Top Technology Trends 2022: What to Expect in the World of Software Development (Part 1)

At SoftTeco, we believe that in order to offer our clients the most relevant and efficient solutions, we need to constantly keep a finger on the pulse and monitor the latest tech trends. As a software provider that strives for innovation, we need to be aware of all changes that happen in the software world around us and to adapt correspondingly.

Hence, every year we assemble a report on the upcoming and most anticipated IT technology trends - please see an overview of our report for the year 2022. We hope you will find it insightful and it will help you shape your future software projects right (and make the right choice of a tech stack too!).

Programming languages

Because there is a huge variety of programming languages and each is most suitable for specific use cases, we can’t really talk about some general trends. What we noticed though is a shift in the popularity of Python. If in 2021, C and Java were the most popular programming languages, in 2022, Python came in top place with 14.26% ratings on the TIOBE index. C and Java remained in the second and third places, correspondingly, with C++ and C# following them.

If we look at the report by Stack Overflow, it’s an interesting finding that top-3 most wanted languages are Python (duh), TypeScript (that outdid Clojure), and JavaScript. Another report by LinkedIn states that most in-demand languages for 2022 are once again Python, Java, and Javascript. 

Web development

Before dissecting the biggest web development trends, let’s look at a fun fact: Angular and Vue go head to head as per the number of downloads, according to the report by npm trends. Considering the fact that these two frameworks are the biggest rivals in the area of front-end development, their equal popularity is definitely an interesting trend to observe. 

Top web development trends

On one hand, web development remains relatively stable as it’s really hard to come up with an astonishing innovation today. On the other hand, as technology advances, web developers get new opportunities to experiment with. Here are the top expected trends in the sphere of web development for 2022:

• Dark mode: in 2022, users will still be loving the dark mode of their devices. This design feature has several benefits: it’s more comfortable for the eyes (especially for those sensitive to bright light) and it reduces power consumption.
• AI and chatbots: smart chatbots have proven to be of great assistance when it comes to customer service. This year, they’ll remain in high demand due to their ability to boost customer satisfaction and provide an exceptional user experience.
• Motion UI: creative and animated interfaces continue to be in demand as users expect the design of software products to be highly engaging and attractive.
• Voice search: according to a report by Google, 25% of users use voice search on their mobile devices and the market of smart speakers might reach $27.16 milliard by 2026.

Progressive web applications

Progressive web applications, known as PWAs, made their first entrance to the web development arena in 2015 and since then, they’ve remained in the market. While some have claimed that PWAs are no longer relevant, statistics show the opposite. In fact, the financial cost of the PWA market will reach $10.77 billion by 2027, with e-commerce being the most interested in PWA adoption.

Mobile development

Statista estimates the number of mobile app downloads to be approximately 13 billion in 2022 and the number is expected to reach 187 billion by 2025. Quite impressive, isn’t it? And here are a few more interesting predictions on mobile development for the near future:

• 5G is expected to significantly rise by 2025, especially in China.
• App developers should consider adapting their apps for foldable devices as Statista expects 50 million units to be shipped in 2022.
• Food and grocery delivery apps have become the most popular in 2021-2022 due to the impact of the pandemic and self-isolation.
• P2P apps are gaining traction and are expected to reach $612,23 billion in transaction value in 2023.

iOS

Apple continues to strive for innovation and the upcoming trends only prove that. Here are the biggest iOS innovations to watch out for in 2022:

• Swift 6: it’s not yet clear when the Swift 6 version will be released but developers can expect much better concurrency support, memory ownership, and an overall improved developer experience.
• Increased use of wearables and IoT: it is expected that this year, Apple will expand its HomeKit potential and will focus even more on smart and connected wearables and IoT devices.
• Core ML 2 framework: though the second version of the Core ML framework was released back in 2018, Apple continues to work on it and places high hopes on its wider adoption and use in 2022 and further.
• ARKit 5: this framework helps bring Augmented Reality to iOS apps and in 2021, Apple added several new features to it, including enhanced location anchors,  app clip codes integration, extended face tracking support, and improved motion capture.

Android 

Being the biggest rival of iOS, Android keeps up with innovation and also has several aces up its sleeve regarding app development and user experience. The biggest trends to expect this year are:

• Android App Bundle: this app publishing format became mandatory in August 2021 and it helps significantly reduce the app’s download size. 
• MotionLayout: considering the fact that Motion UI is on the rise, it comes as no surprise that Android MotionLayout will also be in demand.
• Kotlin Multiplatform: despite Flutter's rising popularity, Kotlin Multiplatform is also seen as a bright future of Android app development and thus, Kotlin is the recommended language of choice for all Android devs out there.
• Hilt: this dependency injection library was specifically designed for Android and Google puts high hopes on it due to its functionality.

.NET

.NET is one of the biggest and oldest SoftTeco departments so obviously, we couldn’t miss the innovations happening within this field of software development. For instance, ASP.NET Core will become the prominent web development framework, according to the Stack Overflow report. Another interesting fact related to .NET is the growing use of .NET Core by serverless computing (with serverless computing being another tech trend for the near future).

MAUI Preview 12

.NET is a backend tool that’s used to create both mobile and web applications. With .NET Multi-platform App UI, developers can create native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS from a single shared codebase with the help of XAML and C#. No need to say, the Preview 12 version of .NET MAUI is highly anticipated. 

The most highlighted features of MAUI Preview 12 are:

• Enhanced navigation in Shell;
• New documentation for App icons, App lifecycle, Brushes, Controls, and Single Project;
• Added Z Index property;
• Improved Android performance;
• Android Flyout Page handler added;
• Windows Fluent Design Title Bar.

Blazor 

Blazor is a client-side UI framework released in 2018 by Microsoft. Blazor is considered the direct competitor of Angular since it’s an open-source web framework used for creating rich and reusable web UI. The biggest thing to know about Blazor is that it uses HTML, CSS, and C# instead of JavaScript and many developers seem to be really happy about that. 

There are two development possibilities, Blazor Server and Blazor Web Assembly, and there are also three more models that were announced (but not released yet): PWA. Hybrid, and Native. The most interesting Blazor features are:

• Shared server-side and client-side code;
• Support by the Visual Studio Code;
• Dependency injection which allows inversion of control;
• JavaScript Interop for DOM manipulations.

If we compare Blazor and Angular, these frameworks are honestly the same in terms of code reusability, documentation, rendering, and data binding. The only thing about Blazor is that it’s relatively new (2018 release vs 2014 of Angular) and its community is still growing. However, Microsoft puts high hopes on Blazor in the future and many developers are excited to see what will come out of it.

We are wrapping up Part 1 of our article and in Part 2, we’ll talk about databases, AI, and cybersecurity. Make sure to sign up for our newsletter in order not to miss the next blog update!