Mobile apps and app developers have followed a similar line to that of downloaded music, with some killer being created but sitting aside a lot of filler. This structure still bodes well for the app market if it follows along similar lines to that of music download and as we’ve seen from iPhone and Android apps rocketing sales, this seems likely.
With the recent news that sales of eBooks, smart phones and tablets have surpassed that of laptops, PC s and notebooks it all certainly looks good for apps. So what can we expect to see in the future of the app market? A recent survey by tech trend site gigaOM has suggested that the US mobile applications market will grow from $6.8bn in 2011 to a huge $25bn by 2015 – now it doesn’t take too many algebraic equations to translate this into layman’s terms.
ther figures show that mobile advert spending increased by 32 per cent in the UK in 2008- 2009 and the trend continued in 2010. The change has begun and is centred on the fact that investment in mobile applications and advertisement is not to be left to the daring few, but has become a channel most serious businesses have to utilise for marketing. The case for this has been added to further, with the coming of web enabled tablets.
Figures in the US from gigaOM suggest that 38 per cent of companies are using more business mobile applications in the work place and 30 per cent more social media marketing. This is predicted as set to continue for the next half decade with 43 per cent of businesses saying they will incorporate mobile technologies and apps more in the future.
There are a number of different opinions among app developers on where mobile applications are going. Most believe that the future of applications is mobile, and with the sales of mobile devices passing that of fixed, heavier ones this makes sense.
One of the things we should expect to see in the app market is smart personalisation of devices, in that applications will be able to predict our trends and behavioural patterns for the individual and then cater for people with live updates based on these trends. For example travel applications that give you update on the particular areas queues, traffic or train/tube delays you usually get held up in. Or, apps that tell us the weather automatically when they see a travel itinerary on our phone to somewhere else in our inbox.
Improvements in mobile technology will also lead to new improved applications, most see these improvements as central to app development believing an app can only be as good as the weakest part of the device. More accurate GPS will allow users to be able to receive more accurate information about an area – in the style of a super informative Google Goggles.
It is also expected most phones will have multiple microphones and we will see huge developments in the likes of voice recognition applications in time to come. Some even predict phones being able to read pollen counts – and so creating a new breed of health care applications.
So whatever the future of applications, we can be almost be certain they will be around for a long time and they will be amazing us well into the end of the decade.
What would be your ideal app? What would you love your mobile device to be able to do in the future? Please let us know via the comments section. We would love to hear your ideas!
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