Any android app whether it is a gaming platform or a forecasting application has one single thing in common - user-friendliness. It’s no wonder so many people are attracted to android app development: simple, fast, and cheaper. Thus, it’s dominating the mobile app development companies and is going to be on the rise in 2021. On top of that, there are various Kotlin app development trends and android ui design changes that are boiling in the community. They will most likely solidify the android initial position.
In this article, we will highlight all the major trending opportunities that any company may not know about. Additionally, we will illustrate different design approaches that can improve your android app design sketches. But first, let’s get started with the basics!
Different Ways to Develop Android Apps
There are two major ways of android mobile app development, which typically are:
- Native Android app development (Kotlin/Java)
- Cross-Platform Hybrid Mobile Apps
The first one is used to create an android app for each specified platform. Most of the time, developers use either the Kotlin platform or Java to develop and create any android functionality.
The second option, on the other hand, is focused on android mobile app development with simple JavaScript. Cross-platform frameworks can gain access to any native functionality out there, which allows running of the code on multiple devices.
Cross-platform mobile app development is considered to be the best viable option for any digital agency or a rising startup out there. So, you can have your MVP product without investing too much time and effort in mere months.
Android App Development Trends
The appearance of android app development has impacted the overall mobile app development industry due to its enhanced user journey. So for your company headquarters to stay on the trending line of mobile app development, you need to choose the right trending technologies. For that reason, below we would like to stress out the latest and important android app development trends.
Android Instant Apps
Instant apps are one of the slickest trends that the digital world has ever seen. It’s a very popular trend that is significantly different from the regular Apple Store applications. From here you get to try to utilize any kind of application without even installing it on your device. That’s right you can just use the power of the Internet to gain direct access to all the app’s features and try them out.
Why is it trending? Well for one, is because you don’t require to sacrifice any extra space on your Android device. This means that you can get more attraction within your android mobile app development process. Plus, you get no crashes while using them.
Blockchain Technology
During a regular Kotlin app development, blockchain technology is your partner when it comes to providing transparency and privacy aspects. This is an ideal solution for those companies working in the financial and banking business industries. Since it does provide significant prospects for android app development.
Some major advantages that any blockchain technology utilize are:
- Data loss reduction
- In case of a network failure, an app will have an enhanced performance
- Better app security and better data encryption
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Due to the creation of AI technologies more and more services, tasks, or routine procedures inside the android mobile app development became easier to implement. According to Accenture, the artificial intelligence embedded inside modern technologies, especially mobile apps can boost overall productivity by 40%.
However, don’t take the power of AI for granted, as you need to understand that it takes time to create a solid automation system. But it can be used during automation of some simple tasks: image identification, data packages analysis, or natural language processing.
Multiplatform Development (Flutter)
Flutter is a brand technology developed by Google and a big future trend for all android app development processes. It is a framework that can develop an application inside a native environment for both the Android and iOS platforms. That’s right, even here Google has created a cheap solution for developing your app on both platforms at once. And most developers are this type of methodology due to its flexibility and the combination of both platforms.
Here are the key factors that define Google’s Flutter:
- Native environment
- Easier learning procedure
- MVP product development
So there is no doubt that Flutter's technology is considered to be one of the most trending one's in android app development. Reflectly, Google Ads and Alibaba are the perfect examples where the developers have utilized Flutter. Each has its own innovative and creative set implemented functionalities.
Chatbots
In 2021, a lot of entrepreneurs are getting curious and interested in automating consultation services and the relative content on their platforms. For that reason, business founders are utilizing Google Assistant.
The core beneficial value of such integration would be to offer a much faster app interaction process inside the Google Assistant. Along with that, you can connect all of your important app’s features with a simple “App Actions”.
Another cool feature to mention is the Android Slices. It allows you to show the most prominent and valuable functions that your users are looking for. Overall, Google Assistant may be a good choice for showing your app value and accept a large number of visitors interacting with your platform.
EMM & APM
Enterprise Mobile Management and Application Performance Management are the core elements during the android app development for big companies. Since they are directly dealing with the app’s speed, reducing its slowness. It is called and classified as a quality app tester for a mobile app development process. It does manage the proper data exchange between various devices, as well as providing tight security protocols for your data integrity.
Beacon Technology
Beacon technologies are transmitting services or tools that can help during the mobile app development process. You see, they can identify and locate various beneficial business entities. Like private hospitals, if you are developing a telemedicine app.
And this is another technological trend that is popular and lots of digital companies are utilizing it in their applications. Any kind of business that can use this integration can be useful along with the services that you provide to your customers.
5G Technology
Compared to the regular 4G technologies, the 5G ones are working faster, which is kind of obvious. But due to its increased internet speed and high radio frequency, it can transfer and manage large data channels. Ergo, having said that, you can proceed with your mobile app development process and create a functional digital product for enhancing your business performance.
Internet of Things (IoT)
As smartphones are taking over the entire world, we can’t seem to notice the deep integration into our daily life. Smart-watches, the entire voice system based on android, smart TVs, android wearable devices, there are countless examples. All of these technologies have information about our personal lives, routine procedures, and of course legal information.
The production of such available and cost-effective devices allows lots of people to purchase and use these technologies for household purposes. It is estimated that by 2025 there are going to be more than 75 billion gadgets available to everyone. Soon, most of the time all of us will connect to the singular Internet space.
Motion Layout
MotonLayout is an interface that various developers can use to handle motion and animations during the mobile app development process. Exactly this library can significantly assist the complex process of motion handling and layout transitions, while correctly animating each given layout. And it has a bunch of powerful sets of features.
Android App Design Trends
Not every technological android trend is shaping and creating new waves of popularity. The android app design inspiration has a large portion of influence due to the yearly dynamic development.
That is why, in this section, we would like to stress the important points of android app design trends that are popular in 2021.
Dark themes
This is a popular android ui design trend coming all the way down from 2019. Nowadays most of the big company’s mobile applications have already integrated a dark-mode feature as their additional functionality. It’s a low-light interface that displays mostly dark-toned app elements.
They have their unique usage as well: to reduce the strain on the human eyes and to save up the battery life. Both of these implementations have one thing in common, which is to reduce the number of white pixels on the device’s screen.
Gradients
Minimalism style has been dominating every single industry design trend out there, as it has been on the market for the past 4 years. Previously, developers tried to leave only core functions and elements of the app. As a result, they had too much white space on the app's screen. That also made every single android app design like a copycat.
By now, every user out there got so bored from them, thus letting more designers experiment with the app styling. And so another mobile app design trend was formed - gradients. Gradients can add depth to flat and straight design models while filling them with creativity. They are also visually attractive to various brand companies since you can integrate your styling guide into them. This year, gradients are more proficiently used in backgrounds as they provide bright hues and color patterns.
3D
The invention of 3D technologies in mobile app development has been favorably adored and fascinated. However, to produce a high-quality 3D object or an animation, one needs to have good expertise and skills to do such work. So what does this technology allow you to do?
For starters, 3D production is allowing users to interact and engage themselves in a 3D environment of the android app. For instance, it could be a game with a 360-degree view, which is both interesting and can impact the overall user experience. In 2021, this trend is also becoming quite popular, gaining more attention and recognition.
Voice interfaces
Siri from iOS, Alexa from Amazon, or Google Assistant are the names of the voice interfaces that people use in their everyday lives. They are all advanced and can be called one of the greatest virtual assistants of all time.
Over the past few decades, these technologies have completely outsmarted a common way of accessing our favorite devices and services. The first voice recognition technology was invented in the 1960s. Now it evolved to the virtual assistant level, where they can easily understand and recognize our speech. With that, they can access any kind of service or app we want to explore, even basic voice searching is an amazing technology already.
This trend was growing bigger and bigger starting from 2016 when Amazon introduced the first intelligent voice assistant. Which you can easily integrate into your home system and mobile devices. Regarding the approaches that android app development, it is the Google Assistant which is an amazing addition for any application to have. In the next 5 years, it is said that voice interfaces will take the user experience to a new level without having any visuals.
Augmented reality
The ARCore kit developed by Google is one of the design trends that involve the augmented reality (AR) technologies. It attracts lots of UI designers to make android app layouts more practical while taking the user interface to a new level.
In 2021, AR technologies will most likely be integrated into every corner of our everyday routine work. Almost every single industry sector has already acquired tools for augmented reality. While the AR technology does provide a functional approach for the app layouts, it also saves time at the app interface level.
Neomorphism
Neomorphism is a design trend, which involves creating realistic elements. With the rise of VR technologies, augmented reality and the latest tension in the design industry, the Neomorphism trend was created. Neomorphism highlights certain elements and blocks in the produced design through the use of shadows and highlights. It is expected that Neomorphism will become a very successful and prominent trend in 2021.
Personalized user interfaces
With the increasing number of various mobile app development processes and releases on the digital stores, more apps are focusing on the user’s preferences. A very basic example would be “Spotify” where it can show you a list of different songs based on other user’s choices.
Furthermore, the developers themselves are striving towards a complete personalization for every app. They want to make this sort of interaction potentially happen within just a few seconds, solving users’ requests at once. In the past, most of the android app development processes were focused on satisfying a certain market segment. In 2021 developers are adopting and seeking solutions for a specific group of individual people.
Bottom navigation
As we already know, more companies are attracted towards producing mobile products for solving individual problems. With that being said, one of the popular services that are still entertaining to this day is video content. To adapt the devices for such users’ needs, developers would only add tab bards and bottom sheets, with no side menus. So this trend is shifting the interaction menu to the bottom of your screen. For example, One UI, a Samsung smartphone, where almost 60% of all interactions are happening at the bottom navigation panel.
Rounded corners
A very small, but yet very nice detail that any android ui design should have is the rounded corners on each screen layout. Don’t try to sharpen every object that you have on all screens. Make it more flexible and user-friendly for your android app design inspiration. Pretty much every Android and iOS app already have it, which will result in a positive effect on the user app journey.
The takeaway
All in all, it is amazing how technological development is rising higher and higher each year. Maybe in the nearby future, we may even experience a whole new cyberpunk reality. Where all of the technological advancements and design trends will be strongly tied with the constantly changing desires of the customers.
In the meantime, there are more trends to come, which are not yet revealed to the public. So you need to carefully look at your kotlin app development and select certain methodologies and approaches that may suit you. It may greatly assist your android app development process. Especially, if you can’t find a solution of your own.
Furthermore, every single android app development and android app design trend presented in this article is covering various demands of the users. Take advantage of it to be more creative and innovative within your android app development to make it stand out.