How is IoT Revamping App Development Industry?

Wondering what IoT means to mobile app development industry? How does it affect the world of mobile applications? Find here in this article.

12:16 11 October 2019

IoT, the technology of Connecting Things, has brought a disruptive transformation in the business world. It has entered into almost every business domain, be it healthcare, education, insurance, automation, or finance, and provided them with ample opportunities in terms of easier payment processes and effective customer experience.

But, to everyone’s utter surprise, the technology is poised to bring a revolutionary change in the mobile app development industry too. It is expected to bring better opportunities and improve the existing landscape, giving app development companies a whole new world to work in.

Something about which we will talk in detail in this article, but first let’s refresh our knowledge about IoT.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The simplest answer to what is Internet of Things is that it is the technology that connects all the electronic components together and encourage the sharing of information in real-time and with minimal human intervention. 

The technology is also called Internet of Everything (IoE) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication, and is expected to make a market of $7.065B by the year 2020. In fact, it is predicted that there will be more than 64B IoT-based devices in the market by the year 2025, with only 7B existing till the end of 2018. 

With this covered, let’s jump directly to the impact of IoT on mobile app industry.

6 Ways IoT Affects Mobile App Development

Change in Infrastructure

As more and more IoT-based mobile applications that employ the power of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other such connectivity technologies to interact with each other are stepping into the market, the ecosystem is getting heavily occupied. Also, the cloud performance is lowering down, with all these apps relying upon Cloud servers for storing and exchanging information.

This as a whole is creating an urgency of changing the infrastructure among mobile app development companies. Or suffer from lower performance and limited memory consumption options.

 

Enhancement in Design

In the case of mobile app development, the team has to focus on factors like battery consumption and memory space while designing an application.

However, when it comes to building an IoT based mobile app, the app development companies have to bring various other factors into consideration, such as hardware devices’ configuration, the type of connectivity technology used (WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, etc), the screen size, and more.

This, as a whole, make it necessary for the mobile app developers to overhaul their traditional design approach and come up with the one that fit to the environment encompassing all these factors.

 

Higher Need for Security

In an IoT ecosystem, almost any two devices or mobile apps can interact with each other and exchange information. This enhances productivity, but at the same time put the security at stake. It proves out to be an easier and efficient source of information for cyber attackers and competitors.

This makes it imperative for app development companies to be familiar with each and every element of their application, introduce the best app testing and security tools and practices into the development process. And continue the practice of checking for bugs and loopholes even after the application is live in the marketplace.

And this way, deliver a secure and enhanced experience to their target user base.

More Efficiency

The IoT based software and mobile applications are designed such that they automate most of the processes and simplify every process. Also, they are created in a manner that they diagnose the risks and issues across the network and report in real-time. This eventually reduces the human efforts and enhances efficiency and productivity in the whole development environment.

 

Cost-Effectiveness

In the case of IoT, a centralized platform/software is designed to manage all the end user devices and their respective information. This makes it easier for business people and app developers to store and operate with the consumer data efficiently and effectively. Something that eventually lower down the cost of developing and maintaining an IoT system too.

 

Shift to Hybrid App Development Approach

Last but not least, IoT technology is bringing a dramatic shift from native app development to hybrid development approach. It is encouraging app developers to look ahead to introduce those UI/UX design elements that look and operate efficiently on varied devices, OS versions, and platforms.

Wrapping Up

So, as covered in this article, Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming the mobile industry and encouraging app development companies to rework on their development strategies. What’s more, the market scope of the technology is growing with every passing minute, making it nearly impossible for mobile application developers to overlook the technology while building application for any business domain.