Mobile Software Application Performance Optimization Trends in 2023

In 2023, the way we design and develop applications will continue to evolve with the focus of a streamlined experience across desktop and mobile. With the continued rise of mobile devices, and more specifically, smartphones, the era of mobile application software usage is upon us. The future is not about desktop-only apps; it’s about developing for touch screens, mobility, and responsiveness. This enables today’s modern application users to engage where they want, when they want, and how they want. Therefore, mobile application performance optimization needs to be top of mind.

One way to address the demands of mobile and desktop users is through the use of Progressive Web Applications or PWAs for short. You can learn more about how PWAs work here.

It should be no surprise, the number of users accessing their information from mobile devices is steadily increasing. More than 1.3 billion people are forecast to access the internet via smartphone and PC by 2025, according to a report published by the World Advertising Research Center (WARC), using data from mobile trade body GSMA. Sixty-nine million will access the internet via PC only.

As we embrace the next iteration of the internet, Web 3, designing with a more holistic approach in mind is paramount. Slow, clunky software applications will be left behind, which we’re already seeing happening. The more performant your software application, the more successful your business.

Staying abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and optimization strategies will ensure a seamless experience across all channels, including desktop and mobile.

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The Importance of Application Performance Optimization

Application optimization is the set of best practices and standards that developers use to keep a software application running optimally. Maintaining speed is an important part of application performance. So is doing it efficiently: consuming fewer resources and avoiding costly technical debt.

For more on how to optimize software performance and why it matters.

For customer-facing applications, poor performance leads to even bigger issues. What is intended to help customers do business with your company and also give you a competitive advantage, instead leaves customers frustrated and aggravated.

Application performance directly impacts company metrics, easily extending to key operational objectives across departments, such as customer satisfaction and revenue. Even worse, it can add to the direct costs of creating expensive workarounds for an application that crashes all the time, or risk every business process grinding to a halt to fix a critical error. We’ve seen companies lose millions in revenue for seconds of downtime.

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3 Trends to Watch in 2023 Application Performance Optimization

To ensure that your software applications are running smoothly, ensure that you’re using current techniques and technology for doing so in desktop optimized usage settings and mobile optimized usage settings separately.  We discuss some strategies and practices to consider for desktop performance optimization here.  Below are methodologies and technologies that can be used to optimize your mobile software application.

Microservices for Efficient Development

Microservice implementation is one of the most efficient architectural patterns you can adopt for mobile development. Traditionally, applications are built using a monolithic service application & database that typically provide a single, massive payload of information to the user interface on page load. This can be rather intensive on the mobile platform; causing slow load times and bottom-outs by the browser. By separating the application’s need to provide this data to the mobile platform via requests/responses from various platforms, or Microserviceswe limit this strain. Instead, we quickly and efficiently serve this data in pieces all at once- ultimately providing a greater user experience.

Service Queuing for Remote Processing

A powerful technology that can be coupled with this approach and mitigate mobile performance loss is Service Queuing. Given that real-time SMS and push notifications are flag-ship nodes of functionality on mobile platforms, handling these in bulk can lead to serious strain on a monolithic application’s data-layer and cause a “pile-up” of unsent requests.  This pressures software resources and ultimately delays these messages. By creating a microservice Storage Queue or Service Bus Queue you can store large numbers of requests away from your application.  These requests can be processed one at a time, or even in tandem, on an entirely different platform to process asynchronously. These remote mechanisms can backlog thousands of requests to be handled quickly and efficiently away from the mobile user interface so your application can continue serving your users.

Azure Active Directory for Secure Mobile Access

At the top of most developer and client minds these days is security, and with good reason. With more users than ever using mobile devices to primarily handle their internet needs, it’s important we lock down our applications’ authentication and authorization in an efficient and secure way. We utilize Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Authentication paired with strict user login, creation, and updates being handled entirely by Microsoft as an umbrella around our application. Instead of hand-rolling a user identity and security platform that would be vastly more time-consuming and prone to hacking and phishing.

Not only is this an incredibly protective way in securing your website, but there’s also a vast set of features including One-time Passcode (OTP), Application Role Management, and User Tracking that take mere hours to activate and implement along with AAD’s plethora of other services.

Ultimately, by streamlining this process to a trusted 3rd party process like Microsoft, we’re taking the strain off the performance of our mobile application safely and securely as another microservice. Being mindful of your application development optimizations and overall strategies allows you to create an app that is lightweight, easier on battery life, as well as one that can be easily upgraded as new technologies become available.

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What This Means for You

In short, optimizing mobile application performance not only provides a better overall user experience, it builds brand trust, loyalty, and ultimately saves you money, time, and resources. As technology continues to evolve, developing performant applications won’t be enough: you must develop, maintain, and optimize to stay alive.

If you’re struggling with application performance optimization, contact us to see how we can help!

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