Effects of Cloud Computing on Mobile App Development

The availability of cloud-based services for both business and personal use is expanding rapidly.  With the proliferation of broadband internet connectivity, consumers now have a totally new way to store and interact with data. Cloud computing advances are also being developed for the mobile market. Today’s smartphones and tablets have access to high-speed wireless networks, which allows them to benefit from cloud technologies much the same as traditional computers.

As technology expands, companies who wish to continue to find success must embrace the movement to cloud computing for their mobile apps. The landscape of the mobile app is evolving. On demand services and the availability of limitless processing power and storage provided by the cloud allows developers to reach never-before-conceived levels of mobile app functionality.

Embrace the Gamer

Gaming drives the mobile app market. 8 out of the top 10 apps in the App Store are games. Mobile phones and tablets, with high-end graphics processors, are bringing advanced gaming into the hands of millions of users who don’t have a gaming console, or gaming PC. We’re not talking about simple puzzle and basic card games, but fully immersive RPG’s, racing games and sports games. With high-speed mobile connectivity to the cloud, gamers can get the full gaming experience on their mobile devices.

Make Things Easier to Fix

While app innovations are being driven by games, those innovations are spreading to every other category of app currently available. Most successful apps, outside of games, are popular because they provide an invaluable service to the user. From apps that warn of traffic problems to apps that tell you when your car needs repairs, none of this advanced functionality would be available without the cloud. Cloud-based apps simply allow things to be fixed easier.

Lose the Web-to-Store Model

Cloud-based applications have perhaps the most impact on the retail market. Traditional web-to-store models in use today are insufficient. Users find an item online and then have to find time to go pick it up at a store. Often, the item is not in inventory, doesn’t match the description, or doesn’t have the same quality as the item described on the website.

Cloud computing offers solutions to most of these issues. Real-time inventory updates, for example, can constantly update the cloud with actually product levels. The mobile app can then display an accurate in store count to the user. Providing a more accurate inventory count will help ensure that the customer gets the product they want, which increases your brand’s reputation.

App developers are being presented with an opportunity to completely change the way mobile devices interact with the cloud, opening up endless possibilities for application development.

Author Bio:

Deney Dentel is the CEO at Nordisk Systems, Inc., partnered with IBM on ProtectTIER in Portland, Oregon to provide an improved data restore process and storage consolidation with higher performance.