Public safety and other professionals have come a long way with mobile apps, with around two thirds now using apps in their day-to-day work. The landscape is very different from only five years ago. User organizations are no longer simply planning to use mobile apps, but are making growing use of the many advantages that apps have to offer. Yet, apps are still not being adopted in a professional way, a situation that needs to change.
These were just a few of the key findings of the fourth annual Airbus mobile apps survey in 2018-2019, when we asked over 200 people for their views.
The 2019 survey report revealed the following three new findings of note:
- There is a need for structured apps adoption
- The professional apps market is different from the consumer one
- Cooperation with users is key.
For more insights, download the 2019 survey report "Professional apps - what do users need right now" –
2019 results in a nutshell
1. There is a need for structured apps adoption
Responses to the 2018-2019 survey show that professional users are more than ready for mobile apps to be part of their operations, with many expressing a growing interest in using apps to change the way they operate.
At the same time, data from two most recent surveys show that most users download their apps from generic app stores, with 75% of downloads carried out by individuals in this way in 2018-2019. In other words, the adoption of apps is not being organized and controlled centrally. Instead, people are making their own decisions and downloading apps as and when they can.
This trend of ad hoc downloading urgently needs to be reversed if apps are to bring real value to daily operations. Public safety and other professional organizations are advised to establish processes to enable them to plan, design and implement apps in a similar way to their other communication solutions.
2. The professional apps market is different from the consumer one
The importance of security, reliability, confidentiality and ownership of data is hard to overemphasize to app developers. People’s responses clearly show that security and reliability are more important to them than ease of use, for example.
The top three characteristics of professional apps – security and data confidentiality, reliability and ease of use – have remained constant throughout the history of the survey. Consumer apps are not generally held to the same standards, since consumers as a rule have not thought much about their ownership of data. This clearly sets the market for professional apps market apart from the consumer mass market.
Developers must also consider the special measures needed to ensure that data remains under the sole control of the organizations that generate it. This may not be easy in a world in which many apps routinely share data with big companies and platforms such as Apple, Facebook and Google.
3. Cooperation with users is key
The 2018-2019 survey revealed that professional users increasingly recognize the potential of related technological developments, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. If that trend is continuing, it is possible that users have since begun to make use of apps that take advantage of these new technologies.
For developers, creating innovative and successful apps requires close cooperation with users, who are best placed to see how novel technologies can impact on their daily operations.
To discover more insights into professional mobile app trends for 2019, download the survey report –
Updated contents for you:
This blog post summarises the results from the 2018-2019 survey. The latest survey report was published in April 2022. Download the report "Professional app trends 2022 - 37 things you wish you'd known earlier"
This blog post was updated in April 2022 to include the latest available information.
