Mobile Application Development Trends

If you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner looking into the mobile application industry, either to ride the wave or to capitalize on the fact that your customers are spending more time with their phone, this post could come in very handy 🙂

Bellow you may find some thoughts on how the Mobile Development industry will evolve in the nearest future.

1. Micropayments
   Micropayments within mobile applications can be used to upgrade basic app to a premium version, purchase game items, digital content or even small gifts for friends. Mobile bill payments and micropayments for digital content consumption continue to grow in the future.

2. Enhanced Security
   Better security for mobile application platforms is expected. This is especially important when more users are conducting financial transactions and life streaming using their phones.

3. Business App Store
   With all the mobile platforms targeting their app store towards average consumers, the introduction of a business app store is imminent.

4. Location-Based Technology
   Location-based technology or GPS technology received the most buzz in 2009 and we expect it will continue growing this year.

5. Social Based Applications
   Social networking activities certainly do not end when you leave your computer. We are already seeing a great number of people tweeting and updating their Facebook status on-the-go, not to mention those who are posting videos and photos to services like Twitpic and 12seconds using their mobile phone.

6. Augmented Reality (AR)
   Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.

7. High Entry Barriers for Fledgling Developers
   Developers that are new to the scene and without much support will face trouble getting user adoption. Not only that there are already tons of mobile applications out there, established developers have better advantages in terms of capability to introduce new features over a short time span as well as the resources to adapt and test their applications on new platforms.

8. Mobile Application Advertising
   The increasing number of mobile application users opens up another advertising channel for brands and businesses. This is definitely good news for developers.

9. Importance of Marketing for Applications
   There are already hundreds of thousands of mobile applications out there. In order to stand a chance, developers or mobile application entrepreneurs need to know how to market applications developed by them.

10. HTML 5 – Native Apps vs Web Apps
    How will it affect the mobile applications space? Well, phones with a mobile browser that has HTML 5 rendering capabilities will be able to run web applications directly without any downloading and installation of apps. As for developers, there will no longer be a need to develop for different mobile platforms.

What other trends do you think will be likely this year for the mobile applications industry?

Your opinions are welcome!