Gartner Identifies Top 10 Mobile Technologies and Capabilities for 2015 and 2016
Organizations wishing to unlock the full potential of mobility must
master a wide range of technologies and skills, many of which are
unfamiliar to IT staff. In today's blog post, Nick Jones, vice president
and distinguished analyst at Gartner, shares Gartner’s top 10 mobile
technologies and capabilities that organizations must master in 2015 and
2016.
Mr. Jones said:
Multiplatform/Multiarchitecture Application Development Tools
Most organizations will need application development tools to support
a "3 x 3" future — three key platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) and
three application architectures (native, hybrid and mobile Web). Tool
selection will be a complex balancing act, trading off many technical
and nontechnical issues (such as productivity versus vendor stability),
and most large organizations will need a portfolio of several tools to
deliver to the architectures and platforms they require.
HTML5
HTML5 won't be a simple panacea for mobile application portability
because it's fragmented and immature and therefore poses many
implementation and security risks. However, as HTML5 and its development
tools mature, the popularity of the mobile Web and hybrid applications
will increase. Hence, despite many challenges, HTML5 will be an
essential technology for organizations delivering applications across
multiple platforms.
Advanced Mobile User Experience Design
Leading mobile apps are delivering exceptional user experiences,
which are achieved by a variety of new techniques and methodologies,
such as motivational design, "quiet" design and "playful" interfaces.
Designers are also creating apps that can accommodate mobile challenges,
such as partial user attention and interruption, or that can exploit
technologies with novel features or "wow" factors, such as augmented
reality. Leading consumer apps are setting high standards for user
interface design, and all organizations must master new skills and work
with new partners to meet growing user expectations.
High-Precision Location Sensing
Knowing an individual's location to within a few meters is a key
enabler of the delivery of highly relevant contextual information and
services. Apps exploiting precise indoor location currently use
technologies such as Wi-Fi, imaging, ultrasonic beacons and
geomagnetics. In 2014, Gartner expects growth in the use of wireless
beacons using the new Bluetooth Smart standard. In the longer term,
technologies such as smart lighting will also become important. Precise
indoor location sensing, combined with mobile apps, will enable a new
generation of extremely personalized services and information.
Wearable Devices
The smartphone will become the hub of a personal-area network
consisting of wearable gadgets such as on-body healthcare sensors, smart
jewelry, smart watches, display devices (like Google Glass) and a
variety of sensors embedded in clothes and shoes. These gadgets will
communicate with mobile apps to deliver information in new ways and
enable a wide range of products and services in areas such as sport,
fitness, fashion, hobbies and healthcare.
New Wi-Fi Standards
Emerging Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11ac (Waves 1 and 2), 11ad, 11aq
and 11ah will increase Wi-Fi performance, make Wi-Fi more relevant to
applications such as telemetry, and enable Wi-Fi to provide new
services. Over the next three years, demands on Wi-Fi infrastructure
will increase as more Wi-Fi-enabled devices appear in organizations, as
cellular offloading becomes more popular, and as applications such as
location sensing demand denser access-point placement. The opportunities
enabled by new standards and the performance required by new
applications will require many organizations to revise or replace their
Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Enterprise Mobile Management
"Enterprise mobile management" or "EMM" is a term that describes the
future evolution and convergence of several mobile management, security
and support technologies. These include mobile device management, mobile
application management, application wrapping and containerization, and
some elements of enterprise file synchronization and sharing. Such tools
will mature, grow in scope and eventually address a wide range of
mobile management needs across all popular OSs on smartphones, tablets
and PCs.
Mobile-Connected Smart Objects
By 2020, the average affluent household in a mature market will
contain several hundred smart objects, including LED light bulbs, toys,
domestic appliances, sports equipment, medical devices and controllable
power sockets, to name but a few. These domestic smart objects will be a
part of the Internet of Things, and most will be able to communicate in
some way with an app on a smartphone or tablet. Smartphones and tablets
will perform many functions, including acting as remote controls,
displaying and analyzing information, interfacing with social networks
to monitor "things" that can tweet or post, paying for subscription
services, ordering replacement consumables and updating object
firmware.
LTE and LTE-A
Long Term Evolution (LTE) and its successor LTE Advanced (LTE-A) are
cellular technologies that improve spectral efficiency and will push
cellular networks to theoretical peak downlink speeds of up to 1 Gbps,
while reducing latency. All mobile users will benefit from improved
bandwidth, and superior performance combined with new features such as
LTE Broadcast will enable network operators to offer new services.
Metrics and Monitoring Tools
The diversity of mobile devices makes comprehensive app testing
impossible, and the nondeterministic nature of mobile networks and the
cloud services that support them can result in performance bottlenecks
that are hard to locate. Mobile metrics and monitoring tools, often
known as application performance monitoring (APM), can help. APM
provides visibility into app behavior, delivers statistics about which
devices and OSs are adopted, and monitors user behavior to determine
which app features are being successfully exploited.
