Top Mobile Trends 2016: Technologists Predict

2015 was a year of change for the tech industry. PHP 7 was released. And the consumer wearable market expanded with the widespread sale of Apple Watch. We shouldn’t expect anything less of 2016. After all, the only thing constant in the tech industry is…change.

From improved compatibility to better offline user experience, can you hear the drum beat in the distance? With changes predicted by the MentorMate team, 2016 will be a year of continuing industry revolution.

Keep reading or skip right to our top mobile trends 2016 eBook linked below.

Front end web forecast

ECMAscript 2015. Used for client-side web scripting, ECMAscript was first released back in 2011. This year Edition 6 was approved and published. In 2016, we expect full support in all browsers not just Internet Explorer Edge. 

Progressive web apps. Embracing the truth has been a long time coming. With the rapid evolution of form factors it’s become more cumbersome to develop and test native apps. Enter the Progressive Web App. Like a native app, it’s accessed through a button on the home screen and can even send push notifications to users’ devices. Unlike traditional apps, it’s fully responsive regardless of screen size or operating system. Better yet, as users engage more with the experience load times improve — even with less than ideal connectivity. They provide serious flexibility on the client side caching assets and other resources. Progressive web apps will help achieve improved user experience in offline web access.

Angular 2. Chances are good we will see a release by the end of 2015. (Currently it’s in beta.) Start preparing for the new version now to anticipate any backwards compatibility issues.

Hybrid apps. They are here to stay. 2016 will bring even better support and better performance by using Chrome WebView in Android and WKWebView API in iOS. How it helps? Developers can load web content in a native app bridging the divide between web and app experiences.

Typscript. Microsoft’s Javascript-typed preprocessor is achieving great acceptance of the community. We predict even more in 2016. As an added bonus, the tools for it are open source.

AMP HTML. With the Accelerated Mobile Pages project, Google hopes to bring greater speed despite increasingly rich, media-heavy content to the mobile browsing experience. The framework (AMP HTML) built from pre-existing technologies holds promise to deliver an agile experience for mobile browsers hungry for content. Already, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn are planning to integrate pages with the new framework. AMP HTML hold promise to be the early MVP of 2016.

—Zlati Pehlivanov, Front End Software Development Manager

2016 design trends

Creativity grows within recognized patterns. Designing a cutting-edge, yet functional experience isn’t always about breaking the mold. UX has become so pattern-centric that many design teams are looking to innovate artistically within recognizable sequences rather than pushing the experiential boundaries.

Experiences as tools. Users are inviting more and more digital systems into their lives as tools to help them get things done. The expectation is these tools are not only functional but easy to use and look good. Smart watches are a great example of design as a tool. Users want and expect the right amount of information needed to accomplish a task at any given moment. Too much and there is something in the way, too little and useful action can’t be accomplished.

Microinteractions as tools. For a specific interaction — one-click shopping for example — there is an expectation that systems used regularly know just enough about a user to not be creepy but to be helpful. If I log into an account to purchase a product, I don’t want to fill in my information more than once. Ever. Businesses must adapt to and anticipate the ease with which consumers expect to gain value from the web.

—Annika Seaberg, Creative Director

Responsive web advancements

The responsive web is bigger and better. Not only is Google penalizing sites that are not responsive, but many businesses consider responsive web to be a viable alternative to native apps. Companies need to be in the smart phone market somehow, but it doesn’t always make sense to go native. Much of it comes down to what functionality devices can offer as opposed to what a browser can offer. That said, audiences will always have a preference, and the safe bet is to explore both web and native app.

—Annika Seaberg, Creative Director

The responsive web will bring mobility to more users. Native applications will become more specific and business-oriented. The Enterprise will continue to progress and start moving to mobile applications, either native or mobile web depending on the purpose.

—Eleonora Todorova, Android/Java Software Development Manager

Internet of Things expansion

IoT tech continues to expand. Internet of things devices, home automation, the list goes on. We saw this trend take off last year, and now the snowball of interest has continued to build with companies like Google acquiring home automation devices like Nest and then spinning them off under the Alphabet restructure, allowing Nest to retain more of the agility and independence it once had. We see JavaScript as a perfect fit for any asynchronous hardware.

—Zlati Pehlivanov, Front End Software Development Manager

The native applications will work with other hardware devices and we will be able to see the expansion of Internet of things. The world will be more connected.

—Eleonora Todorova, Android/Java Software Development Manager

Top mobile trends 2016: Final thoughts

Security will continue to be top of mind. How can we protect the data we all generate every day? How can we keep it private? Not to ignore the elephant in the room, what do we do with all that data? Information must be used in a meaningful way. That’s where Big Data comes in to play. There will be more analysis of the data along with changes in the way it is structured so we can make meaningful decisions.

Android advances will focus on user experience, wearables, enterprise and Security. When talking about enterprise, we shouldn’t forget the old and powerful Java. We expect more and more movement in this direction by adding integrations to other systems, bringing capabilities to the already working systems and expanding Java technologies.

—Eleonora Todorova, Android/Java Software Development Manager

Read more on the top mobile trends 2016.

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