Introduction

The arrival of handheld devices#

If I told you that mobile devices today have the maximum market penetration globally as opposed to other devices like laptops, tablets, etc., you wouldn’t be surprised at all. Approximately 60 to 70% of the users in this day and age are accessing online services through their mobile devices as opposed to any other devices.

This technology shift is for a few reasons: accessibility and the ease of use of mobile devices. We can carry our mobile phones with us everywhere, whether when hanging out with our friends or when at our office cubicles. Also, we don’t have to be tech-savvy to operate a handheld device. My grandmother, who has never operated a computer, runs Google searches through voice commands on her Android device without any sort of assistance. This is how simple and intuitive the user interfaces of handheld devices are.

Engineers have done an impeccable job making the user interfaces as intuitive as possible, making the onboarding of the new users smooth. The mass adoption of handheld devices has completely changed the technology landscape. It has provided a way for non-tech-savvy users to enter into the online universe. It’s a totally different ball game. Businesses are going from web-first to mobile-first. There was a time when just nerds used to play computer games, but today everyone is playing Candy Crush, PubG, Fortnite, Freefire, Angry birds and so on their mobile devices.

The transition from desktop to mobile#

I’ve always been an avid gamer. I love to play games on all the platforms, be it on the web, a console, or a desktop. Back in the day, around 2010, I got introduced to casual gaming via Facebook social games like Farmville and many more. These games have a freemium business model. These are free to play with in-game purchases and were popularized by companies like Zynga in conjunction with social networks like Facebook. Farmville is one popular product of Zynga that had a significant contribution in putting the company on NASDAQ.

I got pretty hooked. These casual games became my thing. I often switched between my work tabs and the game tab throughout the day on my browser; this kind of kept me going for a longer period of time without getting bored or burnt out.

Online multiplayer social gaming was a new thing then, and it became a major source of earning for Facebook. Every now and then, there was a new exciting game on the Facebook app store. Just Zynga alone contributed 15 to 20% of Facebook’s total earnings.

Gradually, smartphones started becoming popular. They significantly improved in hardware in a short period. They were loaded with more features, cool cameras, better memory, and whatnot. As smartphones’ popularity rose and they became a household thing, this changed the whole online gaming landscape. Almost all of the games transitioned to mobile devices, as the gaming companies observed better user retention and engagement rates via the mobile versions of their games. After the gaming studios introduced mobile clients for their games, they witnessed more Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU).

As mobile engagement increased, the web was decreasing. Many businesses decided to focus just on mobile. Clash of Clans is a good example of this.

Today, we can hardly find any games on Facebook besides the instant messenger games. Several have gone mobile-only. The Facebook game store feels like a deserted place, and the social network is focusing more on ads, business pages, and Facebook groups to make profits. This technology shift is not just for the gaming segment. This is happening for arguably every business niche.

Mobile devices today bring in the majority of the traffic for businesses. There are mobile-only businesses with billions of users like Instagram, TikTok, Pokemon Go, etc. Google Play Store has over 2 billion monthly active users and has over 3.5 million apps, 82 billion app downloads as of today.

In case you are wondering what do terms like mobile-only, mobile-first, mobile-friendly mean? What significance do they have in the application development domain? We’ll find out in the next lesson.