11 Mobile App Development Trends for 2019

Surabhi C.
6 min readApr 24, 2020

Smartphones have become an inseparable part of our daily lives. Waking up with a morning alarm, using Whatsapp, listening to music, reading the news, watching YouTube videos, checking emails, updating project statuses, and so on.

Everything is seamlessly executed from our mobile devices. Currently, 2.1 Billion people worldwide own a Smartphone and according to TouchPoints report:

This is unbelievable, yet true. Hence, the use of smartphones and mobile apps is not going to drop in 2019 in any way. However, the current mobile app trends might shed some new light.

In this blog post, we are going to discuss the current mobile app development trends that are going to stay in 2019 too.

After some thorough research I found 11 such mobile app trends and related facts that are going to be applicable in the upcoming year. Here are they are:

1. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Is Changing Web App Landscape

It’s been a year since Google has started the AMP Project. Apart from that, recently Google has announced that there will be a separate search index for mobile web.

This revolutionary step changes the Mobile app development trends completely especially from SEO and Web app perspective.

Google AMP supported web apps will load much faster on mobile devices and reduce bounce rate in large number. It will also benefit publishers with increased ad visibility and more visitors.

Hence, this advanced technology will certainly be on the list of mobile app development trends in the coming year.

2. AR & VR Will Show Some Magic

If you are a little aware of modern mobile app development trends, then Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) apps are nothing new to you. In 2016, AR and VR have been revolutionary in gaming and entertainment industry.

Games like Pokemon Go, iOnRoad, Sky Siege and myNav are good examples of AR games whereas, VR devices like Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift are gaining popularity.

According to a research from Digi-Capital, here is the expected market for AR and VR software in upcoming years:

Although it is not expected that VR will show a rapid growth, however, AR application development will certainly near its peak by the time 2019 ends. Therefore, tighten your seat belts for some AR and VR magic in the coming year.

3. Artificial Intelligence Is Real Now

Gartner found, there will be a more than 300% increase in investment in artificial intelligence next year compared to 2018. Through the use of advanced analytics, cognitive interfaces into complex systems, and machine learning techs, AI will provide business users access to powerful insights never before available to them.

Due to these advantages, giants like Google, IBM, eBay, and Facebook have started acquiring startups those who are adept in Artificial Intelligence. This graph will tell you more.

We have already seen some amazing AI apps such as Prisma, Siri, and Google Now and expecting much more in 2019 keeping the AI mobile application development trends intact.

4. Cloud-driven Mobile Apps Are on the Rise

From customers to the tech professionals, everyone has heard about the cloud technology and how it’s impacting our collective lives. Today, cloud computing has finally found its place with mobile apps.

Now, we can expect powerful mobile apps which directly fetch data from cloud and take minimum space in your smartphone internal memory.

Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive are only the tip of the iceberg. Cisco research says, “Globally, cloud apps will drive 90% of total mobile data traffic by 2019, and Mobile cloud traffic will be 11-fold with compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60%.”

This clearly indicates that the mobile app trends related to cloud is going to stay in 2019.

5. Enterprise Apps & Micro-apps Will Advance Further

The Prime goal of an enterprise mobile application is to help you restructure, streamline and manage crucial business processes on the go. Whereas, A micro-app aims to suffice very targeted operations and takes less load.

However, both are successfully accomplishing their endeavors and are expected to continue further.

An example of enterprise mobile apps is Evernote, through which your teams can collaborate on projects from their mobile devices. On the other hand, Facebook messenger or to-do list apps are good examples of micro-apps that concentrate on only one task.

An Adobe study says 77% business owners found enterprise apps advantageous and 66% are increasing their investment further. Also, 430 billion enterprise app market is expected by 2021.

Moreover, micro-apps with features like lightweight, targeted, HTML, and adhoc-based, are rising these days. Hence, these mobile app development trends are expected to stay constant in 2019.

6. More Focus On Security In Apps

As per a Gartner prediction, 75% of mobile apps would not pass even basic security tests. Supporting that, an HP study states that 70.6% apps can access to external storage and 94.7% apps include logging methods. These surveys majorly indicates the following concerns:

Hackers will tend to continue the trend of exploiting known security gaps in mobile apps for stealing sensitive and confidential information. This is one of the negative mobile app development trends that is going to continue next year.

7. Wearable Devices Are Getting Attention

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the market for wearable devices are going to experience a composite annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.3%, leading to 213.6 million units shipped in 2020.

We saw some amazing wearable devices this year like Apple Watch Series 1, Google Daydream View, Pebble 2, Xiaomi Mi Band 2, Fitbit Flex 2, and more.

These devices show that it is not just restricted to the healthcare industry and prove to be one of the promising mobile app development trends in 2019.

8. m-commerce Is Becoming A New Standard

These days, instead of using credit or debit cards, a considerable number of customers prefer to make purchases through Google wallet and Apple Pay. This is giving a push to m-commerce.

Coupled with wearable devices, m-commerce payment facilities will take a different shape in 2019. Beyond predictive analytics and data collection, wearables will also play a major role in the future of m-commerce and customer loyalty.

Hence, the mobile app trends of m-commerce is going to stay strong in 2019 as well.

9. IoT Will Be Much Bigger

The rapid adoption of cloud-based apps brings us to one of the latest mobile app development trends that has piqued mobile developer interest in 2018 — the Internet of Things.

Analysts predict that IoT will grow from 157.05$ billion in 2016 to 661.74$ billion by 2021, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 33.3%. This directly impacts the mobile app trends as IoT devices are majorly controlled by smartphones. Here’s the predicted growth curve of IoT:

Therefore IoT is definitely going to remain a major trend in 2019.

10. Beacons & Location Based Services Are on the Rise

Integrated location-based service applications like Apple’s iBeacons and Google Beacon are popular. Wi-Fi usage will no longer be limited to hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, or in health-care.

The usage of applications with Wi-Fi support is going to rise beyond these traditional requirements will help people with relevant location-based information.

This advanced technology gives a major scope to personalized app marketing and expected to rise in 2019 considering one of the major mobile app trends.

11. Swift Is Much Swifter Now

Swift is the next-gen programming language for iOS developers. Most mobile-app developers confirm that it is much easier than Objective-C.

Although Swift isn’t going to replace Objective-C anytime soon, it will gain a lot of attention in 2019 .

With the release of Swift 2 which offers a host of new, developer-friendly features, this new programming language is certainly to stay.

Here’s how Swift runs ahead in the race with other programming languages:

Hence, Swift is also going to stay for a long time as well.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to mobile app technologies, skilled software developers cannot possibly rely on outdated tools and trends at the development stage. 2018 so far is bursting with a host of potential and app developers can enhance their skills better if they have insight into the latest mobile app development trends.

If you follow the 11 trends thoroughly then it would be certainly be beneficial for your business.

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