a means to minimize expenditures, it also provides a number of additional advantages:

● saves time on communication: explaining a task to a single development team is easier than explaining it to three of them one after the other;

● reduces the workload on QA professionals: organizing testing for a single app is easier and quicker than handling testing for three different versions on different platforms.

All of that reduces the number of links on the development chain and overhead expenses by an average of 30–50%.

As far as popular frameworks are concerned right now, those are Kotlin Multiplatform, Flutter, and React Native. These were used to write the likes of Airbnb, Instagram, Facebook, and some of the Google Ads services. Since even worldwide corporations use cross-platform developments, it’s a clearly observable trend that’s taking place.

Progressive Web Apps

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are a technology that converts the look and functionality of a website into a mobile app. Like the previous trend, these help save you significant time and resources. On top of that, PWA boosts conversion into mobile users by 35% and yields extra income even on top of that.

You will not have to seek out a separate professional to write such an app. All you need is a frontend developer that can properly “package” the product for launch on mobile devices.

PWA is suitable for:

● startups: it will help them create a quick, cheap product prototype and launch it on multiple platforms at once;

● projects opting for a mobile app to improve their customer experience: clinics, stores, delivery services, etc.

PWA is NOT suitable for:

● projects utilizing peripheral hardware and systems, such as Bluetooth, gyroscopes, etc.;

● services with particularly strict standards for information security;

Ramped up product testing

This trend is an important component in improving development processes. Developing technologies are increasing the speed at which updates can be generated and the frequency at which those updates are coming out. Whereas previously professionals tested apps manually, today they automate those processes, so testing takes as little time as possible and yields the best results.

Thus, testing trends are winding down to creating more complete automation tools and integrating them at all stages of the product’s creation. But that’s not all: the speed at which bugs are detected and eliminated is playing a major role in QA development. In this respect, a lot depends not just on fine-tuning equipment but also understanding human behavioral patterns as well.

It’s important to give users a quick and convenient way to inform you of any issues that arise. It’s a lot better than them submitting a negative Google Play or AppStore review about you.

One solution based on behavioral patterns is used by Facebook. Many people shake their smartphone if it starts to freeze and respond poorly to commands. Developers have taken this action. Now all you have to do now is simply shake your phone when you encounter a bug and the report menu will pop-up instantly.

Artificial intelligence

This is a trend that has long generated quite a bit of buzz and is just starting to enter our day-to-day lives. The level of impact AI will have on the world rivals that of electricity. It’s prophesied that it will be present in every electronic device, where it will collect information, analyze it, integrate it, and make conclusions on how to improve user experience.

Artificial intelligence can be seen in action even now. For instance, in “smart” algorithm systems that show us relevant ads or recommend movies, music, and purchases to us. In the future, these trends will surely grow more prominent. AI will tackle an ever-greater range of functions, such as progressive analytics, user action scenario modeling, and more.

If AI is viewed as a tool for company apps, at least two processes in which it will prove instrumental are:

● as a thorough information search in all company chats;

● in automating day-to-day operations;

Businesses win big in both cases. Thus, artificial intelligence has already gained a presence in a range of services, as Slack, Miro, Salesforce, Microsoft, Duolingo, and Snapchat use ChatGPT.

Gamification

Gamification is necessary when there is a need to accelerate usage of an already stablished app or boost the frequency that it is used. If there isn’t a cycle already in place, many developers use gamification to create it.

Gamification can also be used to draw users back to a product. For instance, mini games in bank apps stimulate clients to open up the app to spend a couple minutes and earn a prize. The app is used on a more frequent basis while operations diversify. The app gains additional attention from users while people choose brand products which are exposed to them more often.

Hong Kong ZA Bank’s mobile app offers customers to play a PowerDraw game for a chance to win 200 percent cashback for offline purchases. Customers may also join the ZA quests to earn redeemable points.

Taking a broader look, the gamification trend is part of the media content trend. Multimedia has been long since integrated into client services and will surely be incorporated into company apps. In both cases, the audience is people. And people enjoy playing games.

Companies compete for consumers’ attention. That is what is becoming the main resource going forward. The multimedia and game mechanics trend is one of the ways companies win that attention. Consequently, the attention economy is becoming just as important as a product’s quality.

Low-code and no-code

Thanks to services like these, app mobile apps development has become accessible to a broader audience. Low-code and no-code platforms provide a means to gather products from ready templates and do so quickly, on the cheap, and with a minimal number of errors.

Developing apps on a low-code platform requires basic programming knowledge. No-code, meanwhile, requires no programming at all. The product is instead assembled out of ready units.

In conjunction with artificial intelligence, this trend is capable of turning the market on its head. Speed will cease to play a major role in product manufacturing. Companies not even directly related to IT will be able to create products. He who merely conceives of an idea and implements it will not emerge as the winner. Instead, the winner will be the one who offers users the best experience and succeeds in capturing their attention. In other words, marketing will become even more greatly favored when it comes to a product’s entry into the market.

How a software development company can gain a foothold on the market

● Watch the direction the market is moving. Look for promising areas and study them. For instance, today one could do much worse than to specialize in machine learning and artificial intelligence. It is a clear trend that will be here to stay for many years.

● “Exercise” your thinking process. Changes will be taking place all the time. In order to come out the other side of them a winner, you will need to think clearly, make calculated decisions, and remain flexible.

If you have thoughts on mobile development trends in the near future, feel free to share them in the comments. I also have a Linkedin blog where I share my experience of running a software development company, a distributed team and building business processes. Stop by if you are curious about these issues.

At Sunrise Apps, we have made 220+ mobile apps, web services and digital ecosystems for businesses. If you want to create your own product or improve an existing one — feel free to contact my team at sales@sunrise-apps.com.