About the report

We conducted a 3-part research study to understand the state of mobile app development by surveying both app users and mobile engineers. We also analyzed the performance data of all of our customer apps in aggregate and ranked key metrics across industries. 

In this report, you'll get insight into: 

• Key frustrations according to app users
• Top development challenges for engineers 
• Trends in mobile app development 

Read on for some highlights from the report, and check out our conversation with RedMonk analyst Kate Holterhoff on the State of Mobile Experience below. 

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Report: The
State of Mobile
Experience

Embrace lets you see all the details that impact your end users' mobile experiences with high-fidelity tooling and automated data collection.  We give you the insight and support you need to build better, more personal experiences for your users.

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Key insights

1. App users have extremely high performance demands, yet consistently deal with spectrum of frustrations 

Despite ever-increasing expectations for speed and performance (1 in 5 app users expect key app flows to be done in under 5s), two-thirds of people say they experience some type of issue at least weekly, and nearly half of people experience issues daily. These include crashes, slow app startup, slow loading images and video, and unresponsive interface elements. App users are very willing to delete an app off their phone entirely due to repeated poor experiences.

2. There’s a misalignment between engineers and end users when it comes to issue prioritization

Users’ and mobile engineers’ priorities around aspects of poor experience don’t always align. For more severe issues like crashes, both agree that these are the most frustrating and critical-to-address problems. Slow startup, on the other hand, is less frustrating for users vs. unresponsive buttons or forms. However, slow startup is a higher priority for engineers, while unresponsive buttons or frozen screens are relatively lower. Bridging this disconnect might better serve end users.

3. Monitoring app performance is seen as a top priority, both now and in the future

Monitoring performance is one of the top challenges for mobile engineers, both now and in the near future. Loss of brand reputation is named as one of the biggest threats of allowing poor performance to persist, highlighting the far-reaching and long-lasting implications of investing in your app.

Want even more insight into the world of mobile? Download our report for full access to our findings. 

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