The Future of Android App Development in 2023

Android established itself as a leading mobile platform long ago. Today, most mobile manufacturers should think of including Android app creation into their business development strategies as its market share comprises 71.96% of all mobile operating systems, only ceding almost 30% of the market to iOS.

It’s evident that Google strives to preserve the monopoly of Android in the mobile development market and will remain popular long ahead of 2023. Thus Google offers more and more breathtaking technologies and outstanding tools for building Android-based apps year after year.

Meanwhile, Android-wide dissemination also leads to increased competition among the companies that build their software for this mobile platform, making it harder for the apps to stand out. That’s why, for companies with Android-based apps, it’s essential to pay close attention to the latest Android development trends and properly implement them in their mobile solutions.

In this article, we’ll have a look at the Android development trends that will be relevant in 2023.

Android Development Trends 2023

In 2022, there were over 2.68 million mobile apps in the Google Play Store and this impressive figure is expected to increase even more in 2023, intensifying the competition among mobile apps. Therefore, app owners are constantly trying to improve the user experience in their apps by implementing the innovations brought in by Google.

Here are the latest Android app development trends that companies should pay attention to make their apps more engaging, robust, and user-friendly.

Android Instant Apps

Android instant apps are a time-saving technology that allows quickly checking an app without its explicit installation on a device. It saves end-users time and helps them to use the app much faster. Moreover, Android instant apps don’t take up much space on gadgets, preventing system interruptions due to full memory.

E-commerce businesses and game developers considerably benefit from instant apps. Technology makes it much easier for businesses to advertise their products and attract potential customers. Now, users don’t need to go to the Google Play Store in search of an app, instead, they can run into these apps in Google search results and instantly open them to check. Though to install the full app version they still need to visit the app store.

It’s easy to enhance an Android app with the Instant app features. Google provides developers with Android Instant Apps SDK and App Links Assistant which allows converting existing mobile apps into Instant Apps or building a new one from scratch. Meanwhile, the Android App Bundle will alleviate the app release and publishing process.

AI and Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies are widely used for Android development. They underpin such digital solutions as voice assistants and chatbots, Big Data processing, analytics, automation, and many others.

Implementation of AI and ML in Android apps help businesses to enhance their customers’ experience. For example, they can:

• Automate routine tasks such as classifying tickets by topic, sending messages and reminders;
• Improve user recommendations, forming them based on customer preferences;
• Enhance filter configuration on E-commerce sites;
• Customize a mobile app in line with customer preferences and its deeper connection with the users like reminders configuring, personalization of app layout, or even provision of special discounts or prices for regular customers.

It’s expected that the global AI market will reach the figure of $126 bln by 2025, significantly contributing to global economic growth and thus further influencing the mobile app development sphere. Therefore, such trends as AI-based chatbots, voice assistants, smart predictions, and others will be widely implemented in mobile app development and become a must-have feature for any app to survive in the market in 2023.

IoT

The two mobile app development trends in 2023 are 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. 5G is expected to give a dramatic rise to IoT, promoting its spread from Smart Houses to Smart Cities.

Apart from the bright prospects for the future, many businesses are already reaping substantial benefits from embedding IoT technology in their mobile apps. Now IoT solutions are used in:

• Smart fitness trackers empowered by GPS, accelerometer, and gyroscope devices for better movements, location, and workout tracking;
• Smart Homes sensors to track lighting, temperature, security status, and possible water or gas leakage;
• Smart Home gadgets to connect a microwave, a fridge, a lighting system, and others into one network which can be managed in a mobile app manually or with the help of voice assistants;
• Industrial IoT for tracking production flow and preventive maintenance, when all the stats, statuses, and analytics can be checked simply in one mobile app;
• Transportation and logistics when each product route can be traced in an app by scanning a barcode on the label.

Blockchain Technology

Blockchain is one of the technologies that can bring fundamental changes to how security is performed online. It makes the basis for the third web generation (Web 3.0) revolution – a public network built on distributed ledger technology. This type of network allows for better sensitive data management while making customer service more personalized.

Although Web 3.0 is in its infancy, Blockchain has already led to various alterations in different industries thereby preparing the world for Web 3.0. For example, it has a major influence on banking and financial institutions, supply chain management, the energy industry, real estate, and other spheres, making financial transactions and sensitive data exchange more secure and bringing down operational costs.

Moreover, blockchain technology can be used for building decentralized apps. They can help to increase business operations transparency and prevent unauthorized access to business apps, moving us closer to the epoch of Web 3.0.

In 2023, there will be more companies that would like to try their hand at starting their own cryptocurrency platforms or building mobile apps with enhanced security. For this, they will refer to professional blockchain development companies to build digital solutions customized specially for their business requirements.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Accelerated mobile pages (AMP) is a smart technology by Google that makes life easier for publishers, e-commerce companies, advertisers, SMM managers, and other specialists that rely on the power of SEO in their work. AMP apps improve a website’s ranking in the Google search, enhance its performance, and make it work much faster.

However, AMP is a website technology that runs perfectly on Android platforms. This web solution is quickly becoming widespread. According to Web Technology Surveys,  AMP usage is slowly but persistently growing. For example, in the past year, AMP usage increased from 0.037% to 0.064% – this may seem a tiny implementation rate by comparison with the usage of HTML technology, but it shows a 70% growth in just a year.

AR and VR Technology

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality aren’t new technologies in Android development. For example, Google platform ARCore has been allowing building augmented reality experiences for the Android platform since March 2018. The platform uses various APIs to provide AR experiences to its users and is also capable of motion tracking, environmental understanding, and light estimation.

While implementing AR/VR technologies in their mobile apps, companies take their customer experiences to a new level. For example, IKEA launched its Place app that enables consumers to see if the furniture they would like to buy fits in their homes. Google Maps has an AR upgrade that helps to better navigate around a city by placing a virtual map over real street views.

In 2023, there will be more companies that will experiment with VR/AR technologies and successfully implement them in their apps. Markets and Markets predicts that the global AR/VR market is expected to grow from $37 bln to 114.5 bln by 2027, and the market growth rate will be 25.3% in 5 years. The main driving factors for that will become the increased use of AR/VR in healthcare, retail, E-commerce, E-learning, medical training, and other spheres as well as strong government funding.

On-Demand Apps

On-demand apps were highly popular during the Coronavirus period  and will continue to be frequently used in the post-pandemic time. These are the apps that provide quick services like Uber or pizza delivery services.

On-demand apps are used in various niches such as retail, food delivery, healthtech, grocery, and many others. These apps help many customers to quickly address their demands with a swipe of a finger, whether it’s a food delivery or finding a babysitter for a dog. During the pandemic, people have learned how precious their time is and aren’t ready to spend half a day searching for service providers. Therefore, in 2023, the popularity of on-demand apps will grow even more.

M-commerce

M-Commerce, also known as mobile commerce, involves any monetary transactions customers can carry out using their smartphones. They include:

The M-Commerce services make payment procedures quick and convenient, therefore many businesses include mobile payments in their apps. Above all, they can be easily built into any mobile app as Google provided its payment platform Google Pay app for Android and iOS app developers, making M-Commerce services even more secure and easy to use.

In 2023, more and more businesses will opt for mobile payments in their apps. Business Insider predicts that M-Commerce volume will rise from $359.32 bln in 2021 to $728.28 bln in 2025, accounting for 44.2% of retail E-commerce sales in the US.

Multiplatform Development (Flutter)

Released in 2017 by Google, the Flutter framework made a sensation for its ability to build native apps for both Android and iOS mobile platforms without sacrificing their native app functionality. Since then, Flutter remains one of the most popular solutions for multiplatform development, overtaking React Native in popularity in 2021.

Many developers have already tested and enjoyed Flutter when building mobile apps as it’s highly flexible and provides a variety of development solutions. Using Flutter, they can develop native apps much faster and provide a minimum viable product to the market within a short time.

There are already a number of apps developed with Flutter such as Alibaba, Google Ads, Reflectly, and many others. The technology is expected to be a leading mobile development solution in 2023, surpassing other mobile multi platform development tools by performance and convenience.

Kotlin MultiPlatform

Kotlin is another multi platform mobile development option and a decent alternative to Flutter. It’s a statically typed programming language that can be used for developing iOS and Android solutions. Many mobile developers prefer Kotlin as it’s:

• Expressive and concise;
• Perfectly combines with Java and JavaScript;
• Suits for asynchronous programming which makes common mobile app tasks much faster;
• Allows building safe and stable code;
• Runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Java virtual machine (JVS);
• Allows using a single codebase for iOS and Android business logic.

In 2019, Google claimed Kotlin to be the most preferred option for building Android-based applications and since then the company has been investing in the technology development. Therefore, Kotlin is expected to hold its leading position among the most prominent Android development tools in 2023 and beyond.

Google Assistant/Chatbot

Adding AI/ML-powered chatbots or Google assistant to mobile applications helps companies easily conquer new customers and provide a positive customer experience. These digital assistants can take up many roles in a mobile app from product recommenders to product searchers, to in-app customer support. It’s easy to embed Google Assistant in various Android-driven mobile apps as Google provides a special developers kit with all the ready APIs for that.

In 2023, embedding a mobile chatbot or Google assistant in a mobile app will be essential for E-commerce and offline retail businesses. According to the latest Google survey, 56% of in-store buyers use smartphones to shop or reach the needed items. Meanwhile, 59% of shoppers state that the possibility to shop on mobile is important for them as they can better understand which brand or retailer to opt for.

Motion Layout

MotionLayout is a layout for Android that helps mobile app developers create interactive animations and manage them in the app and widgets. Although the feature is relatively new, it supports older Android versions, starting from API 14.

With Motion Layout, mobile developers can create touch-controlled motions, and handle complex motions and layout transitions. It’s easy to modify or animate UI elements such as buttons or title bars using the layout. The powerful feature of MotionLayout is that it’s declarative and it can describe all the animations and transitions in the XML format.

Android Enterprise Apps

Companies of various sizes can build custom Android-empowered mobile apps. Google provides opportunities for creating standalone mobile solutions for particular businesses as well as developing complex networks of apps for enterprises. These can be any kind of apps that run on Android devices from scanners to smartphones. This becomes possible due to the collection of modern technologies Google provides for building top-notch applications.

The Android development kit that allows for building enterprise-level solutions includes:

• Kotlin – a programming language officially approved by Google for Android development in 2019.
• Android Studio – the official Android IDE with advanced development tools for swift and errorless coding.
• Android App Bundle – a useful tool for effective app release and posing in the PlayStore.
• Jetpack Compose – a modern toolkit for building performant UIs.
• Android Jetpack – an API toolkit with over 70 Android libraries that help quickly create app architecture, UI design, manage databases, and much more.

Bottom Line

Android has been having a firm foothold as a number-one platform in the mobile software development market for years. Therefore, those businesses that want to build effective and successful mobile apps as well as attract wide audiences turn to Android development services.

On the other hand, due to the large Android app base, the competition among the companies that build Android-based software is fierce. Companies have to constantly upgrade their mobile apps to effectively meet customer expectations. If you’re also considering empowering your Android app with the latest features or looking for ways to build a custom Android solution from scratch then you need a team of professional mobile developers. Our mobile experts have much mobile development experience and effectively implement the most complicated technologies in mobile apps. Don’t hesitate to contact us and share your mobile app idea.