Microsoft, Facebook, and the Future of Apps

Xamarin Evolve 2016 - One of the major app developer conferences

Today, only 43% percent of the world’s population is connected to the internet. According to Facebook’s “State of Connectivity” report we’re still a few years away from the threshold of half of the world connected. When that threshold is crossed the vast majority of those users will be experiencing the internet for the first time through apps. We got a peek into how things are changing for app developers at Microsoft's Build conference, Facebook's F8, and most recently at Xamarin's Evolve. Looking at how the mobile app world is changing, there are a few app elements I believe will be standard for these new mobile users in the next 3-5 years when half of the world comes online.  

Personalized Through Data

There are some services (exp: Wells Fargo, Nike, Sprint) that I have been a loyal customer of for over a decade. Vast amounts of information about me lives throughout their databases. Everything from what drives me to buy something, elements of my lifestyle, even information on where I am when I engage with those companies. With all of this information, these organizations still fall short in delivering any sort of customized experience on my mobile device. Simple services have been made more convenient by using features of a smartphone like GPS powering simple requests like "Where is the closest ATM?". There is no combination of features of my phone and the data that some of these companies have on me. This means my experience is no different from someone who has just started paying for those services today but has the same type of phone. In the next few years, I'd expect services to leverage their databases and combine that with smartphone components. Mobile apps will have features that are powered by data to create rich user experiences.

Conversation as the UI

Steve Jobs famously said "Design is how it works". Mobile developers have gotten incredibly good at creating fluid, natural user interfaces with gesture controls. The constraints of limited screen size and gestures like swiping have made it much easier for app developers to get creative when building user interfaces. The evolution of this is voice. This is the ultimate user interface in that it is completely natural to the user and easy to understand. There's no learning curve; as humans we've been communicating with speech and text our entire lives. The ability to embed this as a feature in mobile apps has become easier with the opening up of Artificial Intelligence platforms like Microsoft’s Cortana and Facebook's bots within Messenger. App users of the future are going to expect some sort of fluid user experience via speech and it will need to be powered by an AI platform. 

All the Platforms

Currently, it’s common for apps to only be available on only one of the major mobile platforms (exp: iOS only). However, as businesses seek to gain 10’s or 100’s of millions of users, there will be a need to be present on every platform. This means having the app look and feel the same where the users are whether that’s iOS, Android, Windows Phone and new devices. Users will expect a consistent app experience from apps across their other connected devices like tablets, TVs, smart watches, and even Virtual Reality headsets. App developers will need to broaden their thinking when it comes to the platforms they have their app running. Making these tools available across platforms was only made easier with announcements at Xamarin Evolve and will continue to be an area of focus for Facebook as well.

Those are just a few of the major developments in apps that I see coming down the road. What features do you think are going to become standard over the next few years? Have any examples of apps that show off any of these features?