A Brief History of Mobile App Development
Steve Jobs in the summer of 1983, 6 months before launching the first Macintosh announced that there will be something one day that exists like a record store, but instead of purchasing records, you would purchase software which would be downloaded through phone lines. The simplest definition of a mobile application (app) is a type of software application that can be ran on a mobile device.
It is common myth to believe that apps first started existing circa 2010 when the first generations of iPhones came to prominence. People often believe that Steve Jobs and his Apple team were the ones that created the first apps but I am positive that nobody will have forgotten games like Snake which, even though on a Nokia 3310, was in-fact a mobile application. In truth, the first mobile phone with mobile apps was created by IBM in 1992. The worlds first smart phone, 'The Simon Personal Communicator' (SPC) did not contain an app store but did in-fact have 10 inbuilt mobile applications built in such as, notebook, calendar, world clock etc and it was over 15 years before Apple caught up.
There was no real advancements in mobile apps for another 10 years after IBM created the SPC until the Blackberry revolution happened where the Blackberry 5810 could fully integrate wireless emails. The Blackberry revolution was not just down to people in business needing to read their emails though. With new gaming apps and the instant messaging system BBM, Blackberry hit the mainstream and I can still very clearly remember hearing the regular question of "whats your BBM code" in my early secondary school days.
The popularity of the Blackberry lasted until around 2008 which is when, I imagine everyone who is reading this could guess is a similar time as the release of the first Apple iPhone. Apples dominance of technology over the last decade has been nothing short of sensational with it eventually becoming the first ever company valued at over a trillion dollars. The IOS apps that had been created for the first generation of iPhone were not at all revolutionary. Calculators, emails etc had already been built as apps but Apple started with the design element first and made it look much better than Blackberry and the others ever managed. It was in 2010 and the iPhone4 that truly revolutionised the area of mobile apps because this is when the app store was first introduced.
The store, a place that initially contained 500 apps was a place that offered unlimited possibilities and has created plenty of millionaires and billionaires in its recent history. Games like Angry Birds which at one point was being downloaded a million times a day to apps like Twitter, Instagram, Uber have all been allowed to exist because of the App Store. The opportunities for the advancement of mobile apps because of the store is evident with the fact that there are now around 2 million on both the Apple and Google stores, 10 million apps were downloaded in just the first week of the store being open and in 2010, the American Dialect Society granted the word app to be the word of the year.
We have got to a point currently where apps no longer have to be stored in pockets on your phone but are now on your wrist as watches and, it is interesting to think with the advancements of AI and AR, where this could lead to next. Apps have also been essential is the idea of the "Internet of things", which involves a system of interrelated computer devices. The best example of this is creating smart homes where you can, with the convenience of a mobile app, control temperatures, lighting and more.
It is interesting then that it took nearly 30 years from Jobs making that statement about purchasing software through a mobile device until it actually happening fully with the creation of the app stores. What is more interesting though, is the fact that in the 10 years since the app store, we have progressed from small arcade games, calendars etc, to a place where we can buy food, clothing, improve our mental health, connect with one another in an easier and faster way. Even an example of two apps that Cuhu have built, OrpheusMind which will help battle addiction and LinqSport which will help connect you with people who are interested in the same sports e.g. tennis. Apps are now being built to help one another, protect the environment and save money for all families. The opportunities that these simple, easy to use bits of tech is massive and I look forward to seeing the advancements in the next few years and seeing how Cuhu can impact on those advancements.