3 Types of Mobile Apps and My Predictions for their Future

By Quinn Thomson, Mobile Practice Lead

Mobile apps aren’t just about user convenience – they are catalysts for digital innovation, driving shifts in how individual businesses and entire industries operate. Today, apps on tablets, smartphones, and wearables continue to revolutionize sectors from transportation to healthcare and unleash unparalleled disruption in their wake. If you have no other takeaways from this mobile prediction compilation, know this: there’s much more change to come!

Over nearly 10 years of developing mobile apps and as Mobile Practice Lead at Robots & Pencils, I’ve observed three primary paradigms for mobile apps and their features:

1. Replacing paper
2. Creating new experiences
3. Bundling content

Of course, apps don’t always fall only under one paradigm. An app may combine two or all three paradigms. For this blog, however, I examine each paradigm’s current state and future separately.

Paradigm 1: Replacing Paper

Current State: Mobile apps simplify many tasks for employees and customers.

The longest-established paradigm, paper replacement is a low-hanging fruit for building an impactful mobile app. Moving from paper to digital is often step one of a digital transformation. When companies require employees or customers to review or fill out boatloads of forms and information, creating a paper replacement app is an obvious win. A laptop works sometimes, but phones and tablets facilitate much easier data entry and retrieval for people not in front of a desk.

While making a paper replacement app might sound straightforward, remember that factors like UX, project planning, and change management are critical to the success of every app. If you’re not thoughtful about app planning and design, you can still fail at making an effective paper replacement app.

CASE STUDY: See how our Tailboards app enabled utility and construction workers to finally stop carrying heavy, paper-filled binders and laptops to job sites.

Mobile Prediction: Slow-to-change industries will increasingly accept the need to digitize and find immense value in mobile.

Paper replacement apps aren’t cutting-edge, but many growing industries still rely on paper and other physical media. These fields are ripe for digital transformation. Digitizing their workflows will enable companies to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and significantly improve employee and customer experiences.

Mobile Prediction: SAAS solutions and white-label apps will gain popularity.

SaaS products that offer white-label solutions for paper replacement applications are becoming readily available. By choosing one of these products, organizations can quickly introduce a mobile app to employees or customers with little coding work required. These solutions provide a cost-effective, though less flexible, option for paper replacement use cases. For complex uses, custom development remains the better choice.

Paradigm 2: Creating New Experiences

Current State: Mobile has revolutionized everyday life with features we now take for granted.

Mobile apps offer the perfect opportunity for applying innovative and previously unheard-of means to engage users. Brands can deliver personalized and engaging experiences incorporating things like gamification strategies and location-specific messaging. Mobile hardware allows us to augment experiences using a camera, GPS, motion sensors, near-field communication (NFC), and much more. From ridesharing apps to fully mobile banking to digital wallets, mobile apps have brought about immense changes that touch many aspects of our lives.

CASE STUDY: Varo has broken down the walls of the brick-and-mortar banking with disruptive conversational interfaces and data-driven insights.

Mobile Prediction: Teams who know how to de-risk ideas will consistently push the boundaries of mobile.

Having an app or feature idea is great, but don’t skip straight to investing time and money in development. De-risking requires systematically iterating, testing, and experimenting. You need to find out if users actually want this feature and how to deliver it. What aspects are the most and least important? Will you see a strong return on investment, or should you prioritize a different idea instead? Challenge your assumptions about user needs and behaviors early and often. Testing novel ideas and collecting user feedback will help organizations create experiences that truly benefit and excite users.

Mobile Prediction: New technology and hardware will change how we use software in countless ways.

As ChatGPT continues to command everyone’s attention, generative AI is set to revolutionize the world of tech and beyond. This will particularly become evident when organizations combine generative AI with augmented reality, mixed reality, and spatial computing tools–which will also drive increased usage of voice interaction. Together, these technologies will unleash a flurry of unexpected opportunities for using mobile devices to engage with individuals, organizations, and the environment around us.

Paradigm 3: Bundling Content

Current State: Organizations are beginning to bundle content to support users overwhelmed with information and apps.

As increasing numbers of companies have launched mobile apps, users are experiencing app fatigue. They are burnt out and frustrated by hopping between apps and websites, each with a shard of the desired information. For example, college students must use different apps and websites to access course materials, registration information, schedules, financial aid details, and student groups. Employees are using numerous apps to track time, manage their paychecks, request time off, look up policies, and many more tasks. Juggling these tools gets old fast.

Bundling or integrating content has arisen as a solution. Industry best practices and consumer demand have led to APIs that bundler apps can connect to. Bundlers offer a primary user entry point and acquire content or information from providers. Apple TV users, for example, can add HBOmax, Showtime, Disney+, HULU, and other services so that they see all their favorite series on one watchlist.

CASE STUDY: Powered by Salesforce, Student Apps is empowering schools to reimagine the learner experience.

Mobile Prediction: Bundling and consolidation will be growing trends.

It’s early days for bundlers and providers, but I expect a lot of activity in this area. For bundlers to attract new users, they’ll need to get more providers on board. The more a bundler can simplify and streamline targeted user journeys and experiences, the better positioned they are to build a large and loyal base of users. The goal is to create one place for users to get all the tools and information they want. As bundlers seek to expand and grow, many will acquire the companies whose content they want. 

For providers, the key to growth will be to integrate with as many bundlers as possible. Having content accessible to bundlers is also an opportunity to bring increased attention and awareness to smaller-name content providers that might be overlooked on their own.

Want a deeper dive into the future of mobile?

Watch my on-demand webinar for more on these mobile predictions and download a shorter version of my deck for referencing anytime! You can also contact Robots & Pencils at hello@robotsandpencils.com or through our online form.

About the Author

Quinn Thomson has 16+ years of experience in software, a master’s in aerospace engineering, and a PhD in biomedical engineering. He’s worked in a variety of fields and with organizations from small start-ups to large enterprises. With his breadth of knowledge and passion for applied solutions, Quinn helps clients leverage technologies such as mobile development, numerical optimization, machine learning, and image processing. As Mobile Practice Lead, Quinn is a leader, mentor, and coach to our iOS and Android developers. In his spare time, he enjoys playing soccer, writing, and spending time with his family.

How Utility and Construction Companies Use our Tailboards App to Improve Safety and Reporting

When utility and construction companies want to streamline job-site safety meetings and help employees identify, document, and mitigate hazards, the Tailboards app from Robots & Pencils is a trusted tool.

An Opportunity to Improve the Worker Experience and Safety

Many electrical engineers, meter inspectors, construction employees, and other field workers face hazardous work sites daily. To ensure job safety and quality, field workers typically review risks and safety procedures in routine on-site meetings with their supervisors. Many organizations call these meetings tailboard meetings. Alternatively, some teams call them toolbox or tailgate talks.

Either way, these meetings require workers to carry and review heavy binders full of complex safety documentation. There is always a lot of information to cover! Employees also go through long, multi-page paper forms and checklists related to the job. Whenever a process changes, team leaders have to create, print, and distribute new forms and binders. In the unfortunate case that an incident occurs, management must sort through and review all of this paperwork. Basically, all of this paperwork becomes a big hassle.

After learning about these meetings and the extreme paperwork from a client, our team realized that moving these paper-based processes digital would be a huge win for organizations. A digital transformation would make work altogether safer and more efficient.

A Digital Solution for Hazard Mitigation and Reporting

Using insight and guidance from our clients, Robots & Pencils created an iPad app that eliminates the burden of physical paperwork and gives workers access to digital documents and workflows. The app is ideal for use by distributed managers, safety engineers, and other employees in ever-changing job site conditions.

Users can leverage the Tailboards app to review:

• Required tasks and procedures
• Job-specific safety forms and documentation
• Assessments of potential hazards and threats
• Relevant hazard mitigation techniques 

Field workers can easily complete and submit the necessary forms, including recording and reporting changes to hazard conditions. Form entries and submissions are automatically stamped with GPS location, date, and time, ensuring that documentation is never altered after an issue arises. 

For managers in particular, the app provides visibility into what’s happening in the field and what works remains. It also is a source of valuable data for analysis, reporting, and auditing–data that would be much slower and more difficult to access if it was on paper. Another benefit is the ease of updating safety processes or forms. No longer do companies have to worry about outdated forms or printing and distributing new documents. Instead, forms are updated instantly in the app and automatically distributed to all employees.

Driving Organizational Efficiency and Safety

As of 2023, the Tailboards app has been a valued industry tool for 10 years, with hundreds of daily users. By eliminating paper at tailboard meetings, companies have increased employee safety and efficiency, including reducing lost-time incidents. 

By streamlining hundreds of paper forms and documents into one mobile app, these organizations reduced manual errors and avoid the burden of completing and managing paper forms. If an issue does arise, workers can communicate quickly with management from remote sites, including via options previously unavailable like saving and sending video, pictures, and text descriptions of hazards in real time. The app also allows organizations to decrease their environmental impact and spending by drastically cutting the amount of paper printed.

Interested in Using the Tailboards App at Your Organization?

Robots & Pencils can customize and scale the Tailboards app for your unique job site and safety needs. We also offer a complete range of digital transformation services, including product ideation and strategy, design, development, change management consulting, and more. Contact us today at hello@robotsandpencils.com to start the conversation!