Existing and Upcoming Mobile App Development Trends

Today, the smartphone is the key to digital media success. It fundamentally transforms business models, operating models, and marketplaces at a surprising rate. Every user has their own choices and favourite apps. This blog will focus on some existing advance features of smartphones and some technologies that might be available in phones in future.

Top 5 Existing Features

LiDAR 

LiDAR is another significant technology advancement that have recently seen in the field of AR. Called AR at the speed of light by Apple – the technology made its debut in iPad Pro, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone Pro 12 Pro max. It has taken AR into a whole new level. With LiDAR, it has become possible to capture superior quality photos in low light. The new Iphone 13 pro and 13 promax has unlocked more advancements. Apple has even revolutionized the furniture shopping process by partnering with Ikea to launch a new Studio Mode feature that uses LiDAR technology. Using the feature, users can point their device to the place where they want to place the furniture and the LiDAR technology will scan the room to virtually place a true-to-scale furniture model.

Wireless charging

This is a handy feature for those of you who don't want to plug in your phone. Just set it down and it's charging. And don't worry; wireless charging is perfectly safe.

5G Connectivity

5G connectivity promises to revolutionize not only smartphone capabilities, but also the capabilities of any other connected device, be that a watch, a car or a household appliance. For consumers, there’s an obvious advantage to 5G connectivity, especially in relation to media consumption on their smartphones.

Smartphone users are already streaming music, TV shows, films and countless social media videos on their devices. But with 5G promising connection speeds of up to 20x faster than 4G, this enhances the quality, speed and predictability of their mobile entertainment. It also opens up the possibility for other emerging branches of entertainment, such as streaming games online on mobile.

Our data shows the majority of consumers intend to switch to a 5G network on their smartphone, with most (37%) saying they’ll switch as soon as one becomes available.

Near Field Communication

 Near Field Communications allows your smartphone to transmit data to other phones and tablets in the vicinity. It's really handy for sharing pictures and music. You can even use it to pay at stores and restaurants. Plenty of great Android and Windows phones offer NFC, but not Apple.

Wearable App Integration

Wearable devices are already ruling the world. According to Statista, connected wearable devices reached 453 million in 2017 and will reach 929 million by 2022.

This year we saw many important things happening in the wearable devices industry. Apple announced its WatchOS 8 update. It brought new features, fresh watch faces, increased wallet access, and redesigned interface for Apple watch users.

Even Google announced a unified wearables platform that blends its wear operating system with Samsung’s Tizen software platform – boosting app startup times by 30%.

It signifies the rise in wearable technology — one of the essential mobile app development trends in 2022.

Top 5 Wishlist Features

Better Application Security

According to Check Point State of Mobile Security 2021 report, around 46% of organizations had at least one employee who downloaded a malicious mobile application. Given how much employees depend on mobile devices, it’s a matter of concern for businesses.That’s why most businesses are looking to invest more in cybersecurity, given it is directly linked to data protection and information privacy laws. Thus, digital security has emerged as one of the top mobile app development trends in 2022.

Super Apps

One app, one purpose – it has been the approach of mobile app development companies for years. But now, the approach is changing. Companies are shifting from single-purpose apps to one-stop solutions that solve multiple purposes.

Such apps are called Super Apps, and they are insanely popular in Asia. However, the trend is also catching up in the west. One interesting example in the US market is Natural AI developed by California-based company Brain Technologies Inc. It strives to change the way people interact with their phones allowing them to solve multiple purposes from a single app.

Augmented reality and virtual reality (AR and VR)

There’s already a lot being done to bring augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology to smartphones.

Google’s Pixel 3A deployed some of ARCore’s technology — Google’s platform to build AR solutions — to bring users AR maps. It allows directions to pop up as a part of the scene being captured by the camera lens along with a distance countdown.

Apple has plans to launch the AR-enabled ‘Apple Glasses’. The company has been heavily investing in ARKit to develop AR use cases for mobile devices and Apple’s Glasses would be positioned as an iPhone accessory.

Smart Glasses

The most tempting prediction to make is that in 10 years’ time, the handheld smartphone as we know it will be replaced — or at least relegated to our pockets more often than not — by smart eyeglasses.

We’re already on the path, though early attempts like Google Glass were too rudimentary, creepy, and strange-looking. More recent tries from companies like Focal still depend on the phone for too much of their functionality. Meta, the newly rebranded company behind Facebook, is continuing to explore the concept, and Apple’s oft-rumored mixed reality glasses remain in development.

Smart mobile projection

Usage scenarios of mobile projectors are considered mobile and ubiquitous because the projection can happen on any unprepared surface at an unpredictable time.  These scenarios are very challenging as they depend on many unknown factors. A projected image may become distorted as a projection axis is not perpendicular to a surface. Attempting to correct this distortion is called “keystone correction”. For a projector which is not moved during projection, using a built-in keystone correcting feature can compensate for the distortion during offline setup. However, for a mobile projector, real-time keystone correction is required. There are many alternative solutions for this problem like using tilt sensors to measure distorted angles between the projection axis and the surface or using a frame of reference (in the physical world) to indirectly refer to a correct alignment.