How 5G Changes Everything for Mobile App Development

5G networks are finally beginning to roll out across the U.S. Although it will take a while before they’re fully deployed, developers should start planning now to take advantage of them. In this blog post, I’ll explain why 5G can unleash a new wave of mobile innovation, and I’ll offer some insight into how it may be best used.

What are the Benefits of 5G Networks

Let’s start with what 5G will do. You probably know that 5G will be dramatically faster than existing networks. But that’s just the beginning, and not necessarily its most important advance. Intel’s Network Platforms Senior Vice President Sandra Rivera, puts it this way: “5G is not just a new wireless access technology…5G is so much more than [extra speed]…The fundamental disruption that 5G will bring will be to move the compute [capabilities] much closer to the source of data creation and consumption.”

That means that 5G will have extremely low latency. In addition, it means that apps will be able to easily harness the computing power of many more devices than currently. As the Cygnis Media blog “How 5G can change the app development landscape” puts it, “Thanks to 5G, we will be able to get much closer to real-time communication between devices, allowing us to transmit massive volumes of data at near real-time.”

How 5G Impacts Mobile App Developers

What does this mean for app developers? Sudeep Srivasta writes in his blog post, “How Will 5G Networks Impact Your Mobile Apps in 2019?” that the faster speeds and low latency of 5G will “come in handy for mobile app marketers who are relying on in-app download based monetization plans.” Fast file transfer speeds, he notes, will “advance a number of mobile app categories that have based their business model around transfer of data or money from one account to another.”

Because of low latency, AR/VR-based mobile apps will become far more usable because “With 5G mobile apps, the time it takes to react to the users’ prompt becomes even more faster than real-time.” And thanks to faster speed and lower latency, videos and audios will become far clearer and free of lags and delays, leading to a vastly improved user experience.

As a result of all this, he expects there to be far more links between IoT and mobile apps, a greater use of mobile apps in logistics and production, and many more innovations.

Take Advantage of 5G Networks with Mobile Apps

To fully take advantage of all the features that 5G has to offer, organizations need to have mobile applications in place that facilitate business processes.

Alpha TransForm (for non-developers) and Alpha Anywhere (for developers) can work independently or together as a single platform, and are ideally suited for building apps that take advantage of 5G networks. Alpha TransForm helps business users craft online or offline mobile apps in minutes that utilize the latest mobile features (camera, GPS, etc.) for fast, accurate data capture.

Alpha Anywhere has the unique ability to rapidly create mobile-optimized forms and field apps that can easily access and integrate with any database or web service and can exploit built-in role-based security or robust offline functionality.

With digital business processes in place, companies will be fully prepared to hit the ground running when 5G becomes fully realized. Learn more about Alpha TransForm and try it free for 30 days.