With lower latency than 4G and speeds that are around 10 times faster, 5G promises to transform our experience with our smartphones. Mobile operators are working hard to make 5G available everywhere, with the GSM Association forecasting that 5G mobile adoption in South Africa will grow from 4% of total mobile connections in mid-2023 to 18% (22.1 million mobile connections) by 2025.
5G is a game-changer, allowing you to enjoy significantly faster response times when interacting with high-quality videos, large files and graphics-heavy apps. But it will not only allow you to have a more seamless experience with the mobile apps you use today—it will enable developers to create futuristic apps with rich functionality that was not possible before.
TCL looks at six ways mobile developers might use the power of 5G to create apps that are more streamline, convenient, powerful and immersive:
More precise location-based services
Not only does 5G offer more precise outdoor positioning, it addresses indoor positioning, a traditional challenge for systems. 5G networks can help mitigate signal interference and enhance location accuracy within buildings. Developers can be expected to use these features to create innovative experiences and apps in segments such as retail, tourism, healthcare and enterprise asset tracking.
Bringing augmented and virtual reality to life
The low latency and high speeds of 5G will help developers to create immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences. These apps can deliver more compelling experiences with smoother visuals, reduced motion sickness, and increased interactivity. As 5G becomes more widespread, we can expect a growth in the availability and quality of VR and AR apps.
IoT integration
We’re starting to see the Internet of Things (IoT) really take off, with exciting applications in the smart home, workplace and car. As the tech industry adds sensors and intelligence to everything from lighting, doorbells and speakers in the home to equipment in offices, 5G will provide the low latency, high speed connectivity needed to support our networked smart devices.
Smoother streaming of videos
5G opens possibilities for developers to include smooth, crystal-clear buffer-free 4K and in the future, even 8K, video in their apps. This could enhance experiences with many of today’s most popular apps and services, such as media streaming and videoconferencing.
Improved cloud capabilities
Many people already use cloud-based productivity applications from their mobile devices. 5G will enable us to enjoy faster data transfer rates when uploading or downloading data to and from the cloud as well as better response times from cloud-based services. Developers will also be able to do more processing on servers in the cloud rather than on your device. For example, games developers will be able to use the cloud to stream in-game graphical assets or even full games. Apps can get bigger and better because they are not limited by your device’s hardware specs.
Artificial intelligence experiences
5G’s faster data transfer speeds and low latency are beneficial for artificial intelligence (AI) applications that rely on cloud-based processing. Tasks such as natural language processing, image recognition, voice recognition and complex computations can be offloaded to powerful servers, and the results can be sent back to the device rapidly.
