Any developer and digital marketer will tell you the value of an app for your business. It provides direct access to your brand and ease of use for your customers. As a consumer, the app has become an integral part of our lives. It helps us buy products, organize our existence, and even find relationships. Yet in some fields, people are turning away from apps. So which apps are still relevant to customers?
The Positives of an App
There are still plenty of sectors where apps remain king. It may be a crowded and competitive marketplace, but they are still extremely useful to consumers. When you look at the entertainment industry, many services are rated and ranked by their applications alone.
In the iGaming sector, the great poker apps are often a key indicator of how good a wider poker service is. Based on their ease of use and range of games on offer, they can be instrumental in attracting new customers and drawing them away from the competition. This is not just in the poker sector either. Mobile gaming through apps is huge, with an estimated 2 billion people worldwide gaming through applications, showing entertainment apps are still popular.
Generally, when not being entertained, people use apps to make their lives easier. The recent rise of the DeepSeek Chatbot and its quick march up the app ranking in the space of a weekend was no accident. People want apps that can assist them in daily tasks. In this case, it was a chatbot that answered questions and queries. However, it can be an application for anything that makes life that little less taxing: help with finance, DIY, or organizing family.
Customers value convenience overall, whether that’s by having a direct link to their favorite brands or picking up special offers and being rewarded for their loyalty. Having everything in one place also allows them to access information and services quickly, without having to troll search engines or complex websites.
What Applications Are Losing Steam?
The applications that have really begun to struggle are ones focused on relationships, particularly dating. Furthermore, a look at the most deleted apps in 2024 shows a surprising rogues’ gallery of many of the most used social applications, including the likes of X and Meta platforms.
There are several reasons people may be turning away from these apps. Part of this could be down to the disingenuous nature of social platforms. They have become a ground for curated pictures and videos, a realm of influencers more so than real people. This means they no longer serve their primary purpose of forming genuine connections. 
Public sentiment is shifting. Many consumers continue to express a need for human solutions in social media apps, rather than strictly monetary ones. At the same time, for other industries, the app luckily remains king. It fosters brand loyalty, provides direct connections, and could be the kick your business needs.