What Is A Mobile Application?

By Author: Yancy Marry
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A mobile application, popularly referred to as a mobile app, is a software used in mobile devices such as tablet computers and smartphones. The owner of a mobile operating system has access to application distribution platforms through which mobile apps are made available. Generally, every mobile app is downloaded from a particular distribution platform and used in the mobile devices. Some of these apps can be downloaded for free, but most of them come attached with a price tag. For applications that are only available upon payment, a certain percentage of the price is offered to the distribution providers. For instance, if your service provider is App Store, 20% to 30% of the app price is given to iTunes; the remaining price is distributed among the producers of the mobile application.

The best known mobile operating systems that make use of mobile apps are:
Google Play
App Store
BlackBerry App World
Windows Phone Marketplace

The mobile devices to which these apps are downloaded and used for better communication or for mobilizing business interests are:
BlackBerry
iPhone
...
... Windows Phone 7
Android Phone

The best part of a mobile application is that it can be used not only in mobile devices but also in static electronic equipment such as desktops and laptops.

Origin of Mobile Apps

Mobile applications are a recent phenomenon in the mobile world. They were originally used for services such as retrieval of information like emails, contacts, calendar updates, stock market news, and weather updates. Very soon, mobile applications became an important method used to increase the general productivity of an enterprise.

It was in the year 2010 that the word ‘app’ gained popularity in the world of mobile devices and was given recognition as ‘word of the year’. The public demand for mobile apps increased manifold by the end of 2010, opening doors for expansion of the applications to be used in fields such as gaming, factory automation, location based services, ticket purchasing, GPS, order tracking, and banking services. Soon new devices came to be created for accommodating the recently created mobile applications.

With the launch of smartphones, there was no looking back as to the usefulness of mobile apps in daily life. Not only enterprises and people with business interests, individuals too took to using these applications on their mobile devices.

Why is a Mobile App So Popular?
Mobile applications are popular among individual users and enterprises for their varied features, customization capability, interaction, and navigation properties. Mobile applications make use of technologies like HTML5 or JavaScript to run within the web browser of a mobile device. This means that they do not have to be stored in a mobile device but are directly delivered via internet for convenience of use.

The popularity of mobile apps has recorded phenomenal rise over the last year; today more than 51 percent of mobile subscribers around the world use mobile applications as opposed to browsing the web on their mobile devices. This figure was a staggering 45 percent even as recently as the last quarter of this year.

Mobile applications are not only here to stay; they are projected to become essentials in the lives of individuals & enterprises.

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