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The History of Mobile App Design

The History of Mobile App Design

by | Jun 19, 2021

There has been a worldwide love and interest of the mobile app development world for years now. Whether it be for a business application or a mobile game application, apps keep users minds occupied and informed with the latest information.

How did we even function without apps? I can’t even remember the last time I didn’t have my phone strapped to my side like a child. Our mobile devices seem to be a major life necessity.

What Is An App?

An App is simply an application software for mobile devices. Apps are computer generated programs developed for mobile devices such as iPhones, Smartphones, tablets, along with other mobile devices. It seems that in this present time, apps are the only way to make the most out of the smartphones. So how did mobile apps develop?

Where it all began…

If you were born before the year 2000, you probably recall spending hours battling those 2D Java games, punching in random numbers on the digital calculator, or feeling important because you had a digital calendar. Did you know the first smartphone was actually introduced by IBM in 1993?

This dinosaur was equipped with a calculator, world clock, calendar, and even a contact book! The next major advancement was the release of The BlackBerry Smartphone in 2002. This achievement marked a new field of mobile app development. The achievement was created by BlackBerry Limited, which was formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM) and created the concept of wireless emails.

Who’s smart now? Phones.

April 3rd, 1973, Martin Cooper of Motorola conducted the first mobile phone call to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs. The ancient artifact, known then as a ‘cell phone’, weighed 1.1 kg and measured 23 X 13 X 4.45 cm! The first mobile application for smartphones took two decades of research and development thanks to IBM Simon, who was the first one in the world to introduce the first mobile phone apps for smart phones.

What Makes Mobile Apps So Popular?

When you think about it, apps really make our lives easier. There are millions of apps available, that’s amazing considering how creative and versatile the varieties are. Social networks bring long distanced persons closer, travel apps allow you to book flights without a computer present, banking apps offer mobile checking, along with other varieties of apps which ease our lives. The Apple App store alone adds more than 20,000 apps every month!

According to research:

Total iPhone app downloads: 30 billion

Total Android app downloads: 15 billion

Average number of apps per smartphone user: 41

The mobile app market is seeing an increasing revenue of over $30 billion annually. In 2014, 138 million app downloads were recorded in just one year! It is estimated that 268 million will be downloaded by the year 2017!

“Phones have gotten so complicated, so hard to use, that you wonder, if this is designed for real people or for engineers” – Martin Cooper, Cell Phone Inventor

Mobile App Developers

According to recent reports, the year 2014 held a whopping 19 billion software developers around the world, by 2020, that number is said to flourish into 25 billion developers.

India, Russia, and China are the locations populating the majority of mobile app developers.

Many don’t realize how big of an industry mobile app development is. If it weren’t for our developers today, in the past, and in the future, we wouldn’t have the convenient technology that we rely on everyday. In my next post, I will explore the mobile app development landscapes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danielle Nicole

Danielle is a social media manager and blog writer for Powered Labs. She majored in public relations. Danielle has been writing since the age of 5, and continues to do so into her career. “Writing isn’t just a hobby, it’s a lifelong gift…”

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