Google regularly develops its Google Play Store further. This year also saw the launch of numerous new functions. AR, for example, became increasingly important, but instant apps and personal assistants also took centre stage.
The times when a phone was nothing more than a phone were nice, but they are already a thing of the past. Nowadays, almost all of us always have our computer with us – a multifunctional, entertaining and educational marvel called a smartphone. Some of us can’t and don’t want to part with it, even in the shower and in the bedroom it must always be at hand.
Oh what a surprise. How could you possibly want to part with such an “all-in-one” device, an all-rounder that combines an alarm clock, a PC, a fitness tracker, an MP3 player, a TV, a games console, a notepad and even a secretary, a sports trainer and your personal growth assistant all in one?
Of course, the out-of-the-box functionality of any smartphone is far from perfect, but there are already plenty of apps you can download to customise your user experience. Google Play – Android’s app marketplace – already has over 3.3 million apps for every different purpose as of June 2023. For comparison: 8 years ago, this number was 471 times smaller, as Google Play only had 70,000 apps, and these only had a limited reach. It is therefore obvious that the range of apps is growing steadily from year to year. New types of apps are emerging all the time. Today we will introduce you to the four categories of apps that are really booming in 2023.
1. Reality augmenting apps
Although “Pokemon Go” was already available on the market in 2016, this app was only the harbinger of the rise of AR. Nobody really knew whether users would accept this technology and take it seriously. Two years later, however, we are seeing leading companies massively integrating augmented reality into their business processes. From Instagram stories to shopping at IKEA – you are confronted with AR every single day.
Snapchat, Instagram and “Pokemon Go” are great, of course, but they’re mainly for our entertainment. Can AR technology also be used in our daily lives and not just for fun? Well, not everyone knows that Google Translator has now learnt to read and process text information in real time. Now you can simply point the camera of your smartphone at a text in a foreign language and the app will instantly translate it into your language.
And that’s just another small example. Want to learn more about what the starry sky looks like without visiting a planetarium? Then download “Star Walk 2” and start looking at the sky through your phone’s camera. The app shows you the exact location of every single star in the firmament or any other celestial object and supplements all this with detailed annotations and information. Aeroplane-finding applications such as “Flightradar24” are based on the same principle.
Apart from such tasks, the great potential of AR is to support you in driving (“iOnRoad”), in personal education (“Augment Education”, “AugThat !”, Atlas of Human Anatomy), in obtaining more information about the environment (“SMACAR”) and in many other tasks.
2. Gambling and sports betting apps
Seven long years had to pass before Google gave the green light for the first gambling and sports betting apps to join the business. The tides of change rolled in August 2017. Since then, licensed casino, gambling, and sports betting providers like https://wantedwin-casino.com/ got the nod to craft and toss their branded apps onto Google Play.
Now, this is a game-changer for online gamblers. No more dance with workarounds and sketchy third-party services to snag casino games and sports betting offers on their mobiles. Having a casino on Google Play is like a badge of credibility, signalling that these providers mean business. Unlike your run-of-the-mill apps, a company tossing a gambling or betting app on the store needs the legit licence to make the offers in the first place, meeting the country’s requirements.
So, as Google opens its doors to legit gambling and betting apps, players like Wanted Win are stepping up the game. No more loopholes, no more workarounds – just straight-up mobile gaming fun. Stick around; we’re unravelling the changes that put the thrill of the game right in the palm of your hand.
3. Apps with personal assistants
The pace of modern life is accelerating exponentially. If a few decades ago you compiled a “to-do” list in your notepad and you still kept track of it, now you don’t even have enough time to find a suitable writing utensil (if you even own one anymore). How can you stay productive under these tough and constantly changing conditions? So-called “personal assistant” apps can help you: with only about 100 MB of ROM in your phone, you can save a lot of time in your personal planning and in optimising your business life.
Most personal assistant apps are based on voice recognition. The main tasks of each virtual assistant currently include making reservations at hotels and restaurants, providing up-to-date weather reports, checking messages, paying bills, scheduling meetings, managing notes, etc. Instead of using a series of separate apps for all these everyday tasks, nowadays just one app is enough. The most popular options in Google Play are “Hound”, “24me”, “Lyra Virtual Assistant” and “Butleroy”. We can’t and won’t judge whether one app is better than the other – each app has its merits but also its weaknesses – so we’ll leave it up to you to decide which app suits you perfectly.
4. Instant apps
The so-called instant apps are not exactly a category in themselves, but represent a completely new approach to the distribution and dissemination of mobile apps. Google launched this new method to allow users of a new app to familiarise themselves with a particular game, for example. The idea behind this is that instead of downloading dozens of games to your smartphone, you now only have to click on a specific link to try out the game in question. Only later can you decide whether you want to download the full version or not.
Of course, this does not only apply to games, but also to all other types of applications.
Imagine you are in a foreign country and immediately need the above-mentioned “Google Translator” so that you can immediately translate important text content that you do not have available on your phone at the moment.
In addition, local Wi-Fi is so bad that you can barely open the website in question, let alone download a new app. So what is the solution, how can you be helped? If you are an iPhone or other smartphone user – then you need to keep looking for help. However, if your device is based on Android, simply follow the link and fix the problem in a minute. Google encourages and reinforces app developers not to exceed 10 MB of data when creating instant apps. Therefore, it is not a problem to get access to apps that support this feature.
Such a perspective has been well received by Android users. Even if there is no urgency, people don’t like to wait. Jonathan Karmel, product manager for “Google Play Instant”, reported that one game achieved 25% more clicks on store listing pages and 30% more full app downloads after the introduction of” Google Play Instant”. So, if you’re still not using this option, give it a try, you’ll most likely enjoy it and won’t be able to stop using it.
With all these new features, we can clearly see that Google is working hard to make the user experience of the Android operating system as pleasant as possible.
But this is just the beginning: the imagination of app developers is limitless. There are far too many ideas that have not yet been realised and that will continue to change our daily lives: mobile applications for wearable devices, mobile connected smart objects, virtual reality, healthcare applications, … We could continue this list indefinitely, but we will pass on the future tasks to you, dear reader. What do you think about the future of Android mobile app development? Please, write us your thoughts and comments.
