According to the study "Digital 2023: Global Overview Report," the number of mobile applications downloaded in 2022 amounted to an impressive 254.9 billion worldwide, which is 25 billion more than a year earlier. At the same time, consumer spending on those reached a high of 167.1 billion dollars during the same period. Thus, mobile software is definitely one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the global IT industry.
To learn about new trends in mobile development, we called on Sergei Moskvin—a leading developer of apps for iOS and other Apple platforms with more than ten years of experience in this area. Over his extensive and successful career, Sergei managed to undergo several stages of this market's formation personally. That is why we invited him over to discuss the current trends in mobile development in 2023, as well as learn about his suggestions for further possible vectors of its development over the next few years.
1. Craving for Innovations
"As recently as five years ago, it was safe to say that one of the major trends in mobile development was a simple mass adoption of mobile technology as deeply as possible into the everyday life of an average person. Messengers, pocket online stores, taxi service, food delivery, mobile banking, and much more." But Sergei points out that nowadays, it is not enough for any ambitious, actively developing business to offer its clients a simple mobile service, even if it is quite convenient—if you want to be competitive, you have to look after breakthrough innovations.
"No one is interested in simply ordering clothes or furniture online anymore. Instead, they want to try those clothes on or do it in their room without even getting off the couch, which can be realized with the help of augmented reality. If a banking app allows you only to see the current balance of your accounts and pay for goods online, this bank is totally technologically uncompetitive." According to Sergei Moskvin, a genuinely modern banking service in 2023 certainly allows, for instance, to invest money in complex financial instruments literally in one tap, as well as give parents the opportunity to conveniently control their child's pocket expenses while teaching them basic financial literacy in an effective and playful way.
2. Governments Joining the Technology Race
In Sergei's opinion, it is in the last 2-3 years that a shift has become really noticeable in the way various countries around the world are paying proper attention to current mobile technologies in order to finally begin to fully provide their citizens with modern and convenient government services and facilities.
Such goods and services as all-electronic ID cards and driver's licenses, online applications for government services right from your phone screen, full legal regulation of cryptocurrencies, and even composing digital testaments are really huge breakthroughs for the inept bureaucratic machines of any modern state. Sure thing that somewhere such a trend is already very actively developing, while elsewhere it is still in an emergent stage, but the fact that this technological vector is finally clearly outlined is already a giant leap.
"Over there, however, civil society must always be wary. Unfortunately, modern technologies can serve not only democracy, freedom of speech, and other inalienable human rights but can also sometimes become new tools for covert surveillance of citizens, means of more effective political repression, and otherwise serve undemocratic political regimes. Sadly, we can already see clear examples of this in some countries."
3. The Calm Before the Potential Storm
Despite the global hunger for innovation described above, Sergei Moskvin, on the basis of his extensive professional experience, notes a simultaneous global slowdown in the speed of development of mobile technologies.
"At the turn of the noughties and tens, innovative, future-facing gadgets, apps, and services that revolutionized our everyday life were emerging almost every day. The iPhone 5 is a very impressive leap compared to the iPhone 4, and the iOS 5 compared to iOS 4 officially has as many as 200 new features. Nowadays, those kinds of figures aren't even a thing anymore. We still get new generations of popular mobile devices and operating systems every year, but can you name at least a dozen really significant changes in iOS 17 compared to its previous major version?"
Nevertheless, according to Sergei, this kind of current situation is absolutely normal. Technical progress moves, as a rule, abruptly—from revolution to revolution. The last such "revolution" occurred, in his opinion, with the release of the very first iPhone in 2007, radically changing people's ideas about computers, the Internet, and many other areas of everyday life for the next decade. "We've traveled incredibly far on that 'fuel,' however, now we definitely need some new one. We may, by the way, be standing somewhere on its threshold right now, but we simply don't realize it yet."
4. Machine Learning, Neural Networks, and Generative Artificial Intelligence
Despite the fact that machine learning and neural networks are still primarily associated with the backend, Sergei Moskvin claims that they are becoming increasingly important in the world of current mobile technologies. Today, a conventional top smartphone cannot, by definition, have a separate chip for neural network computing on board. And more and more of our familiar functions rely on machine learning in their work.
"The most obvious example in this regard is modern mobile photography. Hampered by the physical limitations of existing optical sensors that have to be embedded in invariably miniaturized physical housings, most smartphone manufacturers have made tremendous progress in recent years in perfecting self-learning ML algorithms for image processing.
Generative AI, primarily in the ChatGPT form, has caused a great stir over the last year. It has already had a serious impact on direct software development as well—hardly any programmer does not use generative AI in his work as an effective tool for increasing his own productivity. Of course, this fully applies to mobile developers as well.
By the way, it is very likely that neural networks will soon become the very "fuel" for the new technological revolution I mentioned above. They have already revolutionized a lot of things, and it is possible that this is just the tip of the iceberg. On the other hand, blockchain also promised us a true revolution some time ago, but as the years go by, the hype around this technology seems to be slowly but steadily waning."
5. Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality
According to Sergei, VR, AR, and MR remain other not-new but still very promising areas of mobile technologies.
"Quite and very promising Apple's developments look, embodied this summer in finally announced, but not yet released a 'Vision Pro' mixed reality headset. The company positions its novelty not as another pair of smart glasses or another MR helmet, which is on the market and so already uncountable, but as nothing less than the world's first full-fledged 'spatial computer.' This positioning sounds very serious, and I would like to believe that the company has really good reasons to call it so. Anyway, historical experience shows that Apple is really good at creating truly market-turning products. However, misfires can still occur at every moment—no one is immune to them."
Sergei Moskvin says that all kinds of such devices and software have been on the market for a long time, but their competent realization in such a way as to finally overcome the level of just "cool trinkets" is this very boundary, which no one has not managed to overcome yet. And Apple, he believes, may finally be close to that crucial technological milestone.
"After all, no one knows or can know how things will turn out in the end and where the next technological breakthrough is waiting for us—will it be VR/AR/MR, or machine learning and artificial intelligence, or quantum computing, or something completely different that doesn't even exist yet and that we don't even know about. In the meantime, all we should do is follow Steve Jobs' precept of 'stay hungry, stay foolish' and never stop endlessly searching, exploring and inventing."
