After a long and tiring week at work, our idea of a perfect Friday night is to play SlottyVegas, fire up Netflix, and chomp on the food delivered by GrubHub.
Well, did you notice that we covered three different apps for three different use cases in that one sentence? Yes, such has been the proliferation of mobile apps in our daily lives!
Mobile apps are all-pervading
Chances are that the very first thing you see in any person’s hand is a smartphone. It has emerged as a gateway of information and purchase. Be it education, media, entertainment, or business productivity, people are increasingly relying on their smartphones to give them the answers they are looking for.
And in this context, it is mobile apps that are fueling the fire for knowledge, information, content discovery, and buying decisions.
The evolving tech landscape too favors the rapid growth of mobile apps. 4G and IoT have allowed apps to take on more complex forms. This way, more and more of the user needs are now being met through these apps.
It won’t be wrong to say that these smartphones can be optimized only with the availability of some of the most useful apps. Imagine if we had smartphones but no apps to run on it, it would be unthinkable - right?
Which innovative app ideas will pique your interest in 2023?
Owing to their massive popularity (and their ability to simplify lives), newer apps are being launched daily. All these factors imply our dependence on and the usefulness of digital and smart technology. As a result, the invention in the field of technology is a seamless activity.
With the help of technology, learning and academics have become easy and interactive too. Anyone can learn a new skill or master the subject understanding while staying indoors. Digital and smart technologies are also being used for healthcare. They facilitate better consultation, reduce prescription fees, and save on the cost of medicines. The whole purpose is simple, making life better and increasing its quality, and reducing inconvenience as much as possible.
You might be overwhelmed with so many app ideas crowding the app store. So why not get a curated list? We have plucked and brought for you some of the most innovative app ideas that we feel are going to accelerate businesses and give you unmatched traction in 2023.
#1. Home & Interior Design Apps
You have moved to your new home or thinking of renovating your abode or want to envision how a new paint color would look like or maybe need a floor plan – all you need to do is whip out your smartphone. There are numerous apps available for every step of your home design process.
Apps like Roomstyler 3D Home Planner, Home by Me, Planner 5D, etc., help you bring your ideas to life virtually, move through your future home while giving you the flexibility of digital amendments with only a few clicks of changes till you are satisfied with the final look. This allows us to try and test various possibilities without any costly rework and save on time and effort. Explore – because dreaming of a home has never been more fun.
#2. Customized Food Ordering App
Food delivery apps have taken the online world by storm. People prefer using these apps for ordering food. They can relish some of the delicacies and gourmets and enjoy them at the convenience of their homes.
With food delivery apps like GrubHub and DoorDash, customers can save on their food bills. All it takes is a few clicks and piping hot food can be delivered to their home. Many innovative apps take this engagement ahead by saving food preferences.
Food lovers no longer have to be limited in selecting only from nearby restaurants. With food aggregator apps you can now order food from your chosen destination in the city. This has also allowed restaurant owners to compete on an altogether new level. Plus, their outreach goes up dramatically with the help of these food ordering apps. If they offer great quality food, they can be assured of the widest customer base due to these food ordering apps.
Also food apps lead some mind-bending innovation like emoji-based ordering or the use of ‘Dom’ their own virtual assistant. Customers can order with just one word or emojis. Launched in 2014, it racked up half a million orders by 2015 itself.
#3. School Bus Transport Tracking App
Parents need not worry about the kids’ whereabouts in the commute between home and school. They can make use of school bus tracking apps that take the hassle out of monitoring the child’s presence at a location.
When safety of the kid is a cause of concern, these school bus tracking apps play a vital role in providing real-time location of the child. This way the parent knows exactly where the child is at any given time, he/ she is travelling.
School fleets can easily augment this app with their ERP. This allows parents to pay bus fees through this app. It also offers features like route scheduling and factoring in availability for excursions, field trips, or extracurricular activities.
Schools that offer such apps can showcase it as a vital safety feature provided by the institution. This allows them to get higher RoI with more interest from parents who would want to enroll their child to such an institution that implements the highest level of safety with such apps.
#4. Interactive Language Learning App
In our current reality where cultural and regional differences seem to separate us, language is a binding factor for many to bond with other communities. Learning another dialect requires a big investment of time, but with the convenience of a laptop or smartphone and the comfort of your home, the passion to learn a new language doesn't really call for a big investment of money.
Many countries have good opportunities for aspiring people across the globe. Germany, for example, has no tuition fee for any educational course a student may want to take. Russia and Japan are lands of opportunities for everyone. China too is promoting Mandarin as a prominent language. Learning these non-English languages can open a world of opportunities for many.
The dearth of good teachers has led to the rise of language learning apps. This trend is further fueled by the rising costs of getting an experienced teacher. A wholly interactive app for foreign language learning can be a great idea. Such illustrated and video-enabled apps can help users to learn a new language and all its cultural aspects. Features like vocabulary addition, language practice, pronunciation evaluation, and gamification to encourage progress, will help the user to catch on the language faster.
#5. Health & Nutrition App
Health apps go a long way in boosting patient care. They elevate the quality of patient-physician interactions.
A typical app can serve one of the three purposes below:
- General apps – nutrition tracking, mental health assessment apps, and calorie counting apps can come under this category. These apps help track various metrics that define overall health and wellness. Many non-medical healthcare apps come under this category.
- Telemedicine – Accessing patient records for remote diagnostics, suggesting suitable medication for a condition, and remote consulting can come under this category. These offer remote physician check-ups and facilitate storage of medical history for a doctor to access from anywhere in the world.
- Health management apps – Self monitoring for health conditions like cardiovascular problems, pregnancy, and diabetes can come under this category. These monitor body response to key indicators like pulse rate, heart rate, or blood sugar level monitoring over a period of time. Such leading indicators let you know if you need medical help in the near future.
It is clear that these apps serve a range of purposes in the healthcare domain.
#6. Shopping Assistant App
Shopping is one of the most favorite activities of online users. The shopper can get access to a wide assortment of products from a shopping app like Amazon. A feature packed app presents amazing deals and recommendations nearby based on the shopper’s location. Festival offers like Black Friday Sale further elevate the degree of engagement shoppers get with an online marketplace (shop local - BC marketplace).
A good shopping assistant app Personal Shopping Assistant from Microsoft can come handy. It can save user inputs and preferences. This enables a deeply personalized shopping experience for the user. Besides, an interactive shopping assistant app can make it even easier for someone to sort the shopping list. Such apps automatically add the ‘browsed’ boards with the products you saw on your mobile. It also allows you to save these browsed products and get price change notifications.
#7. Job Search App
Apps like LinkedIn rule the segment here. They have a power-packed feature that ensures the best quality professional networking between multiple users.
They also have some great innovative features. Take for instance, their ‘Let recruiters know you are open’ feature. When users turn on this on their profile, they ensure a passive search for the next career opportunity. It tells recruiters that this profile is ready and looking for new opportunities in the market.
Switch is another app that brings Tinder-like features in a job search. For instance, users can swipe to pass on open positions. When they swipe right, their profile is sent anonymously to the recruiter. If the position matches the talent, then a chat window will initiate conversations between the two.
#8. Telemedicine App
Convenient, quality care from anywhere to meet your healthcare needs – that is what telemedicine app is all about. Telemedicine has been a boon for many especially now during the coronavirus crisis. Telemedicine app helps a patient consult a doctor over the phone while conforming to the social distancing norms.
A telemedicine app can have an all-encompassing platform for consultation and getting prescription. You can order medicines and upload diagnosis. You can also share test results with the physician for effective treatment.
Many people find it convenient to upload their test results and healthcare data into virtual storage spaces like HealthVault. Such apps facilitate quick storage and recording of personal medical data. They can also share the medical data with physicians or healthcare providers online.
#9. Utilities Finder App
We have a continual need for utility items like fuel for our cars. It may happen that you have a long-distance trip planned. You can now use mobile apps on the way to ensure that you don’t fall short of fuel to complete your trip.
GPS and SatNav are useful in indicating the nearest places to our current location. However, a dedicated utility app can provide much more value. It checks the amount of fuel remaining in our car. It also shows the nearest fuel station before we run out of the fuel.
#10. Rental Car App
A rental car app allows individuals to book a self-drive rental car by the hour, day, week, or month. It takes the hassle out of business travel and it is affordable and flexible. Services like Turo Go and Hertz have offered a better alternative to public transport methods like taxi and coaches.
Such car rental apps allow the users to plan the journey as per custom schedule. They don’t have to abide by a specific route or a distinct schedule. They can easily plan a trip the way they want, with on-demand transportation facility offered by a rental car.
The best part of a car rental app is the newfound safety aspect and roadside assistance feature integrated into the app. In times of COVID-19 and social distancing, such car rental apps allow travelers to avoid crowds of public transportation and travel safely.
#11. Property Rental App
Renting the property is one way of earning livelihood for many. The traditional way of making the property available for rent is through a broker. However, the hefty fees of these brokers can be very disappointing and reduce the profitability in renting out an apartment to a tenant. A property rental app can be very useful in offering and getting a home or property on rent. They can help users to filter and sort the information, to get a house on rent with desired features. Instead of looking at a wider set of multiple listings, they can save time and look at only those listings that matter to them.
#12. Taxi App
Getting a cab is way better than owning a car yourself. You need not worry about hefty maintenance or look for parking for hours. Lyft, Uber, Cabify, and Grab dot the road landscape here in Canada and their increasing numbers indicate the popularity these cab apps enjoy. A taxi app that is available in your smartphone can be the handiest way of getting a transport service for short distance travelling. Taxi App - another valuable app idea worth exploring for startups.
#13. Tutor Finder App
Finding someone who can teach is not easy. There are many skills to learn and very few qualified people who can impart the knowledge with convenience. For example, a user may need to learn a foreign language or a particular subject. They may not be effective as a DIY idea. Hence, students prefer getting assistance in the form of a qualified and experienced tutor. However, tutors are not easily available for every subject or foreign language.
A tutor finding app can come handy. It is an ideal way to find a competent teacher for any subject. Besides, you can see the teacher’s academic qualifications, verify, and even read their reviews and decide for yourself if he is a good match for your specific learning need.
#14. Mental Health App
Psychological problems are one the rise. Many people are being diagnosed with mental issues like stress and anxiety. Other mental problems like clinical depression are widespread nowadays. Consulting a psychologist or psychiatrist is usually the only way to deal with such issues.
This leads to another app idea - an app that can keep a track of the daily mental status for a user and ensures that the user does not languish under a mental problem for long.
Health monitoring apps like heart rate monitor can help you know your stress level. Bodily rhythm tracking app can be useful in helping you get enough sleep while avoiding oversleeping.
Such apps can work in coherence with other apps for overall healthcare. They can reduce the likelihood and severe impact of prolonged stress and depression. Also, they can collate and share data to a specialist in time.
#15. Travel Planning App
Travelling over the weekends and holidays is a fun activity. It can help us relieve our stress from the routine of life. We all have preferences in choosing a travel destination but discovering and planning for the same may be challenging for some of us.
A travel planning app can help you find a good travel destination. It can also help you choose a stay, see prices and check availability. A smart app like Airbnb can also help you get suggestions based on your preferences.
An integrated travel app can be useful in suggesting travel plans based on your holidays or other chosen dates. The deals and discounts available on these apps sweeten the deal further.
#16. Food Preference App
While travelling, we prefer experimenting regional/cultural delicacies. Also, we have set preferences in terms of the food items, namely pizza, pasta, burger, pie, and so. The various nuances in these food items can be exciting to try.
A food suggestion app can be the best way to never miss on some of the most well-known delicacies in a particular area. With such an app, you can get a suggestion when you visit a place. Also, you can get the prices, pictures, calories, nutritional values and so on.
Even if you need to prepare food, you will never be too far from your nearest grocery store. A functional grocery app can tell you what items they have in stock. You can pick the ones you want and make secure payment to complete the checkout. With doorstep delivery these apps elevate the level of convenience to the next level.
#17. Business Insight App
Starting one’s own firm is the best way to stay competitive. Self-employment is the best way to make money if someone does not have a specialisation or good educational qualification.
One of the biggest reasons why people loathe the idea of starting a business is that it involves investment, sometimes your entire life savings. It can be disheartening if the business does not give perform as expected. A business insight app can be the best way to tackle such a concern.
An integrated app can be a one-point solution to finding your business inputs and outputs. It can also be useful in giving you insightful information as to what all are the odds you are likely to face. Be it preparing for documentation while setting up the business, or drawing up a business plan, apps can help users kickstart a new venture with minimal hassles. Job search apps can help the person get the right people to do the job. Plus other apps like LinkedIn can be a good marketing tool and help source new business opportunities.
#18. Music Learning App
Learning music is really exciting. It can add a dimension to someone’s somewhat routine and monotonous life. Finding a good music teaching institute can be challenging. Besides, the more the reputed the institute, the higher its fee.
Also, not all music institutes teach every instrument. Guitar and keyboard are the most commonly learned instruments, but a harmonica, blues harp and banjo aren’t. A music learning app can be the best way of learning any type of musical device.
It can be the best music trainer—artificial intelligence-based teaching is not subject to faulting. Apart from practical learning, such an app can also teach the theory part of the musical instrument.
Also, if you are learning more than one instrument, then such an app can teach you integrating all the devices. For instance, if you are learning the guitar as well as the keyboard, then the app can teach you the scales of the music along with the increasing or decreasing rhythms and how you can learn them.
#19. Expense Tracker App
Due to the drastically changing lifestyle, we view a lot of utility items in the traditional market and online. Not everyone has the discipline to manage expenses or maintain a budget. Most of the time, we end up buying things out of compulsion or intuition and not real need. You often regret such purchases and keep fretting over your decision.
With expense tracker apps, you can set a budget across all categories (like groceries, bills, clothes, etc.) and you can now not only keep a track of all daily, monthly and yearly expenses but also analyze expenditure on a regular basis. Tracking expenses is now at your fingertips as such apps efficiently maintain logs of all expenses by product date vendor and category.
Such apps help save money as they help monitor and ultimately control our expenses in a prudent and easy way.
#20. Home or Business Utility Tracking App
Taking care of our daily household and office chores is not an easy task. For working professionals or self-employed persons, it is not easy to balance their home and office lives. Buying utility items for the home or office is an endless journey. We do tend to run out of some or the other type of things that we need on a daily basis. We, thus, need a smart way of managing our home and office utilities. A home or business utility tracking app can help us keep a tab on our use.
Why mobile apps enjoy such a deep market proliferation?
Smartphone users are growing by leaps and bounds. The reliability on mobile devices in today’s competitive environment to keep up with favorite brands or to accomplish day-to-day needs has increased manifold. Amidst the pandemic, the mobile app industry has witnessed a 166% increase in app installations. People now want information at their fingertips quickly and easily. Investing in a mobile app, regardless of the industry you deal in, has many advantages. Having a mobile app for your business means –
- Unmatched convenience for your customers: With upcoming technological advancement, you can get devices mutually connected, transmit data, and automate tasks with the help of technology and IoT. Devices, in coherence with the smart apps, can work in the background and give the customers the convenience and comfort they deserve.
- Value for money: Apart from the functional value, most customers want value for money. It can be in the form of savings, periodic app-only deals, loyalty programs, or better service for comparatively less fee. These apps can make it possible for the customers to avail considerable savings without compromising on the quality of services. Customized, robust, and smart apps can help address specific customer pain points. A well-thought app can solve real world problems for your customer.
- Personalization options for customers: Personalization is a way to make something useful for a specific individual. Many interactive apps on the smartphone offer high personalization. This makes them unique for everyone. Such personalization is effective in driving better engagement and improving chances of conversion. The ability of these smart apps to find a pattern in the user’s behavior and to collate the data and finding more suitable services gives them the edge.
- Better customer engagement: Convenience was from the customer’s perspective. From a business point of view, the smart apps are promising and offer affordable reach. They allow you to connect with current and prospective clients and act as a platform for them to engage meaningfully with your brand. Intelligent, integrating and interactive apps can drive immense value for businesses and propel customer engagement for your business.
- Top functional and marketing benefits of having a mobile app for your business are:
- Increased visibility/branding (business is open 24 x 7)
- Increased audience base
- Customer loyalty
- Seamless usability
- Improved accessibility
- Expeditious customer service
Our parting thoughts
Innovative apps can be truly worthy in helping people to reduce efforts, enrich lives, and simplify some of their regular tasks. Be it information search, expert guidance, or productivity boost, there are many USPs that a mobile user can look forward to with these app ideas.
The coronavirus crisis has flooded the app market with ideas. Coming up with an innovative app idea is easy, but the journey from conceptualization to development and launching it in the market is a tough one. This is where a good app development company could simplify the process and help you ensure that your idea comes to life, is successful, and also make profits for you.
Do you have a business idea that you feel will be a game changer? Then connect with a reliable mobile app development company in Toronto, Canada, like Continuum Software Solutions. We are an award-winning software development company and work with you every step of the way to transform your vision into a successful mobile app.
Do not let the idea sit in you head. Let us help you exploit the market. Connect now!