IoT Examples for 2022

Wearables

Wearable technology is a general term that refers to an extremely wide range of electronic devices. This broad category includes smartwatches, rings, glasses, shoes and clothing equipped with sensors, a plethora of accessories, and even technology tattooed on the skin or implanted into the body.

Not only are these devices likely the most recognizable examples of IoT devices, their demand has recently exploded. Now, many big names companies – including Samsung, Google, and Apple – have invested heavily in developing wearables. Devices like these use a combination of software and sensors to collect information about the user.

While wearables are used for many purposes, the most common are health, fitness, and entertainment.

Vehicles

Other commonly recognized IoT examples include connected cars and driverless vehicles. Connected cars use fast transmissions to improve driver response time through better and more robust vehicle communication. These vehicles use a unified connectivity platform called Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (CV2X). This network is divided into four categories; Vehicle-to-Network (V2N), Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), and Vehicle-to-Pedestrians (V2P). Connected cars use this network, onboard sensors, and internet connectivity to optimize their operation and maintenance, as well as passenger comfort.

Additionally, autonomous, driverless vehicles also utilize the IoT. These vehicles use the power of IoT connectivity to update their driving algorithm based on driver data. In order to take on all the driving functions, autonomous vehicles need a constant flow of data collection and processing. This data includes variables like traffic conditions, the path taken, how to effectively navigate around an obstacle, and so on. All this data is shared wirelessly to the IoT system.

Smart Appliances

Another of the most common and well-known IoT examples is the smart home appliance. This is a broad area that includes a wide range of appliances, including smart refrigerators and thermostats. Smart appliances help save users time by granting control over the internet. Devices such as these aim to help you schedule, monitor, and improve your daily life. In fact, with smart appliances integrated into the home, you can now play an active role in every aspect of your home – whether you’re sitting in your living room, or half a world away.

Connected Healthcare

The next of our IoT examples is the Connected Healthcare System. The idea here is to connect healthcare systems and smart medical devices to aid in ones well-being. Combined with these smart medical devices, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) can provide powerful, high-quality medical services. This system supports and monitors critical data – data that can help make more informed clinical decisions.

The power of IoMT devices is that they monitor patients remotely. Smart devices, including wearables, can report events, like asthma or anxiety attacks, and emergencies, like heart failure. One example of a health wearable is a Continuous Glucose Monitoring system. Systems like these utilize a tiny glucose sensor, safely placed under the skin, to record data. This information is then relayed to the monitoring device – usually a smartphone – via radio transmission.

Barcode Readers

Modern, IoT empowered smart barcode readers have become a powerful tool for inventory management. These readers support an AI-based digital signal processing, and feature cloud data connections. Such devices make managing any inventory easier, and enhance the operations of logistics, warehousing, retail, and more.

What’s more, IoT barcode readers can also be used by customers as a part of their shopping experience. A shopping cart integrated with an IoT barcode reader utilized its AI-based sensors to detect products in the cart. This saves time at the checkout, creates a better customer experience, and tracks inventory accurately.

Supply Chain Management

Due to recent global events, the supply chain has become a major topic of concern and discussion. However, IoT devices have already begun revolutionizing supply chain management by making it much easier to know exactly where and how goods are stored, and when to expected their arrive at a specific destination. Smart supply chain management is constantly improving its predictions through smart routing and continuously updating algorithms.

IoT devices attached to packages offer immediate “after-incident” facts utilizing RFID and GPS. This allows for monitoring of a packages’ speed of movement and offers improved predictions regarding how goods will travel through the supply chain. IoT devices can also track other important parameters, such as humidity, temperature, exposure to atmosphere, light intensity, and more. What’s more, these devices can trigger other administrative tasks, such as supplier payments or further shipping. All this information allows for more informed supply chain decisions.

Industrial IoT

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) involves all the computers, individuals, and devices that allow for intelligent industrial operations by utilizing advanced data collection and analysis. This often results in business outcomes so meaningful, they’re transformative. The IIot has broad reach beyond the consumer and enterprise IoT market. In fact, the automotive industry, agricultural industry, and oil and gas industries each utilize IIoT applications in their own ways.

The IIot takes all of the advantages of the IoT and elevates them. This is most easily seen in industries where the stakes are high, and human error can be disastrous. In fact, in situations involving significant industrial hazards, IIoT can reduce human employees’ exposure to unsafe environments.

Agriculture

Our next IoT examples is related to smart agriculture. With a growing population, farmers today face many problems, but smart IoT devices are now available to help ease their burdens. Smart agriculture utilizes IoT devices to enhance many farm related activities. For example, devices monitor soil moisture levels, as well as soil nutrients, determine when the best time to harvest is, and can create fertilizer recommendations based on real-time soil conditions.

A few other real-world examples of IIoT for agriculture include:

• Silo Stock – Sensors placed in silos can detect weight, temperature, and humidity, as well as warn of leaks.
• Greenhouse Automation – Greenhouse sensors provide real-time information on greenhouse conditions and can alter them based on optimal setting.s
• Environmental & Weather Data – Smart IoT devices detect and report on real-time conditions.

Smart Cities

Some cities have begun actively consolidating IoT deployment across as many aspects of city management as they can. This holistic view is turning them into smart cities. This integration often includes a connected traffic management system, as well as city-run smart buildings that utilize a vast array of IoT devices and appliances. What’s more, smart cities may also incorporate private smart buildings, and may tie into smart grids to monitor an even larger IoT environment. This, in turn, provides an incredibly robust, real-time views of each significant element impacting any given jurisdiction.

Although the concept of the smart city is much more ambitious than smaller IoT deployments, the objective remains the same: to collect and analyze real-time data and provide insights for better decision making and more efficient, effective, and safer communities.

Smart Grids

As with most of our IoT examples, the concept of the electrical grid is something most people are familiar with: the means by which power is supplied to communities. A smart grid differs from this concept in one important way – the flow of data is two-way thanks to digital communications technology.

A smart grid relies on a connection with all the utility’s assets, such as substations and meters. This interconnectedness allows for constant monitoring of the demand and supply of electricity across the grid. That means the smart grid can detect, act, and react to a range of changes across multiple issues. Not only does this allow for more efficient use of energy, it also provides better access to energy across the entire grid. 

Closing Thoughts

IoT is already transforming many industries, and the pace of change is only accelerating. Advancements in technology will push consumer desire to incorporate more IoT devices into their everyday lives. What’s more, the advantages for enterprises can be found across every vertical and in a wide range of organizations.

In fact, regardless of industry, IoT deployment typically includes ROI such as:

• Lower operational costs;
• Improved productivity;
• Enhanced output;
• Improved safety;
• Increased security;
• Better quality control;
• Strengthened understanding of real-world activities.

Capitalizing on the opportunities the IoT offers requires necessary skill and expertise to set you apart from the crowd.

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Enterprise App Development Defined

Defining enterprise app development is fairly straightforward: it’s the process of creating applications for enterprise-sized businesses, specifically customized to meet their business needs. Once complete, these apps can then be deployed to the necessary platforms and devices.

The point of developing any enterprise application is to solve common pain points and provide users with an efficient and easy way to perform tasks. Enterprise apps often automate certain functions and workflows to help users work faster. What’s more, these apps have the ability to store, process, and manage large amounts of data, and provide business solutions based on the insights gathered.

No matter the goal, speed and scalability are critical to the process of developing apps for enterprises. Because of the complexity of workflows and the data gathered, building components that can scale at the beginning of the process will establish a path to a more successful end product. And the faster an app can be integrated and updated, the more likely it will be to meet – and exceed – expectations.

3 Common Categories of Enterprise Mobile Apps

Employee Level

The most basic category of enterprise mobile apps include things used by employees internally for managing communications and workflow. Applications in this category often have minimal features but allow managers to track project status. Apps like these provide a smoother workflow and offer real-time updates.

A well-known example of an employee-level enterprise app is the messaging app Slack. While offering communication speeds much faster than email, Slack provides more integrations than any other platform to its 10+ million active daily users. What’s more, with over 40% of Fortune 100 businesses using it, Slack has become the go-to tool for maximizing productivity.

Department Level

This next category of enterprise applications help the workflow of departments. For example, department level apps aid employees who perform similar tasks, like marketing or sales. Through these apps, executives can monitor productivity and manage entire departments.

CRMs are a great example of this kind of enterprise application for sales management. Most CRMs systematically log sales activity – like emails, calls, or meetings – and provide a snapshot of the entire department’s work.

Enterprise Level

The final category of enterprise apps is for connecting all the departments of a business in a single network – from employees to managers to executives. In this case, the goal for enterprise level apps is often to simplify the distribution and automation of work. This is done by providing everyone with all the necessary documents.

One example of this might be an inventory management app. Apps like these can track items across locations while monitoring both incoming and outgoing products. This helps to keep stock levels reasonable. What’s more, this kind of app can alert users when demand rises, and stock levels drop.

Enterprise App Features

When preparing for your enterprise app development process, it’s important to keep essential features like these in mind:

Automation

Regardless of which level your app will fulfill, all effective enterprise mobile apps help to manage and automate repetitive tasks. Through automation, you can save the user steps, helping them to complete their work faster, more accurately, and more efficiently.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Depending on what you hope to accomplish with your app, there is the possibility of it needing to process massive amounts of data and provide insights from that data. Today, there is no better way to handle these sorts of tasks than with AI and machine learning. The utilization of these technologies not only helps apps continually automate processes, but they also help the app improve itself, and offers greater insights into the app’s performance.

Data Management

All enterprise applications, regardless of their level, must handle a lot of data. For this reason, an effective data management strategy, as well as analytics and intelligent automation are critical. Having the ability to leverage this data and its insights lead to better employee decision-making.

IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of physical objects that are connected to, and exchange data with each other and the internet. This includes, for example, a vast array of “smart” devices, like refrigerators, watches, fire alarms, door locks, security systems, fitness trackers, medical sensors, and much more. Enterprise mobile apps that use IoT devices to monitor tasks and operations in a well-built and secure environment offer further insights and can make processes run even more smoothly.

Security

In today’s world of seemingly constant data breaches, security is always top of mind. All modern mobile apps should have security baked into the development process. This is especially true for enterprise mobile apps, given the amount of information that passes through them. Starting the development process with security as a priority, ensures you prevent and defend against future breaches.

Emerging Tech

One of the hallmarks of technology is that it continues to evolve. That means you need to keep up and ensure that your apps’ functionality and compatibility continues to evolve as well. In order to achieve this, your application needs to easily interface with new emerging technologies – or at least be easily updated so it can. This ensures a shorter development time for future versions.

The Cost of Enterprise App Development

How much your enterprise app will cost to develop, depends a great deal on its functionalities, project requirements, and type of app you want to build; this makes cost highly variable.

That said, you can calculate an estimate of your enterprise app development cost with this very simple equation:

Total Enterprise Mobile App Development Cost = Development Time x Cost/Hour

While this will only yield a basic estimation, it is a reliable tool when discussing costs, deciding on budgets, and choosing a development partner.

Choosing an App Development Partner

Whoever you choose to help you develop your application will play a critical role in the process. Ideally, you’ll want to partner with a team that has several years of experience, knowledgeable developers, and an eye for detail.

You’ll want to choose a company that is willing to work with your specific requirements and will create a tailor-made solution to help improve your business model. What’s more, you may want to consider a team that has the ability to work with a broad range of technologies and has experience in a variety of fields. In turn, this helps ensure a holistic approach to solving your company’s pain points.

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VR Defined

Before we dive into how VR application development works, it’s important that we define our terms. VR technology works as a sort of science fiction teleporter, which brings users from their own environment into a fully immersive simulated one. While it does not physically transfer people to another space, it does give the user that feeling.

This differs from augmented reality (AR), where additional information is laid over the real world. One wildly popular example of AR is all the filters available for video conferencing apps. It is also different from mixed reality (MR), where both digital and real-world objects exist in the user’s perception at the same time. One such example of MR is from education; the Microsoft Hololens has been used by Western Reserve University in Ohio to teach anatomy to medical students. With VR, the entire environment is virtually simulated. The most obvious example of VR are the plethora of games available for platforms like the Meta Quest 2. These games create a 100% virtual environment for gamers to explore. 

How Does it Work?

A variety of devices can provide a realistic VR experience, but the most direct approach is with a VR headset. These devices, while all somewhat unique, each react to the movements of the user’s head and eyes. In other words, when you turn your head to the left, the display moves accordingly.

To enhance this further, a stereoscopic display creates a 3D simulation. Compared with more familiar 2D technology, 3D stereoscopic displays have an increased number of pixels. This helps to give even more depth and definition to the image and environment. Basically, the technology in each VR headset helps trick your mind into perceiving the virtual world in the same way it perceives the real world, thus creating a fully immersive experience. Some headsets take this a step further and incorporate additional sensory information like sounds or touch.

Of course, interactivity is what really makes VR truly immersive. Users should have the ability to control their navigation through the simulated space. The idea is to give them the feeling that they are in control and can move about and interact with things, as if they were actually there.

The VR Application Development Process

Mobile application development companies are already at the forefront of improving and disseminating the use of VR technology. This is largely done through the integration of VR application development. VR has proven to be one of the hottest app development trends and has already been embraced by many large companies. Big businesses like Sony, Meta, and Samsung have already created VR enabled devices and apps, for example, Meta’s VR social platform Horizon Worlds.

No matter the industry, VR application development follows a similar path.

Step 1: Define App Concept & Goals

Before diving into the “how,” it’s first important to address the “what.” The most important step in creating a VR app is to define clear goals for what you want your app to achieve. It is only once you know what you want to build that you can start to answer the question of how you’re going to build it. Without clear goals and parameters, you’ll never have a clear vision. Without a clear vision, you can’t create a cohesive and precise VR experience.

When defining your app’s goals, it’s critical to look at your app from the point of view of the user. What will they expect? What do you want them to experience? At this stage, features that create an immersive and compelling experience must be considered.

Step 2: Platforms

Once you have a clearly defined concept and goals for your app, it’s time to begin the actual development process. The first part of this process is to choose an appropriate platform and a software development kit (SDK). Choosing a platform is an essential part of the development process and can have direct influence over app adoption rates. This, in turn, has a big effect on revenue.

Consider these questions when deciding on a platform:

• Are you developing for Android, iOS, or both?
• Which devices are you considering?
• Are you developing your VR app inside VR providers, like Oculus, or will it be stand-alone?

 Some VR platforms, like SteamVR, XboxVR, and Oculus Home provide a complete set of VR development tools. If you choose one of these platforms and utilize their tools, you won’t need any further software installation.

Step 3: VR Engines

Another critical element to VR application development is the selection of an appropriate engine. Often referred to as “game engines,” engines store all the data that users will see and interact with in the virtual environment. What’s more, engines render all the virtual images, and provide the input methods users will ultimately use. The most popular VR engines include Unreal Engine 4, Unity, Google VR, and Amazon Sumerian.

Many of today’s engines are available to use for free. Additionally, some engines are easily integrated with specific software SDKs and multiple application programming interfaces (APIs) can be used to customize the engine to your app’s specific needs.

Step 4: Hardware

When it comes to mobile VR application development, there are two main categories for the types of devices available for experiencing VR:

• Handheld VR viewers: These devices are quite basic and do not offer a head strap. That means the virtual environment is experienced by attaching the mobile device to the VR viewer and holding it up to the user’s eyes. This style of VR hardware has only one point of input – the smartphone itself. Cardboard-compatible designs, like Google’s discontinued Google Cardboard, are an example of this.

• Wearable VR Head-Mounted-Displays (HMDs): HMDs are more technologically robust than handheld VR viewers and often include some form of controller for improved input. They allow a smartphone to be inserted into the headset, offer strapping in different forms, and include features to enhance the VR experience.

 Deciding on the kind of hardware you want to use to run your VR app is critical. Generally speaking, it’s preferable to choose an option that is battery-efficient and comfortable to use.

Step 5: Designing & Prototyping

As with other applications, VR app development involves a lot of design. After all, what good is a VR environment if it doesn’t look good? When it comes to designing a VR app, it’s wise for developers to consider prototyping the VR experience. This aids in testing concepts and systems, and validating the app’s original goals.

Additionally, prototyping helps test that your virtual environment accurately conveys a sense of scale, uses all the hardware’s sensors correctly, has an accurate user viewing position, and more.

Step 6: Distribution & Monetization

Finally, every VR application needs distribution, marketing, and a way to monetize it. This will depend largely on your budget. Distribution in Apple’s App Store or Google Play is nearly free, but app marketing will remain a major consideration. Social media marketing has a low publishing cost, but you may want to consider paid social strategies to improve reach.

When it comes to monetization, there are five mainstream strategies:

Paid (One-Time)

A time-honored and common practice in mobile apps of all varieties is the paid model. Users pay a fixed cost for the app, up-front, regardless of how much usability they get out of it. This strategy is very common in VR gaming apps. This model also allows for a trial period for users to try it out before committing to buying. This style of monetization is great for apps with a lot of brand recognition and high user ratings.

Freemium

The freemium model is a well known strategy for companies that seek to attract users to their services. Under this model, users gain access to some of the app’s basic features, but must pay a fee to access more advanced (and exciting) features.

Subscription

Overlapping with both paid and freemium models, subscriptions provide companies with ongoing transactions. The cost of the subscription is often smaller than the one-time cost of a paid model. However, in order to maintain subscribers, features and app offering may need to be continuously updated.

In-App Advertising

In-app ads have proven to be an effective monetization model. Very simply, developers offer advertisements within the virtual experience and then get paid for it. While this is very common in VR apps, the potential for it is only beginning to be realized. A virtual environment may offer a lot of both overt and subtle advertising opportunities.

In-App Purchases

Today, the in-app purchase model is generating massive amounts of revenue by allowing users to buy both virtual and real-world products from within the app. Products range from virtual tools for use in games to physical articles of clothing. However, when considering this option it’s important to keep in mind that app publishers often must pay a commission on in-app purchases to app-store owners. These commissions can be expensive and difficult to understand.

When deciding which of these models will work best for your VR app, it’s best to focus on the kind of app you want to produce, as well as the audience it is for. It may also be wise to see which model competitors are using as well as staying abreast of the latest monetization trends.

The Costs of VR Application Development

The cost of VR application development is highly variable. In the end, how much development costs is dependent on the kind of content you want for your virtual environment. Applications can be built with simple 360 degree videos, or within fully computer-generated worlds. Ultimately, the scale and complexity of the environment is the biggest driving force behind development costs.

In Conclusion…

With the strides made in technology and the increase in user adoption rates, VR application development is both tempting and profitable. But in order for your company to see that profit, it is important to make sure a proper development strategy is in place. Once you’ve identified the issues you wish to address, you’ll be able to implement a useful solution, and then monetize it.

It’s important to work with experienced developers who can answer any of your questions, successfully navigate implementation with headset integration as well as distribution and monetization strategies, and produce a VR app with an exceptional user experience.

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Enthusiasm for mobile and wearable devices has brought new attention to healthcare application development. What’s more, developers are capitalizing on opportunities in patient management, Electronic Medical Records (EMR), online consultations, appointment booking, health monitoring, and much more.

Based on what we’ve seen in the healthcare application development world, these are the trends we predict will have the most impact on healthcare in 2022.

Healthcare Application Development Trends to Watch For

Telemedicine 

Perhaps the most substantial healthcare app trend for 2022 is telemedicine. The basic technology behind telemedicine has been around for a while, but thanks to the influence of COVID-19, it is now experiencing a peak that may be long-lasting.

In addition, there are still many areas of the world where there is cellphone network access, but poor access to medical facilities. This is true even in some of the most developed countries. For example, 33% of Canadian patients “sometimes, rarely, or never get an answer from their doctor on the same day.” In the same vein, by some estimates the US will need an additional 275,000 nurses by 2030 to meet healthcare needs. Telemedicine is an ideal technology to fill this service gap by providing patients with immediate medical advice. What’s more, it makes healthcare more affordable.

And while telemedicine makes healthcare more convenient and less expensive for patients, it’s also a lucrative move for businesses: according to Fortune Business Insights, the global telemedicine market is expected to reach $266.8 billion by 2026.

Wearables & IoT

Healthcare apps with wearable technology and IoT integration have become extremely popular. This is no doubt due to the way they help prevent various health concerns and help maintain good overall health. These apps can also track and monitor physical activities like exercise.

Healthcare apps like these can help patients connect with their medical practitioners directly and instantly. Additionally, wearable devices with IoT connectivity can even monitor patients’ health on behalf of their caregivers. This allows them to offer assistance anytime, anywhere.

Wearables and IoT represent a massive opportunity for healthcare organizations and healthcare application developers alike. According to BusinessWire, the global wearable technology market is expected to reach $118.16 billion by 2028.

Remote Patient Management & Monitoring

There are many reasons someone may be unable to return to a medical facility as frequently as they need to. This is especially true for elderly patients or those with chronic illness. In situations like these, remote patient management (RPM) is a critically valuable tool. Now, patients can keep track of their health data on a daily basis. The information is recorded in a database system, and can then be monitored and analyzed by their physician.

This system allows for the management of patient data without the need for any human interaction. This saves on time and space, both of which are a premium in a hospital setting. In environments like this, equipment is busy, and testing even the most fundamental health markers can take some time. For these reasons, RPM has become a hot trend in the world of healthcare application development.

Cloud Computing

A key advantage to cloud computing is that it offers secure access, storage, and management of massive amounts of data. This means its implementation in the healthcare industry was an inevitability, where maintaining and protecting sensitive patient data is essential. Accordingly, the global healthcare cloud computing market is projected to reach $89.4 billion by 2027. That represents a CAGR of 17.8% from $39.4 billion in 2022.

Patients with access to cloud-based healthcare apps can retrieve, view, and save their data safely, with ease, from anywhere. As a result, doctors and patients can take full advantage of cloud-based apps to keep abreast of treatments and real-time health updates. What’s more, these apps encourage patient participation, which is essential for ideal treatment effectiveness.

Furthermore, cloud-based apps and services provide healthcare organizations with quick, easy, and global access to patients’ EMRs, insurance plans, billing information, and even research data.

Big Data

Healthcare organizations must tackle the herculean task of combining hospital records with all the data related to each patients’ health and medical bills. When it comes to finding a solution to this undertaking, nothing compares to the analytic prowess of big data.

Implementing and integrating big data in healthcare application development has a profound impact on healthcare organizations. For instance, big data analysis can help with resource management, EMR management, and predictive analysis. Overall, with the aid of big data, healthcare providers can offer more patient-focused services.

Artificial Intelligence

Speaking of processing immense amounts of data, artificial intelligence (AI) is set to make a big impact in healthcare. As a matter of fact, according to Precedence Research, AI in healthcare is expected to hit around $187.95 billion by 2030. That’s a CAGR of 37% from 2022 to 2030.

Healthcare application developers are already leveraging the power of AI to process the large amounts of data inherent to the healthcare industry, and draw conclusions from it. AI’s uses also now include facilitating and analyzing medical images like CT scans, tailoring treatments, and creating new medications.

Moreover, AI has the ability to make medical facility workflows more efficient. For instance, AI excels at automating routine paperwork and scheduling, activities often filled with human error. Additionally, AI predicts patient inflows and makes staffing corrections accordingly.

Perhaps the most apparent use of AI in the healthcare industry is coupled with the previously discussed telemedicine: chatbots. With the aid of AI, modern chatbots can act as virtual nurse consultants, make appointments, find nearby clinics, and access information regarding medication, symptoms, and medical tasks.

Blockchain & Electronic Medical Records

In a nutshell, blockchain technology manages databases made up of chains of data blocks. Each block contains information about the previous block in the chain. This chain of information makes it virtually hack-proof. Blockchain is most well-known as the technology behind cryptocurrency, but there are many more applications for it. Thanks to its decentralized nature, blockchain is ideal for the management of large amounts of data, no matter the business.

When it comes to the healthcare industry, blockchain has the potential to solve a variety of issues. In fact, the implementation of blockchain could save the healthcare industry as much as $100 billion by 2025 alone. This is because healthcare application development that utilizes blockchain technology can make better health predictions and diagnoses, provide excellent treatment at a sustainable cost, and significantly lowers the number of medical errors made in the analysis of EMR data.

EMRs, in general, benefit greatly from the implementation of blockchain. This technology makes patient data more secure, decentralized, and at a substantially lower risk of data fraud. Additionally, blockchain can establish the secure exchange of this sensitive and confidential data between a patient and their doctor.

Augmented & Virtual Reality

Today, “augmented reality” (AR) and “virtual reality” (VR) have become household terms. As with many leading-edge technologies, both are most well known in the entertainment and gaming industries. And while this technology has certainly seen success there, AR and VR have much more to offer.

For example, both AR and VR can be invaluable in medicine, especially when it comes to helping patients with visual impairments, depression, cancer, and even autism. What’s more, the technology helps medical students to study, demonstrates procedures for patients, and aids in the analysis of medical scan images. AR and VR also have advantages for healthcare organizations. Specifically, AR and VR tech are ideal for:

• Saving time and cutting staffing and operation costs.
• Interactive training.
• Providing more individualized therapies.
• Helping doctors communicate and connect with their patients more effectively.

According to Medi-Tech Insights, AR and VR represent an incredible opportunity in the healthcare industry, as the AR and VR healthcare market, valued at $1.5 billion in 2020, is expected to reach $5 billion by 2025.

Clinical Solutions

Finally, the best healthcare apps for both doctors and patients offer holistic clinical solutions. This covers a broad range of features, but often includes the ability to schedule appointments, receive answers to common health questions, exchange information between doctors and patients, and much more.

Furthermore, the best apps offer patients the ability to receive e-prescriptions from their healthcare providers. This in turn saves time and facilitates good communication. Mobile payment systems are another feature that are among the top trends in this area. Mobile payment offers a seamless transaction experience, even under emergency circumstances, no matter the time of day.

A holistic approach to healthcare application development, one in which patients can get reminders of appointments, pay bills online, and connect with medical staff, is a leading trend for 2022.

Wrapping Up

Today, healthcare application development services are in the middle of a massive paradigm shift. Healthcare mobile apps are becoming the new normal, and digital health is a priority. Mobile solutions for healthcare allow patients and doctors to communicate more efficiently and effectively, while also achieving better medical outcomes. Mobile health is the next step in improving overall efficiency, communication, and quality of care.

Today’s app developers should focus their attention on the needs and wants of both regular people and healthcare professionals to produce the best product. The technological trends we’ve discussed here can serve to make these apps even more powerful and useful for patients and healthcare organizations alike.

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AR and VR are now used in a variety of inventive and engaging ways, from data visualization to strengthening security. Whether working from the office or at home, this technology helps finance professionals integrate with fintech like never before. As a result, a new world where data insights can be experienced, where customers can visualize banking products, and where financial institutions can improve their services is being built.

In this post we’ll explore some of the defining virtual and augmented reality banking trends for 2022.

Defining AR & VR

Augmented Reality

AR, or augmented reality, overlays a digital layer on top of the real world. In other words, AR creates immersive and dynamic virtual elements that enhance reality. Images, text, and other information are added to the world through a variety of devices, like smartphones, smart displays, glasses, smart lenses, and tablets. Perhaps the most recognizable recent example of AR is the popular Pokémon GO games which saw explosive success.

Virtual Reality

Perhaps the better known of these two technologies, virtual reality is a broad term to describe immersive, multi-sensory, computer-generated experiences. This state-of-the-art technology allows users to interact with and experience a completely virtual environment with the use of a headset.

Although VR is most well known in the gaming industry, the technology has branched out into a wide variety of other sectors, including real estate, healthcare, telecom, and yes, banking and fintech.

Virtual & Augmented Reality Banking and Fintech Trends

Enhanced Data Visualization

Perhaps the most important aspect of utilizing AR and VR technologies in the financial sector is the visualization of data. Accordingly, advanced AR and VR-backed stock trading and investing has created a way for participants to track and visualize the financial market with greater depth in a three-dimensional and interactive environment.

This has transformed the way financial companies assess their reporting insights. Now, financial information, charts, graphs, and predictions can all take place in a 3D, virtual space. This makes it much easier to draw compelling connections and engage with models to predict better outcomes. Concerned with what an investment product might yield under different economic conditions? Just change the data in the virtual environment, and watch how the world changes around you.

Thanks to the power of virtual and augmented reality banking, financial professionals can explore every data point with more focus than has ever been possible. One powerful example of this is Fidelity Labs’ StockCity. Accessible through Oculus Rift, StockCity simulates the stock market as a 3D city, where users can put on a headset and explore the financial world.

Virtual Trading

This tremendous shift in data visualization and analysis has evolved the idea of “workplace anytime-anywhere.” Now, users are empowered to work on computers, mobile devices, and virtual rooms to ask advice from virtual agents. What’s more, colleagues and business partners can collaborate and improve their decision making by jointly analyzing critical data.

One example of this is TD Ameritrade’s virtual reality experience. This application starts as a “street view” to teach users about working the stock exchange. From there, it moves to a “helicopter view” of live markets using holography and 3D charts to give real-time guidance.

Financial Advice & Support

Finances are rarely simple. But with virtual and augmented reality banking, professionals now have the tools to educate their customers—and employees—on the details of their investment and business projections. This is, again, made possible through the incredible power of virtual data visualization.

An amazing example of this that already exists in the financial sector is Desjardins Bank’s integrated AR platform “Your Way Desjardins.” Delivering applicable and integrated retirement planning and investment advice, the platform is powered by a virtual assistant named Penny. Using interactive videos and data storytelling, Penny helps to educate. She also can make recommendations regarding savings plans to customers in a highly personalized way.

Tools like these are incredibly powerful for creating marketing campaigns that will appeal to clients of every variety.

Improved Services

Educational experiences like “Your Way Desjardins” are just one side of the improvements AR and VR can bring to customer service. These tools offer a variety of benefits, including mobile applications that can help customers find banking branches, ATMs, and financial institutions. This is thanks to augmented reality’s ability to overlay the world with important information. As a result, customers get to experience a simple approach to getting help and advice.

Additionally, many financial institutions have adopted virtual experiences in which a client can seek help entirely in a virtual environment. There, virtual assistants can answer nearly any question with informative visuals and interactive data.

The biggest benefit of this virtual space is that customers can get the advice they’re seeking without ever leaving the house. This has proven to be exceptionally valuable as the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated today’s digital-first movement.

Payments in the Virtual Space

The way consumers shop has always evolved with the times, but recent events have pushed the changes further than before. And with AR shaping mobile and online payments, daily transactions may soon change even more.

With many companies shifting to a digital-first strategy, AR and e-commerce have become increasingly important. For instance, according to Meta’s AR partner, Vertebrae, retailers that used AR technology during the COVID-19 pandemic saw a 19% increase in customer engagement. Furthermore, the conversion rate among customers engaging with AR rose to an incredible 90%.

Financial professionals should take heed of these trends: embracing AR and VR technology can create major advantages, even during times of economic uncertainty.

Strengthened Security

Today, cybercrime and the threat of data breaches hang over every online interaction. For this reason, financial institutions invest in protective tactics to maintain the privacy of their customer data. Usually, this means heavily encrypted firewalls and multi-factor authentication. However, these security measures sometimes fall short, frustrating customers and financial professionals alike.

To counter this, some companies have begun to offer AR and VR login procedures that utilize biometric scans of the user’s face or irises to accurately verify their identity. A virtual environment may also utilize voice recognition for secure and easy access to banking. When combined with AR or VR technology, security measures like these provide a smooth and seamless experience. One where all data is kept entirely secure.

The Future of AR & VR in Fintech

There’s no ignoring the impact of virtual and augmented reality banking. Financial institutions of every kind have already begun to successfully implement this technology for purposes like data visualization and analysis, cybersecurity, customer service, and more. However, the list of fintech AR and VR applications will continue to grow exponentially as the value offered by those who utilize it outpaces those companies that do not.

Younger generations, like Millennials and Gen Z, will continue to push businesses to implement modern technology. They will play a critical role in how the technology is adapted and drive decision-making for tech-inspired solutions. Those who adopt AR and VR technologies early will be greatly rewarded for their efforts.

Keep Reading:

The Impact of VR in Business Enterprise

Artificial Intelligence in Mobile Banking: Reshaping The Customer Experience

5 Ways to Conduct Better User Experience Research

In this post we’ll explore several ways VR in business is having a major impact.

VR in Business Can Impact All Verticals

Most of the hype surrounding the release of mainstream VR headsets focuses on their potential for entertainment. However, in truth, predictions show VR in business will far outpace entertainment use. According to Statista, the global augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and VR market reached $28 billion in 2021, and is set to rise to over $250 billion by 2028.

As many enterprises have realized, this is because nearly any process that can be done in the real world can be simulated in VR. This includes many business-related activities, including customer service, marketing, finance, HR, production, and more. Generally speaking, any task that can be performed with VR will fall into two categories: training and practical application.

For training, the use of VR allows for complete immersion in any situation that can be simulated with a computer. As the technology continues to improve, photorealistic visuals can be used to “trick” the mind into believing—to a certain extent—that what it sees is real. This helps users to monitor and learn from any interaction in the simulation. One interesting example of this is Roundtable Learning’s Diversity and Inclusion training. Using 360 degree VR training, Roundtable Learning helps teach people how to recognize unconscious bias within themselves and others.

As for practical applications, the sky’s the limit. In fact, there are only two key factors for practical applications of VR in business:

• the potential for allowing people to perform tasks without being present (called “telepresence”).
• the possibility of creating and interacting with simulated objects that wouldn’t be realistic in the real world.

Virtual Reality Mobile App Development

There’s no denying that in today’s digital-first world, mobile applications have become indispensable for business. In fact, roughly 90% of the time people spend on their phones is spent on apps. Apps now represent a critical way for enterprises to connect with their customers—and their wallets.

While standard apps have proven their worth, brands always need new ways to make their mobile apps stand out by offering better services. Today, one of the key ways to achieve this is through the implementation of VR technology for apps. 

Training

When it comes to training, VR’s risk free nature is its most obvious advantage. Trainers can simply reset the simulation with each mistake.

This is already being used in healthcare settings, where surgeons use VR to train in making life-and-death decisions while performing complicated operations on child patients. These detailed simulations often include 3D models of the real nurses trainees work with. This way, they can see familiar faces when they perform real-world surgeries.

Another prominent use comes from the airline industry. Pilots have long relied on sophisticated simulations for flight training. But more cost effective and portable VR applications have begun to replace the multi-million dollar, room-sized simulators.

While both of these examples are highly technical, VR training is also being utilized to help teach “soft skills.” One such example comes from Verizon, where they have implemented a module to help train call-center employees on how to deescalate a conversation with an angry customer. According to data collected internally by Verizon, VR has improved the consistency and effectiveness of the training. In fact, VR training has reduced the overall training period for employees from 10 hours per person to 30 minutes.

Sales & Marketing

Sales and marketing, in any industry, has always relied on the “wow factor,” and VR is proving to be the latest and greatest in this regard.

VR in business apps allow the sales team to fully immerse their clients in an environment where they can experience and interact with a product. One example of this might be a lighting company using VR to show the difference in areas before and after appropriate lighting. Businesses might also use VR to introduce new products to customers. In fact, implementing VR applications has become so simple and cost-effective that companies can now create one-off apps for specific purposes.

When it comes to sales and marketing there is no limit to the number and kinds of use-cases. Companies can create virtual showrooms, catalogs, use scenarios, and more to highlight the functionality of their products and services.

Healthcare

As previously mentioned, VR has already made a big splash in healthcare when it comes to training. But that isn’t its only advantage in the healthcare industry. In addition to helping doctors hone their skills, VR has the potential to become a central part of healthcare consulting and even a treatment option.

VR has been useful in counseling therapies that help patients in the areas of rehabilitation, pain management, and coping with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). What’s more, VR shows promise in helping to treat neurological disorders. For example, VR can aid in motor learning to improve recovery following a brain injury. It might also be helpful in therapy for those with autism or Asperger’s, as well as slow memory loss in illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

Fintech

Another industry where VR has already made changes is financial technology, specifically in the areas of data visualization, virtual payments, and customer acquisition.

When it comes to data visualization, VR makies it easier and faster to visualize large amounts of data. For example, Fidelity Labs created a virtual world they call “Stockcity.” In this digital environment, stock portfolios are turned into a virtual 3D city, where investors can completely engross themselves in the data.

A further example of VR for the business of fintech comes in the form of virtual payments. In essence, this is simply a virtual encounter that lets customers make payments without leaving the virtual world. One example is the partnership between MasterCard and Wearability. They’ve created a way to allow users to make purchases by simply nodding and focusing on the “buy” button.

Lastly, VR excels in the area of customer acquisition. Millennials and Gen Z have grown up in a vastly different world than the generations that came before them. Because these generations grew up with technology, they view many systems through a different lens than their elders. In fact, more than 25% of Gen Z and nearly 33% of Millennials now use a digital bank as their primary checking account provider. 60% of these people have an account with Chime, PayPal, or Cash App.

Banks and other financial institutions that want to appeal to this group of consumers, as well as the generations that will follow, are already incorporating more technology, including VR, to attract and retain customers.

Media & Entertainment

For decades media companies have looked for an effective way to combine video and gaming, with varied results. But the goal of interactive movies, virtual group watching, and video-based gaming has finally found a home in virtual reality.

Thanks to the immersive quality of VR, even people with little interest in traditional gaming have the potential to be hooked. What’s more, those isolated due to illness or distance can partake in group activities, like watching movies together, or playing interactive games together as though they were in the same room.

Of course, the challenge to create something both immersive and engaging still exists, but VR provides interactive options that traditional forms of media and gaming can only dream of.

The Future of Virtual Reality

The days of looking at VR as the sole purview of video games is coming to an end. Fully immersive VR in business is transforming the way companies collaborate, both internally and with their customers. No matter the industry, business enterprises that adopt VR applications early will earn the greatest rewards. Those who are late- or non-adopters will be left by the wayside.

The main obstacle most businesses face with implementing VR will undoubtedly be a lack of experience. However, by working with a mobile app developer that understands the ins and outs of virtual reality, the custom solution you need quickly and cost-effectively is at your fingertips.

Keep Reading:

8 Benefits of Blockchain Application Development

When is it Time to Find a New Mobile App Development Partner: A Guide for Enterprises

The State of UX Design in Mobile App Development: 8 Trends for 2022

With a remarkable ability to bring complicated, encrypted data streams together in a secure mesh, blockchain provides many solutions for a variety of mobile apps. In fact, enterprises in the healthcare, fintech, automotive, and media industries have already taken notice. What’s more, Statista forecasts that blockchain technology revenues will climb to over $39 billion by 2025.

In this post, we’ll take a look at the basics of how blockchain works, as well as some of the benefits it can bring to mobile app development. Benefits such as more secure data, improved transparency, and reliability.

What is Blockchain?

Put simply, a blockchain is a system that records data in a way that makes it nearly impossible to hack, cheat, or change.

In other words, blockchain acts as a digital ledger, powered by a computer network, that collectively sends and parses data constantly. Every change to the information is transmitted to every computer on the network and all data is updated simultaneously. This decentralization of data ensures security at every stage, and keeps each data block connected to each other using cryptographic principles.

Add a Complex Digital Ledger System with Blockchain

The easiest way to understand how blockchain works is to imagine it as a ledger. In fact, it is a ledger, just in digital form. Information changes are transmitted to the entire network, where values are adjusted throughout.

Mobile technology can benefit from this kind of systematic approach. The vast majority of systems, including mobile networks, utilize a client and server side system. A user’s phone, and the mobile apps on it, act as the client. A central server distributes data when the client requests it. Currently, mobile networks are under a lot of stress as millions of users flood the channels to access information. This stress on the system sometimes results in lost data. Blockchain application development offers more advanced storage and data streaming, improving on this shortcoming.

Blockchain Provides Improved Data Security

One of the central – and growing – concerns of both mobile app developers and users alike is security.

Data breaches make headlines all over the world. It’s not surprising many people prefer to stay away from apps they think may not be secure enough. Or where they fear there could be a data breach that leads to an invasion of privacy.

However, with blockchain application development, apps can ensure improved data privacy while making the app itself more secure. Blockchain encryption, which utilizes timestamps on every transaction, is known to be impassable and essentially “hack-proof.”

Additionally, there are fewer chances for third-party apps to create problems and overrun security with a fully decentralized system.

Create a Digital Identity for Users

Today, mobile app developers create digital ID management apps for a host of industries. These are especially useful in the fintech and healthcare industries. The need for this is due to organizations, such as governments, banks, medical practices, and others, using users’ personal digital identity – something created on the blocks of the blockchain.

Since each block in the chain has their unique characteristics, and is highly reliable, registering personal information, either publicly or privately, is simple and secure.

Safeguard Digital Information That Requires Multiple Users

Encryption is an important part of today’s digital world, and blockchain application development makes encryption extremely complex. It’s so complicated that it makes it impossible for anyone without a decryption key to get around the system. This makes blockchain ideal for any system that needs to grant access to multiple users, but also requires verification of information that is adjusted.

A prime example of this comes from the legal and fintech sectors. In these industries it’s common to need multiple signatures on a document or contract. Utilizing blockchain, this information can be edited and accessed all at once by many different parties without the need to communicate with one another. An analysis of the blockchain to see the adjustments that have been made is the only verification that is required.

Improve Transparency With Blockchain

Related to how blockchain has an impact on security is its effect on transparency. Thanks to the way blockchain records each transaction, both developers and users can track the information and see every step involved in the process. The technology literally excludes the possibility of fraudulent or fabricated information.

Records go back as long as the blockchain ledger has existed, which means the entire process can be analyzed. This makes it simple to track, verify, and secure the categorization and storage of information, all at once. The entire system is tamper-proof.

Additionally, this also helps enterprises build trust with their users. Users can be confident in their ability to safely and reliably make transactions through your app without fear of a loss of valuable data. And since the system is scalable it works for multiple users at once.

Blockchain Increases Reliability

Not only can blockchain technology make your mobile app more secure, it can also help it to run efficiently. This is largely due to the structure of the blockchain itself; the powerful and reliable architecture is dispersed across the entire network. The same data is copied across multiple devices in different settings.

Thanks to this decentralized system, there is a significantly smaller chance of system crashes or collapses.

The Simplicity of Blockchain Application Development

Another major advantage blockchain application development brings is its simplicity. At first glance, blockchain may seem complex to the uninitiated. But the truth is, it’s remarkably easy to use, is user-friendly, is simple to convert, and easy to use in mobile app development. It also happens to be more affordable than other mobile development software.

As technology grows more sophisticated, it requires more time, money, and effort to use, integrate, maintain, and change. Basically, complicated techniques add to growing app development and maintenance costs. Blockchain can help businesses shed higher costs by offering a more “feature-rich” mobile app experience.

Blockchain Technology is Flexible

One of the major ways blockchain is proving itself to be the future of app development is its incredible flexibility. Thanks to how the technology works, developers or enterprises planning to maximize the reach and visibility of their mobile apps have a significant number of opportunities to explore.

Blockchain application development is able to handle evolving needs better than previous technologies. With blockchain as the underlying technology, changes are easier and a more experiential app can be delivered.

One example of this is smart contracts. These improve the validation of mobile app users and make their transactions faster and more efficient. It won’t be long before smart contracts within apps reduce operational costs and increase the value of the app for users.

Final Thoughts

As these benefits clearly show, blockchain application development is driving innovations across business processes, security, transparency, and efficiency for users – all at once. What’s more, the technology is constantly evolving to address more mobile app related issues. According to some projections, a blockchain-based app store may even replace the Apple Store and Google Play and become the premiere way users search for, buy, and download mobile apps.

Now, it is almost a guarantee that blockchain technology will become even more widespread as it matures and evolves. The simplicity of its use and access, without additional resources, is simply too tempting to pass up.

For enterprises in the e-commerce, health, fitness, and media and entertainment sectors, COVID-19 has presented a golden opportunity. As more consumers are relying on the digital touchpoints brands they interact with have to offer, many enterprises have seen digital traffic rise tenfold.  

For example, there was a 25 percent rise in eCommerce app installs during the pandemic (Q2 vs. Q1 2020), 7% higher than theQ4 holiday rush. Now that your enterprise has attracted these users, you need to ensure you can convert and retain them as well.

One way to consistently power user engagement, conversions and retention at scale is to integrate app personalization into your enterprise mobile strategy. This post will look at three ways to convert and retain your new app users with personalization.

3 Ways to Convert and Retain Your App Users with Personalization

Use Voice to Personalize the Search Experience

It’s estimated that by the end of 2020, 50% of all search will be via voice tech. Furthermore, A December 2019 survey from Comscore MobiLens Plus found that US smart speaker owners are already using their devices to ask general questions, stream music, and get updates on sports, traffic, and weather, among other things. Your users are talking, so listen. Every voice search query made by a specific user can tell you about their instant wants, needs, and preferences. 

Use this data to instantly populate product or content recommendations based on the partial or full search terms, helping direct your users exactly what they want faster.

Remember, these recommendations continue to get more accurate with each subsequent search action that a user takes, helping you reduce the path from product discovery to purchase.

Leverage the power of predictive recommendations

With an increase in competition and traffic to digital platforms, using transformative technology like AI has presented a unique opportunity for businesses to make smarter and deeper connections with users while driving greater profitability. AI and machine learning-driven apps allow enterprises to leverage the data they collect via online traffic, mobile devices to strategically improve the user experience. Using AI will allow you to find trends and make suggestions to create more meaningful and context-rich opportunities to engage your users. 

Netflix is a prime use case for applying AI in an entertainment/media app, tailoring video content to personal preferences, contexts, and schedules by, for example, re-ordering categories in real-time for individual users. Hence, the most relevant product or content recommendations show up right at the top.

Tailor your app navigation experience to each user

Apart from your users’ search, browsing, click behavior, and consumption history, you can personalize how your users navigate your mobile app. Other parameters such as gender, buyer personas, geolocation, time of day/timezone, seasons/weather, etc. can be harnessed to personalize the banner images, graphics, CTAs, trending products, and offers, etc.

It is also crucial you leverage insights from your users’ most common paths towards conversion to further optimize their navigation journey. The more individualized the navigation journey, the probability of your users finding what they want increases.

Final Takeaways

Your users expect and demand an end-to-end, tailored customer experience, right from the first app launch. For those in the health, fitness, and media and entertainment sectors, that statement holds even greater significance, especially in the post-COVID-19 environment. As we navigate the new normal, it’s essential to reach out for consulting support. Our accredited and vetted mobile experts are available to work with you and answer any of your questions.

This past Tuesday (March 24, 2020), Clearbridge Mobile launched #CBMchats, a series meant to inform our followers on the value of mobile business during a time of crisis. The purpose of this roundup post is to gather key insights and takeaways from each topic and discussion. As each week’s discussion goes live we will be updating this post with relevant information, analytics, and opinions.

Week 1: Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rapid escalation of customers seeking solutions to accommodate working from home. This week’s topic focused on learning from our audience what essential technologies and apps they have been using to stay productive during this time. Below are our key takeaways:

Zoom and Slack are essential to communication

Our first question highlighted the struggle many businesses have had in quickly transitioning their entire organization to a work-from-home model and the important role technology plays in supporting the initiative. From the get-go, it was clear that both Zoom and Slack were the favorites. 

Productivity shouldn’t be a concern

Our fourth question addressed the challenges faced by businesses that aren’t used to supporting a remote workforce or doing the majority of their work digitally. Many of these businesses have expressed concern over productivity and fear that the distraction of being at home will negatively impact productivity levels. However, as suggested by our audience and this Stanford University study, employees are more productive when working from home. Additionally, managers should be looking to measure productivity differently than they traditionally have. This unique set of circumstances calls for new habits to be developed.

Working remotely could become the new normal

As COVID -19 has forced enterprises to rethink the way they do business, many people are wondering if the global shift towards remote work will affect the future of work and change the workforce. Our audience thinks so, and so do we. Businesses are now beginning to see that while this situation is unusual, their investment in technology has allowed operations to continue running. Knowing that this is possible, we could see more flexible policies surrounding remote work and more frequent use in a variety of industries including education and healthcare. 

Thanks for joining us!

On behalf of the Clearbridge Mobile team, thank you to everyone who participated in our first #CBMchats Twitter chat. Our next discussion is on Thursday, April 2nd and will be focused on sharing insights on how mobile can be a key solution for maintaining business continuity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.  

In the meantime, for businesses interested in learning more about mobility and how maintaining digital lines of business can mitigate the business risks of COVID19, check out this article and feel free to contact us to find out how we can help.

The significance and value of digital business channels are immediately apparent to companies everywhere right now. This is a wake-up call for organizations that have placed too much emphasis on daily operational needs at the expense of investing in digital business and long-term resilience. It’s becoming exceedingly obvious that the wide-sweeping effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are fast-tracking digital transformation initiatives and forcing companies to adjust business models to keep operations running. 

No one can predict when this crisis will stabilize, or the extent of the economic toll it will take on the business community. The time for identifying operational efficiencies, strategizing how to restructure business models and expand technology infrastructures to accommodate enhanced mobility is now. Companies that can shift technology capacity and investments to mobile platforms will mitigate some of the business risks associated with the COVID-19 outbreak and keep their companies running now, and over the long-term. 

This article will explore how mobile solutions are allowing businesses to keep operations running and the important technology considerations they need to make in order to monitor and maintain digital platform performance.

Remote Work

Working from home is a hot topic of discussion right now. Even the companies that have been resistant to the concept of remote work have been forced to implement a work-from-home business model. An article from Forbes cited a survey indicating that only a third of the U.S. population worked from home prior to the pandemic. Now, some of the world’s largest organizations are enforcing remote work to slow the spread of the virus. While the option to work from home is a benefit many employees value, many companies lack the technology infrastructure needed to support that ability without some sacrifices to “business as usual.”

As more employees log on from the comfort (and safety) of their homes, numerous challenges are presented. The situation prompts certain questions: how are IT professionals handling the change? And what will this response dictate about corporate culture in general? 

While most companies have some sort of technology system in place to allow remote work, (VPNs, cloud-based services, applications like DropBox or Google Drive) some companies haven’t been able to make a seamless transition since the pandemic hit (i.e. businesses that are working with outdated equipment and legacy systems). Even companies with the right technology to support remote work are feeling the strain of the sudden change. Having to transition quickly to a work-from-home model puts tremendous pressure on the infrastructure and the people who support it and also introduces new security risks. 

At the same time, once employees know it’s possible to work from home, maintain productivity, and still fulfill the needs of their companies, it’s going to be difficult for organizations to pull that option back. Some companies will eventually go back to work-in-office policies, but Burke Autrey, CEO of Fortium Partners says, “It’s going to be hard to put that genie back in the bottle.” 

This feels like a lasting shift. Despite all the challenges caused by the immediate transition, companies can’t ignore that this change could possibly disrupt the status quo. Remote work could easily become the new norm and companies must prepare to maintain this type of business model, which includes addressing the technology and security requirements that allow people to work remotely. 

Self-Service Applications 

Self-service applications refer to the use of mobile apps that allow users to initiate interactions or access information. People use self-service apps to avail services, order goods, request information, pay bills, register a complaint, connect to support, or get answers to their questions. The processes these apps facilitate become simpler, leaner, and much more enriched than traditional customer support methods. In this case, self-service apps are much safer, as well. 

Self-Service Applications Facilitating Advancements in HealthTech

These types of services are especially prominent in the healthcare sector right now. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was significant progress in healthtech; however, public officials are now urging healthcare providers to further expand systems through smartphones and other mobile tools. 

Forbes acknowledged that technology can assist with triaging patients and in diagnosing those without the illness but are worried they might have it without having to seek treatment in overcrowded facilities. Using healthtech systems dramatically reduces face-to-face contact which is vitally important for slowing down transmission. COVID-19 is certainly facilitating the advancement of healthtech solutions, which will continue to be a benefit after the pandemic stabilizes.   

The Proliferation of Self-Service Applications in Other Industries

We can’t ignore the fact that some industries and individual businesses are suffering a major financial hit from the outbreak, but with more people self-isolating, self-service applications are growing in popularity (and necessity) in many other industries. Digital food and grocery delivery services are seeing an unprecedented surge in use, as well as streaming services, e-commerce platforms, digital fitness brands, and communications solutions.

Supermarkets and Online Grocery Services

Data from Rakuten Intelligence indicates that online order volume from full-assortment grocery merchants rose substantially from March 12 through March 15, compared to the same period a year earlier. Using the data from email receipts, Rakuten Intelligence reveals that the dollar value of online orders is up by 21 percent and the number of orders escalated by 151 percent. Between January 1 and March 15, online sales increased by 61.3 percent and the number of orders grew 57.6 percent compared to a year ago. 

What’s happening; however, is widespread unpreparedness for the sharp increase in demand. Supermarkets and grocery delivery services are not only experiencing more online orders than usual, but the average order size has increased as well, as customers panic-buy and stockpile goods. In one response, Loblaw Companies Ltd. supermarkets and Shoppers Drug Mart have posted a large number of job openings to keep up with orders and keep stores stocked. Similarly, Amazon has opened up 100,000 new job opportunities to support people who are relying on their digital services during the outbreak. 

On top of supply and demand problems, some retailers are also experiencing technology complications from the sheer volume of users trying to access digital platforms. Ocado, a popular online-only grocer that launched in 2002, has seen the volume of traffic on its website increase almost fourfold since the beginning of March. David Shriver, Ocado’s group head of communications says “It’s the highest peak we’ve ever experienced in the history of business.” 

Ocado had so many digital orders last weekend that it had to stop taking registrations from new customers and take its mobile app out of service completely, forcing customers to wait in a “virtual queue” to access the service. While these actions are entirely necessary to keep Ocado’s digital platforms running as securely as possible, their inability to completely protect their mobile channels from the impact of COVID-19 is also a terrible disservice to user experience and customer satisfaction. As the situation unfolds, issues of scalability, digital performance, and user experience will continue to be issues for many online platforms. 

Streaming Services

Overall, streaming services are a substantial contributor to cultural output, but no one could have anticipated that they’d become one of the only sources of content overnight. Now, as the outbreak progresses, streaming services may become, for the foreseeable future, the main source of collective cultural experience. Schools are closed; movie theaters and performing arts venues are shutting down; sports are on hiatus, and suddenly, the content libraries of Netflix, Crave, Amazon, Hulu, Apple, Disney+, Spotify, and so on, are the junction of humanity’s artistic consumption. 

Media companies and entertainment studios that are able to push their content and live performances to streaming services and digital platforms will definitely be able to mitigate some of the business risks of COVID-19, but the speed at which they’d need to act will pose issues. Again, this is another industry being forced to realize the importance of digital channels for maintaining a business, and will absolutely have to put a mobile strategy in place for the future. 

Even the major technology companies in streaming are not immune to the technological threats of rapid scaling. In Europe, the European Commission is putting pressure on Netflix to switch from HD streaming to standard definition—at least during periods of peak demand. This switch is to prevent and mitigate the impacts of impending network congestion. While it may not seem like much, switching to lower resolution content does impact the user experience. 

Communications Solutions 

Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans and other video conferencing apps help enterprises communicate quickly and seamlessly. Video conferencing solutions help organizations save time, resources, and money by organizing large meetings with only a few clicks. Now, with large parts of the world shut down, these same apps are becoming a useful tool for a variety of sectors, including social networking. Zoom has even turned into a virtual gathering place for parties, dates, and concerts.

Since COVID-19 started closing schools and offices, Zoom’s usage has skyrocketed. Over the weekend, nearly 600,000 people have downloaded the app, the New York Times reports. While the stock market crashes, Zoom shares have exploded, valuing the company at $29 billion—more than airlines like Delta, American Airlines or United Airlines. 

Considerations Mobile Platform Scalability & Performance

Scalability is defined as the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. Regarding digital channels, scalability refers to the ability of your platform to handle a growing number of customers, clients, and users. It also pertains to the ability of your current or future development team to maintain the platform. 

Mobile app performance is defined as a user’s perception of how the application performs. This means that the performance of your mobile app is measured by how responsive it is, how quickly it starts up, how well it uses device memory, how well it uses device power, and how smooth the animation or interactive elements behave. 

Your app needs to perform all network calls and complex computations in a background thread, and if you need to wait for a server response, it’s best practice to display a loading indicator to inform the user that the application is working. Your mobile app should load just enough data to draw a screen so the user can start interacting with the product while the remaining data loads in the background. 

A related aspect of responsiveness is your app’s startup time. How many mobile apps have you stopped using because they take an excessive amount of time to start? If your application needs to perform several tasks before starting, it’s essential to determine the best way to mitigate the time it takes to perform those tasks and present the user interface in a timely manner. Startup time can be modeled in three ways: 

1. First Screen: the time it takes to show the user something on the screen
2. Usable: the time it takes for the application to become usable and interactive
3. Fully Functional: the time it takes for the application to load all of its resources and become fully functional

In terms of user experience, the first two time frames are the most critical. You have a choice when you’re deploying your app to an app store to bundle resources with your application or load them from a server later. When you bundle resources it results in a longer download and installation time, but this option also facilitates a faster startup time. Therefore, it’s another best practice to bundle your product’s most frequently used resources, but more importantly, the resources you intend to show the user immediately when the application starts up. Any other, lesser-used resources are better left to load from a server in a background thread while your application is running. The goal is to show your users something as quickly as you can and then make your application interactive. Once your application is interactive, the application should run the rest of its tasks in the background. 

Test for Multiple Bandwidth Scenarios

There will likely be times when your users only have access to limited internet connectivity or none at all (times like these are a perfect example). In such cases, you need to consider multiple bandwidth scenarios and think about the local networks in your target users’ demographic region. Often, low-speed internet connections will frustrate users and cause them to stop using the product. It also impacts the overall user experience (UX). For this reason, you need to consider the worst possible internet connection while developing mobile app architecture. 

Be Aware of Memory Consumption

It’s vitally important to be aware of how much device memory your application is using. The formula for managing memory is to maintain the user state that you need in memory, but no more. Technically speaking, you want your app to use as little memory as possible, but it’s unrealistic to expect an app to use a small amount memory if it’s functionality requires it to do a lot of things, like playing a video stream, running processes that rely on large data sets, or heavy graphics processing, for example. There are certainly valid cases for an app to use a lot of memory but unfortunately, not all mobile apps use large quantities of memory for good reasons. 

In some cases, developers will use a lot of frameworks (for authentication, animations, image processing, communications, data storage, data retrieval, data processing, UI workflows, and this list goes on), but these frameworks are usually general-purpose packages. The appeal of these frameworks is that they can adapt to the needs of many, many things, and as a result, they require a lot of memory to work, even though the app will only use a portion of the framework’s functionality. The more of these frameworks you use, the more likely it is for your app to use an unnecessary amount of memory.

Be Aware of Battery Consumption

The leading causes of battery drain are:

1. CPU (central processing unit) intensive calls and complex video rendering
2. Network calls

As CPU power increases it is easier to write less efficient code and still achieve tolerable results but at the expense of CPU usage. If you expend effort to optimize the product’s code and choose the best performing algorithms for your goal, then you will minimize the use of the device’s CPU usage, and improve battery life overall. 

Network usage is another cause of battery consumption. The cost of making network calls is high, so high in fact, that it can drain a device’s battery in only a few hours. Consider queuing multiple network calls and sending them together in a single request, and optimize the number of messages that are passed between the mobile device and the server by using more succinct messages, such as opting for JSON over XML and gzipping your payload. You should also give thoughtful consideration to the advertisements you display and the frequency at which you display them because ads are a primary cause of excessive network usage and battery consumption.

Keeping Businesses Running With Mobile

The pace of technological change will never be as slow as it was four months ago. Customers’ changing preferences are not likely to go back to pre-outbreak norms. Even before COVID-19, digital experiences, and particularly mobile experiences, were entirely ingrained in day-to-day activities. Looking ahead, mobile apps and digital experiences will become more prominent in the way we carry out our lives. With that said, companies need a plan to handle the risks that have been identified during this pandemic. 

In the face of performance and usability issues, people experience stress, frustration, anger, and anxiety. More importantly, 55 percent of consumers explain that the emotional impact they suffer from digital complications affects them for much longer than they would like. For companies, these types of reactions are disastrous, mainly because 63 percent of consumers will actively try to discourage others from using a service or a brand if they’ve had a sub-standard experience. Customers are unforgiving and are becoming increasingly inflexible when they encounter mobile app problems. 

Stay close to your customers. Companies that navigate disruptions better often succeed because they invest in core customer segments and anticipate their behaviors. People are dramatically shifting towards online channels for all types of products and services. Companies need to invest in mobile as a part of their push for omnichannel distribution; this includes ensuring the quality and performance of the digital platforms customers are accessing.