Mobile apps have become a ubiquitous part of our daily lives. We use them for everything from ordering food and staying connected with loved ones to monitoring our health and managing our finances. On average, Brits spend three hours per day on their mobile devices – and apps are what keep us there.
Smartphones and the apps that make us love them have only been around for a relatively short period of time but they’ve undergone a great deal of change in that time as the pace of technological advancement ramps up and up. Below, we’ll explore the gradual evolution of the app.
The birth of mobile apps
Though it wasn’t branded as such, the IBM Simon Personal Communicator is widely considered to be the first real example of a smartphone. Released in 1994, it offered features like a calendar, address book and a simple touchscreen interface.
But perhaps the beginning of the mobile app’s journey to the centre of our lives was the advent of simple games like the iconic Snake that came bundled on Nokia phones in the late 1990s. These simple but addictive games demonstrated the potential of mobile apps to engage users and make the mobile phone more than a communication device. They set a clear path to the hours we now while away on appealing diversions like bingo apps and full-length video games with dazzling graphics.
The rise of app stores
The real revolution in mobile app development came with the launch of Apple’s App Store and then Google Play (initially called Android Market) in 2008. These platforms transformed how apps were distributed and consumed, offering developers a centralised marketplace to reach global audiences. The App Store’s model of providing a wide array of applications through an easily accessible platform set a new standard, leading to exponential growth in app availability and diversity.
The explosion of app development
With easy ways to reach users established, the app development landscape exploded with innovation. Only a year after the major app stores launched, Angry Birds became a cultural phenomenon, establishing the phone as a gaming platform with a huge audience waiting to be tapped into.
The year 2010 saw the introduction of two revolutionary apps: Instagram and WhatsApp. The former became a major pillar of social media thanks to its focus on visual content, and you can draw a line between its impact and the enormous worldwide success of TikTok today. WhatsApp, meanwhile, redefined how we communicate by offering free, cross-platform messaging. These apps, among others, set benchmarks for user engagement and functionality, driving the industry forward.
Modern trends and future directions
The design space continues to be pushed by advancing technology. Today, we’re seeing increased integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning into apps, aimed at enhancing personalisation and user experience.
Augmented reality (AR), meanwhile, is not new to mobile audiences – it’s most prominently known from its use in the world-conquering Pokémon Go from 2016 – but it’s technology that’s being explored further with uses in gaming, shopping and beyond. Increasingly, it’s possible to virtually try on clothes, for example, using AR apps, before you commit to buying them. Innovations like this promise to continue as we scratch beyond the surface of app possibilities.
