The Latest Android App Development Trends

The modern day lifestyle is very hectic and fast-paced. People these days are not finding the time to do their daily chores like grocery shopping, shopping for fish and meat, doing their laundry, cooking food, etcetera. Hence, they have turned to various on-demand delivery apps to fulfill their daily chore requirements. Among mobile apps, Android apps are far more popular and widely used than iOS apps. The reasons for it along with the latest android app development trends are stated later. So, kindly read on till the end of this blog post.

Why Android Apps Are Still Trending And Used Globally

As of today, Android apps are used globally while iOS apps are mostly used only in the US. Android apps currently hold about 74% of the app market share while iOS apps hold only about 25% of the app market share. The remaining measly 1% of the app market share is held by Fuschia and others. The major reasons for the far greater popularity and usage of Android apps globally are as listed below.

Google Had Introduced The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) Policy In 2007

To compete with Apple’s iphones and iOS, Google in 2007 had introduced the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) policy. It had also officially announced that the Android OS would be employed in the smartphones manufactured by it.

The OHA policy meant that any smartphone manufacturing company was free to adopt Android as its smartphones’ OS whereas Apple did not make the license for its iOS, opensource.

Hence, a lot of smartphone manufacturing firms including giants in the industry like Samsung, Oppo, Redmi, Lava, etcetera had adopted the Android OS in their smartphones thus contributing to the global popularity and usage of the Android OS.

Android Smartphones Are More Cost Effective Than Iphones And Ipads

Even a person who’s not tech savvy in any corner of the world would tell you that the “budget Android smartphone” is definitely far more cost effective than the “budget iphone”. Hence, the Android OS and Android smartphones sell much more than iphones, ipads, and the iOS. Till date, Apple’s exclusivity based marketing has not been able to compete effectively with Google’s affordable smartphone solutions.

The Android OS Can Be Run On Pretty Much Any Smartphone

The Android OS has a simple yet efficient working mechanism. It can be installed and run on almost all types of smartphones and other smart devices. It can even be installed and run on iphones and ipads if somebody was skilled enough to do it.

Many smart devices like smartwatches and other smart devices use the Android OS. Hence, transfer of files and data is easily possible between various Android smart devices.

Moreover Android smart devices have a lot of hardware compatibility. For example, the charger used to charge your Android smartphone can also be used to charge your Android smartwatch and so on. This level of hardware compatibility and flexibility is lacking in the iOS ecosystem.

Android’s AI Has Caught Up With The IOS In Features And Sophistication

iOS and its apps initially had a higher degree of software sophistication than Android and its apps. Virtual assistants like iOS’s “Siri” was one of the major types of sophisticated software that Android smartphones and other Android smart devices lacked in.

However, Google had launched its own virtual assistant in 2016 thus bridging the gap in user experience (UX) that Android smartphones and other smart Android devices had with Apple’s smart devices.

Google has now developed Android’s AI so much that Android can now support even very advanced and graphics-heavy applications. The edge in mobile hardware technology that Apple once enjoyed is now ebbing away as cutting edge Android smartphones with uber-efficient hardware technologies are now being developed by giants in the smartphone manufacturing industry like Samsung, Oppo, HTC, Lava, etc.

In other words, the Android OS is now on par with the iOS in terms of sophistication, complex app support capability, and efficiency of working.

There’s A Greater Number And Variety Of Android Smartphones Out There Than Iphones And Ipads

Iphones and ipads are manufactured only by Apple, which normally releases two to three models of iphones and three to four models of ipads every year. This means that if one is not satisfied with the new releases of Apple’s iphones and ipads, he or she will have to wait about a year to try the next models.

This is not the case with Android smartphones and other Android smart devices. Google’s OHC policy allows smartphone manufacturers to manufacture any kind of hardware for Android smartphones.

Therefore, there is a far greater number and variety of Android smartphones out there than iphones or ipads. The availability of far greater smartphone buying options in terms of brands and models for Android users at any given point of time prevents disappointments for them and makes shopping for Android smart devices, a pleasurable experience.

An example of this is the flip model of Android smartphones that Samsung had introduced about a decade ago. Flip model iphones (both horizontal and vertical) were not available back then and are still not available. This just goes to show how spoilt Android users are for choices when it comes to buying Android smartphones and other Android smart devices.

Get A Load Of The Latest Trends In Mobile App Development

Both the Android OS and its smartphones’ hardwares have advanced tremendously in a decade. The Android OS and Android smartphones are now able to support even very sophisticated apps like the ones listed below.

Now that Android smartphones have ‘Google Assistant’ built into them, they are able to give a user experience (UX) that is as good as iphones and ipads that have the ‘Siri’ virtual assistant built into them. Some of the latest android app development trends are as listed below.

Development Of Cross-Platform Apps

Cross platform apps are those apps that can run on the Android OS as well as the iOS. The discovery of the possibility of developing cross-platform apps was ground-breaking about seven years back because cross-platform apps take the least amount of development time and maintenance.

Generally, mathematical analysis apps, business analytics apps, on-demand delivery apps, gaming apps, and AR and VR apps are cross-platform apps.

Cross-platform apps can be developed using either of these three popular cross-platform app development kits. They use different front end and back end coding technologies to develop cross platform apps, which are listed below.

Flutter: The Flutter cross-platform app development kit was released by Google in May 2017. It employs the Dart programming language to develop the frontend user interface section of the app. It then employs the upgraded version of the C++ coding technology to design backend app functionalities. Cross-platform apps designed using Flutter are renowned for their swift and seamless performance.

Xamarin: The Xamarin cross-platform app development kit was released by Microsoft in February 2016. It uses the C# coding technology to design frontend and backend app features and functionalities. Xamarin is especially good when it comes to designing gaming apps due to the vast predefined libraries that C# has. ‘Skulls of the Shogun’ is one of the most popular gaming app designed using Xamarin.

React Native: This cross-platform app development kit was released by Meta Platforms Inc. in March 2015. It uses React JS (Javascript) to design frontend app features and Node JS to design backend app functionalities.

React Native was the first globally popular cross-platform app development kit to be released into the market. The design and release of this platform happened after one of Facebook’s engineers named Jordan Walke discovered that the web programming language, Javascript can be used to design cross-platform apps that retained about 90% of their source code when switching from Android to iOS and vice versa.

Development Of AI And Machine Learning Based Apps

As smartphones and other smart and computing devices become more advanced, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is gaining prominence and widespread usage. Many apps in every category have now become AI-based.

For example, Prisma and Face App are two popular AI-based photo editing apps. Many booking apps now have chat bots and voice search features built into them that are based on the AI technology.

Many messaging apps, live chat apps, future sales and business environment predicting apps, food delivery apps, etcetera make use of the Machine Learning (ML) technology for their operations.

Usage Of The Android Jetpack

The Android Jetpack is a more advanced native Android app development platform than Android Studio versions. It has a vast collection of predefined libraries, advanced native Android app development tools, and the latest Android app development guidelines to create a better app development experience for native Android app developers. Hence, it has become popular and widely used these days.

The Android Jetpack has the Kotlin coding technology integrated into it to enable the development of native Android apps. It also has built-in tools that enables Android app developers to maintain and upgrade their Android apps with ease. It also has built-in tools that enable in-app notifications to keep Android app users informed (KCI model). Last but not least, the Android Jetpack has built-in tools that enable the creation of simple yet engaging UIs for native Android apps.

Development Of On-Demand Delivery Apps

As the modern day lifestyle becomes ever more hectic and fast-paced, people are not finding the time these days to do their daily chores like laundry, cooking food, grocery shopping, shopping for fish and meat, etcetera. Hence, they have turned to on-demand delivery apps to fulfill their daily chore needs.

Since Android smartphones are very popular and widely used in developing nations like India, China, Malaysia, etcetera; most of the on-demand delivery apps these days are native Android apps and are coded in Kotlin.

Development Of IoT Technology Based Apps

IoT stands for Internet of Things. It is one of the latest technologies developed by mankind. The IoT technology enables smart devices of any kind to automatically communicate with each other and exchange information among other tasks.

For example, your IoT enabled refrigerator and IoT enabled car may communicate with each other. Your smart refrigerator can send you notifications on your smart car when your groceries need to be replenished. The IoT technology greatly reduces the need for manual labor in many walks of life and enables the automatic execution of many important tasks.

Many apps, especially Android apps these days are IoT based. The IoT app market size is expected to swell to USD 1.6 trillion by 2025. Edmodo, C-Pen, Nymi, etc. are some of the most popular IoT based education apps.

Similarly, IoT based healthcare apps like Cultfit automatically send your periodic health reports to your family doctor or health and fitness coach so that your health can be monitored and maintained in perfect condition.

What We Can Do For You

Having known the latest trends in app development, you might be thinking of developing popular types of native Android apps for your business. If so, kindly get in touch with us and we can certainly help you out.

For industries ranging from salon applications to restaurant aggregation, pick-up services, cloud kitchen, and beyond, we have amassed considerable proficiency in mobile app development. Our impressive app development portfolio and exhilarated client reviews are proof of our technical expertise and professionalism.