What to expect from apps in 2013

Love mobile? Love your apps? On the other with Windows 8 hitting the scene, it looks like apps will be more popular than ever. But is it the way to go?

The average smart phone user has only 40 apps on their phone with a great precentage of them leaning toward a utility function. So what would the advantage be for your company to go into the app space. If you aren’t there already, should you still jump in?

My opinion on apps is divided but what do our experts think?

Mark Fidelman, CEO of Evolved!

Enterprise apps will start to be deployed in larger organizations with the budgets to create them. These apps will be secure and disconnected from the personal apps on an employee’s smart phone. 

The enterprise apps will connect the employee to a wide variety of content that will help with employee get their job done when not sitting at their desk. When an employee leaves an organization, the IT department can securely erase the apps from the employees phone without interfering with their personal apps and content.

Jess Seilheimer, SVP Digital Strategy & Planning, Havas Life NYC

I think we are going see more of a focus on enterprise level apps/software (think Evernote and Salesforce.com) vs. the Instagrams and Facebook/Path’s weve seen in years past. Why? B/c we don’t need more “mee toos” social apps we need tech /mobile software solutions that can scale and offer mass productivity for large corporations and small businesses so they can better manage new workflows in the digital world.

Carin van Vuuren, CMO, Usablenet.

In 2013, we’ll see marketers begin to think more strategically about the role of apps in their overall multichannel strategy. For example, there will be an influx in tablet apps as brands recognize the importance of building out their tablet strategy, as well as the use of mobile apps to drive engagement in the store environment. 

Apps with geo-location capabilities allow consumers to see sales and deals based on their current location, something they’ve come to expect today. This trend is poised to continue into 2013 and will emerge as a key way for marketers to enhance the in-store shopping experience. Additionally, we’ll continue to see an increase in hybrid apps that offer a mix of mobile web and native functionality.

Shiraz Datta, Lead – Marketing CRM and Business Intelligence at Nokia

Due to the space becoming cluttered from developed market’s perspective, we may witness apps with much tighter integration to devices and its capabilities.  While in emerging markets, the smartphones penetration & evolution of feature phone will force companies to make their content available to their meet the content needs of their local consumer. 

Hence, 2013 may turn to be an interesting year from one side of the planet where developers may struggle to differentiate and may move further into device specific/integrated experience, while on the other side content owner would initiate their app journey, especially in mobile and tablet space.

Phillip Klien, cofounder and chief innovation officer at Predicta

The app empowers all to embrace new technologies. The iTunes app-store model will be the new way software is developed and marketed.  Billion dollar companies will have apps side-by-side with a teenage developers from Brazil – on any type of platform.

Gustav von Sydow, CEO and co-founder, Burt

Less marketers create apps as they discover that making consumers discover, install, use and place an app on their home screens is not a marketing tactic, but a business idea in it’s own right.

Sean W. Bohan, Co-Founder, Decahedralist Strategic Consulting

Rise of User-oriented platforms for collecting/processing/drawing insights from app developed data (think Nike Fuelband or FitBit – Quantified Self) where the user can develop their own personal dashboard for optimizing their user experience (think MINT.com for health & wellness, but owned, operated, controlled by ME). H(app)athon is an interesting model for this.  Apple will finally release a phone with NFC onboard.

Louise Thompson, Director of PR, at Badoo

Consumers are becoming savvier than ever, and as that happens, their expectations are also increasing in terms of how useful and/or beautiful apps need to be, in order to make it onto their smartphone. 

So in 2013, you can expect to see the bar being raised in terms of functionality and design, call it the “Instagram effect” – we all want to live more usefully and more stylishly.

Martin Loat, CEO of Propeller Mobile

I will let others give the stats for expected tablet-giving over Christmas.

We see a trend towards introducing gamification into business processes such as sales, training and workflow. People are human and why shouldn’t work be fun? Organisations are seeing that an element of competition can stimulate productivity.

Another big question concerns the cost of developing apps for multiple formats versus likely ROI. As if the challenge of budgeting for different Android devices and iPhone 5 screen size development wasn’t enough, we now have to assess the new Windows 8 operating system and whether the extra development costs are justified.

In 2013, corporate and professional networks will need better data on what OS their people are using and if the patterns are shifting.

Source: Econsultancy

Copenhagen INK

Lars is the owner of Copenhagen INK and is an experienced and passionate marketer with a proven track record of driving business impact through innovative commercial marketing initiatives.