The recent explosion in the popularity of apps has seen more and more people set out to develop their own, and the technology behind them has changed as a result. The big technology companies which easily dominated the market in years past have had to become more competitive in order to keep up sales, while people with limited technical skills have sought out simple design modules to enable them to develop their ideas.
App developer kits
As high end app design has grown more sophisticated, the other end of the market has become simpler and easier for anyone to access. Although it’s still useful to be familiar with C++, Ruby or Javascript if you want to do anything complex, developer kits provided by the likes of Apple and Android make it possible to develop native apps with relatively little coding experience. This puts the focus on ideas and ensures consumer demand can be more easily met.
Apps and the web
One consequence of apps being developed in this manner is that few of them function on a standalone basis; instead, they tend to draw on other resources from the web. Now the distinction between apps and websites is increasingly blurring, with web-app type sites providing a more practical interface. This is putting pressure on the mobile app.
Interconnected apps
The problem with the traditional mobile app stems from its popularity. Because they’re so useful, many of us have dozens, if not hundreds, of favorites, and managing them all is getting difficult. Rather than trying to make them all immediately clickable on a small screen, it’s getting easier to access search resources, at which point there seems less point in downloading apps in the first place. This is why Top Mobile App Development Firm teams are now investigating ways to get apps to talk to each other. Using app extensions can enable them to do so without compromising on security, and there’s also the option of using widgets to let them share resources so that, for instance, an app providing maps could let you buy related guidebooks from another app with minimal clicking.
The future of apps
Interconnection is providing app developers with a much more resilient model for the future. It’s happening at the same time as a new generation of smarter apps is enabling users to engage in small ways – like receiving information or responding to messages – without the whole app having to be launched first. This much less intrusive approach makes managing multiple apps easier and so reduces the competitive pressure for them to get space on your mobile devices.
This is good news for small time app designers because it means people are less likely to settle for a few big name apps they feel they can’t do without and then decide they have no room for more.
What benefits less well known apps is ultimately good for all of us, because it drives innovation, ensuring that this technology will remain exciting and continue to revolutionize our lives.
