Best Mobile App Ideas for 2020

Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you left home and suddenly realized while going to work that you had forgotten your mobile phone? All this panic and the sense of epic fail? Not only would you be unable to contact many people directly using the conventional communication tool but you would be left without your favorite mobile apps that you had got to use on a daily basis. Sounds familiar?

Mobile developers know that feeling too and try to fill our gadgets with the best software. In this article, we will analyze the truly best mobile app ideas for today and mark out some good mobile app ideas for business in 2020. As a bonus, we will share our insights on what you need to build a successful app.

The mobile app market brings advanced products to the world almost every day. The competition in the mobile application industry is so fierce, that it’s close to impossible to create a radically new app to win the hearts of users. However, is uniqueness so important if you want to be the best?

Uniqueness. Is It Really So Important?

What we’re trying to say is that a great app idea does not necessarily mean a brand new one.

If you look back in search of the ideas that fueled successful start-ups, you will see that many of them were not actually new. Many of start-up CEOs only modified the underlying idea, which originally was not so brilliant or timely.

For example, many inventors of the 19th century built their models of electric cars before Tesla started mass production in the 2000s. Google was not the first search engine at all, either. But why did they succeed? Their developers borrowed and effectively improved the original ideas and presented them to the public at the right time.

So, what ideas can you borrow from your successful predecessors? See what app solutions worked out greatly in 2019 and get inspired by them.

Most Popular Apps in 2019 among Global Users

Check out below 10 most downloaded apps of 2019.

Source: App Annie

As you can see, communication and social media apps occupy top five positions. Yes, the concept of social networks was extremely successful back in 1995 (Classmates.com) when it was created, and it still shows tremendous growth, both in the number of users and profits.

In addition to communication and social media apps, there is a certain group of applications that almost all users adore. These are games.

Mobile gaming occupies a huge segment of the mobile app market. According to the App Annie State of Mobile 2020 report, an impressive global app market share of 56% belongs to mobile games. Another report states that by the end of 2020 1/3 of the world population (2.4 billion) will be playing mobile games. So, if you want to create an app to earn money, your target audience should be gamers.

Not Among the Top Players, but Totally Useful!

Although the preferences of AppStore and GooglePlay customers are clear from the paragraph above, social and game apps are not the only ideas for a great app. Let’s have a look at a few more apps that you can get inspired by. These apps directly improve the quality of our lives.

Business and Education

1. The good old RSS reader Feedly will help you keep a check on all business information changes. Just add the desired web addresses, and the app will inform you about new articles.
2. edX was born as a joint product of MIT, Harvard, and UC Berkeley. The universities created this free platform for distance learning. At the end of each online course, a student can get a certificate from the corresponding university. Getting this certificate is a tough challenge since the academic requirements for courses are high. However, for those who have adequate training and are ready to work, edX is a real opportunity to achieve impressive academic results.
3. Focus Lock is a great app that can help you increase productivity. It allows blocking temporarily all “harmful” applications that drain your focus. All you need is to set the time intervals for work and rest, and the program will give a signal when you are allowed to use the blocked services again.

Health

1. QuitNow! will help you quit smoking. It allows evaluating your status at any time, helping you resist the urge to smoke:
   • time (days, hours, minutes) since you smoked the latest cigarette;
   • how many cigarettes you have managed to resist;
   • how much money you have saved.
2. RogerVoice is an application for deaf people to talk on the phone. The app uses speech recognition technology to convert voice to text so that deaf people can read what other people are saying.
3. Calorie Mama is a value-added app that helps you count calories by recognizing foods from photos of your meals. A user can see the total dish energy value or get the calorie count for separate ingredients.

Entertainment

1. Meet Glitch Video Effects. Video creators can use this video editing app to add more than 100 filters and effects in real-time, including Retro VHS, Shadow, Xray, and Neon. You can overlay music, add your own videos and glue them together, cut, resize, and much more.
2. Shuffle My Life is a great app to break the routine. The app will ask you to complete random tasks from time to time. For example, take a photo of five unusual items on your way to work, read a new book, or write a speech and record it.
3. Goodreads is a kind of Facebook for book lovers. It will help you keep lists of books you have read and books that you are yet to read, as well as share recommendations with friends who are much into reading, too. The app stores detailed information about millions of books: publishers, links to authors’ profiles, quotations, Goodreads user reviews, and ratings.

Best Mobile App Ideas for 2020

We have to admit that many people come up with similar great mobile app development project ideas at the same time. Perhaps someone living next door has come up with the idea of your “unique app” just now or even several years ago!

At the same time, you are free to implement the above ideas or those listed below using your own vision to win users' smartphones forever. There’s nothing shameful in getting inspired or borrowing for the good of humankind if you plan to modify someone else’s idea into a real pearl in AppStore.

So, here are eight unique mobile app ideas that we find promising. Nevertheless, someone else may be already developing them. So, beware of the risk that you may not be the first one.

What does it take for cool mobile app ideas to turn into cutting-edge apps?

So, you’ve managed to come up with a fresh idea of yours or got inspired to build a brilliant application.

Now, what do you need to build it?

Talents

To implement the idea will require an army of talents. An app with brilliant functionality implies backend/frontend development, third party service integration, APIs, etc. Most cutting-edge apps nowadays use AI/ML algorithms and have VR/AR-based features. Furthermore, such apps require a great UI/UX design.

To sum it up, you need developers, front-end engineers, PMs, and UI/UX designers (not to mention software architects, BAs, QA specialists, and marketing experts). And all of them must have respective qualifications and domain experience.

Money and Time Investments

To develop an average-sized mobile app takes about 4–6 months and $40,000–$80,000.

As you can reasonably assume, a complex mobile application needs more financial investments and time. Want to reduce the app development cost? Read this to see how.

At the end of the day

The market is constantly changing and there’s always a place for a stronger and more innovative player. Don’t be too shy to use one of the time-tested mobile app development ideas and add more value to it. A good verified idea coupled with a fresh look will be able to transform many people’s lives (and your business).

Remember to employ the right guys to deliver high-quality products and enjoy wide acceptance in the market, and high revenues. By the way, you can always find such talents at Qulix Systems that was included in the list of Top 20+ Custom Software Development Companies in 2020.

Have an idea but lack talents or competencies? Come share your vision with Qulix Systems and get a consultation. We are ready to fuel your project with our competencies.