Killer and Deathly App Trends 2015 (and beyond)

Travel Mobile continues to be among the highest adopted mobile Apps. The features are expanding as the Apps are trying to develop differentiators and stickiness. Frequent and casual travelers both want the convenience on the go and not have to call into a service center. While other Apps, such as banks and service providers, are about making it harder to reach a representative who can provide customer service. They have the consumer in a deadly-embrace.

Killer App or clutter? What's next?

Motivational Design

Quiet and playful interfaces. Think of your favorite Apps, the ones you enjoy using, not the ones you have to use. They are fun, non-distracting with the right features that are easy to find -- not the annoying predictive interface that is always wrong, nags and interferes with your thoughts. Research In Motion had it right by reducing "think points" and "counting clicks." That design process has all but disappeared in the contemporary Apps.

Designers are also creating apps that accommodate mobile challenges, partial user attention and interruption, or that exploit technologies with novel features and "wow" factors. Leading consumer apps are setting high standards for user interface design, so organizations must master new skills and work with new partners to meet growing user expectations. The consumer is also pushing these expectations into the enterprise (business Apps). Just as they pushed the iPhone into the BlackBerry's sacred domain.

Multi Platform Development Tools

Tools to support the "3 x 3" horizon — three platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) and three architectures (native, hybrid and mobile Web).

Sensors - New and Improved

The mobile device is little more a human behaviors sensor with a phone feature. Sensors are there to augment your lifestyle and pick-pocket your [digital] wallet. It is your portable billboard and you are its captive consumer. If you don't behave, then an administrator sitting at a cloud console, can turn off your car, block your internet, invade your bank accounts -- paranoid?? Not really, it happens and it is trending upward as the laws that apply are being evaded since you opt'ed-in when you did not read your terms of use.

Wearable

The terminology and current world of wearables are old fads renewed, but ultimately everyone will have a wearable remote (sensing) device. If you don't want to purchase that smart-underwear with its built-in life monitor, your insurance company may insist on it and your health provider will be watching it from the central command center.

WiFi More Powerful, More Pervasive

WiFi is a commodity, ubiquitous and expected at all venues. Does it have the capacity to handle the random influx and peaks? New technology for improved telemetry (where are you, where were you) and bandwidth at the edge of the limits of Physics. Who is the provider? The carrier or the ISP -- or maybe Starbucks. Don't think they aren't thinking of having a community network that has global reach. When they do, then McDonalds has to follow.

Internet of Things or Smart Objects

Whatever you want to call them, they are here and finding more uses to achieve demanding regulations, crowded air waves, convenience and generally a fully connected social lifestyle.