At the beginning of 2013 this year was marked as the Year of Mobile and a lot of predictions of incoming trends were made. We have seen how apps give us control of our everyday life, whether it is turning on the lights, monitoring the security of our homes, controlling our ovens or thermostats and telling us if our milk is getting low or starting to spoil. This was just the beginning of how mobile is integrating into our everyday lives. Everything was expected to be super hyper-connected and communicated to us via our mobile phones allowing us to not only get information but control, as well.

One of the strongest areas of mobile technology integration was believed to be the automotive industry and a whole new industry and market for auto app developers was expected.

Utilizing geodata from mobile apps and text analytics, government agencies and emergency services gain greater access to information allowing them to serve and protect people. Another trend predicted for 2013 was that companies will use the data to yield individualized experiences, proactive service issues and personal shopping concierge services delivered to the customer’s smartphone or sales associate’s tablet selling device. Privacy is certainly the double edge sword of the year. While we want more personalized services and want companies to know us better, we are also pushing back about the information companies have on us. We are revolting against anyone profiting from our lives/privacy/content ownership.

Mobile commerce includes in-app purchases, purchase made while you’re shopping on your smartphone or tablet, mobile POS, Square and more. What we won’t see is credit cards or cash going away anytime soon. It’s going to be companies that bridge the payment services to coupons and loyalty and thus analytics that are going to make it. The other deterrent for mass mobile commerce acceptance is the fact that the consumer must own a smartphone.

Augmented Reality is exciting and interesting. Predicted trend for 2013 was that AR will begin to emerge in combination with other media. Despite the beliefs that it holds the greatest promise of mobile technologies it is rarely used and it is still mainly niche.

Research conducted by Mobile Metrix and ComScore in October shows that the most used mobile applications are those used for social networking, app shopping, search, music and video. The first place with 75.7% presence on smartphones belongs to Facebook. Google Play Store, Google search application, Pandora and You Tube follow, each with presence of about 50%.

As of December, mobile email opens finally make the majority with a 51% share. Since last year, mobile open have increased by 24%, mostly at expense of webmail, while desktop opens have stagnated.

The top 3 most innovative phones of 2013, according to Business Insider are

• HTC One because of its beautiful and metal design
• Google Nexus 5 for providing amazing performance at low price
• LG G2 due to its 5.2 inch display with a super-narrow border

Tablet users have begun differentiating themselves from smartphone users, especially in retail. They do more research and buying and tend to make larger orders and more frequently. Both types of devices will account for almost $30 billion in 2013, with tablets responsible for about 50% despite their lower penetration rate. Research shows that unlike smartphones, tablets are used both for high level-research and finalizing purchases.

There are currently around 1.5 billion active smartphones, of which:

• 72% are Android, compared to 55% last year and with the tendency to increase to about 80%
• 18% are iOS devices, which is 1% lower than last year
• The rest are way behind with BlackBerry at 4% and Windows Phone at 2.9%

During this year’s holiday sales, 38% of online traffic came from smartphones, and 21% of all sales were made from those devices.

Sources:

1. the mobilists
2. InformationWeek
3. litmus
4. Bussines Insider
5. Bussines Insider
6. Bussines Insider
7. Marketing TechBlog