The End of Mobile Software Engineering (As We Know It)

Robin Nunkesser

Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences, Marker Allee 76–78, 59063 Hamm, Germany

Keywords:

Software Engineering, Mobile Software Engineering, Research Agenda, Mobile, iOS, Android.

Abstract:

Mobile Software Engineering as a separate research ﬁeld has been relevant to speed up Software Engineering

research in the area of mobile devices and applications. However, there are strong signs that the need for

separate research in Mobile Software Engineering is coming to an end. This is not due to a decline in the

importance of mobile devices and applications, but due to the impact of mobile on Software Engineering in its

entirety. Existing mobile speciﬁc research may be reconsidered for its implications on Software Engineering

in general. Future research can proﬁt from considering mobile and non mobile devices and applications

whereever possible.

1 INTRODUCTION

When writing about Mobile Software Engineering

and its end, it feels necessary to explain that there was

and still is a ﬁeld of research called Mobile Software

Engineering. The term Mobile Software Engineering

is not as common as Software Engineering and it is

not as well deﬁned. However, it is a term that is used

in the literature and in the context of conferences and

journals.

The origin of Mobile Software Engineering is

closely related to the success of mobile applica-

tions. An early milestone for application development

for mobile devices was reached in 2001, when the

Siemens SL45i allowed Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME)

applications to be downloaded with the Wireless Ap-

plication Protocol (WAP). Until 2008, mobile appli-

cation usage grew slowly but steadily. The opening of

the iPhone App Store in July, 2008 marked a starting

point for exponentional growth (Wasserman, 2010)

with more than a billion application downloads in less

than a year.

The success of mobile applications naturally led

to more considerations about the impact on Soft-

ware Engineering (for early works, see most notably

Wasserman (2010); Dehlinger and Dixon (2011)).

Wasserman (2010) proposed a research agenda for

Mobile Software Engineering and in the following

years special journal issues such as Mobile Software

see https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2009/04/24A

pples-Revolutionary-App-Store-Downloads-Top-One-Bil

lion-in-Just-Nine-Months/

Engineering and Systems and conferences such as the

International Conference on Mobile Software Engi-

neering and Systems (MOBILESoft) emerged.

Mobile applications are as successful as ever, but

there are strong signs that Mobile Software Engineer-

ing as a separate research ﬁeld is coming to an end.

In the following, we will take a closer look at the ori-

gins and development of Mobile Software Engineer-

ing, the current state of industry and research and the

implications for future research.

2 MOBILE SOFTWARE

ENGINEERING

The success of mobile applications had a strong im-

pact on Software Engineering because mobile devices

and their software have some differentiating features.

According to Nunkesser and Thorn (2023) the most

important ones are:

• Location independence

• Networking

• Context Sensitivity

• Simplicity

• Direct interaction

These features are not unique to mobile devices

and applications, but they are more important for mo-

bile devices and applications than for other devices

and applications. Starting with these features, it is

Nunkesser, R.

The End of Mobile Software Engineering (As We Know It).

DOI: 10.5220/0012780500003753

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Software Technologies (ICSOFT 2024), pages 131-136

ISBN: 978-989-758-706-1; ISSN: 2184-2833

131

possible to derive a number of challenges that are spe-

ciﬁc to mobile devices and applications. Wasserman

(2010) lists the following challenges:

• Potential interaction with other applications

• Sensor handling

• Different development approaches (see

Nunkesser (2018) for an overview)

• Families of hardware and software platforms (also

referred to as fragmentation)

• Security

• Regulated User Interfaces

• Complexity of testing

• Power consumption

Many of these challenges require new research

and development efforts. The research agenda pro-

posed in Wasserman (2010) included the following

areas and topics:

• User Experience

• Code reuse

• Networking

• Energy efﬁciency

• Data integrity

• Testing

• Portability and cross-platform development

Wasserman (2010) proposed the agenda as neces-

sary "software engineering research related to [the]

development of mobile applications". However, as

Dehlinger and Dixon state in Dehlinger and Dixon

(2011):

[...] the growth of this new computing plat-

form has outpaced the software engineering

work tailored to mobile application develop-

ment.

Therewith, they recognized the need for a separate

research ﬁeld, rather than just for research related to

mobile applications.

As an initial example to conﬁrm this need, let us

consider a literature review from 2013. Salazar et al.

(2013) focus on usability and state that "in spite of

a common recognition of the importance of usability

in the context of mobile devices, systematic research

ﬁndings with respect to usability heuristics for mobile

phones are sparse [...], this demonstrates clearly a lack

of research in this area."

Let us consider Muccini et al. (2012) as a second

example. The authors state that "mobile applications

[are] (so) different from traditional ones", that they

"require different and specialized new testing tech-

niques" and therefore separate research is necessary.

The need for seperate research is also supported

by needs from the industry. Joorabchi et al. (2013)

provide a Grounded Theory based study on chal-

lenges in mobile software engineering. The study

provides challenges that concern all areas of Wasser-

man (2010)’s research agenda except for energy efﬁ-

ciency. However, it is apparent that energy efﬁciency

is an industry-relevant challenge that is of great im-

portance for mobile devices. Thus, the study pro-

vides evidence that the research agenda proposed in

Wasserman (2010) is relevant for the industry.

In the years following the rise of iOS and Android

devices and the work of Wasserman (2010), the need

for separate research in Mobile Software Engineer-

ing was recognized in the literature. Mobile Software

Engineering may be seen as an effort to achieve the

necessary pace to ﬁll the above-mentioned research

gaps. When we consider the International Confer-

ence on Software Engineering (ICSE) and the Sym-

posium on the Foundations of Software Engineering

(FSE), the two ﬂagship software engineering confer-

ences, we can see that the need for a separate re-

search ﬁeld was recognized at ICSE with the Inter-

national Conference on Mobile Software Engineering

and Systems (MOBILESoft)

, which was ﬁrst held in

2014, and at FSE with the International Workshop on

Software Development Lifecycle for Mobile (DeMo-

bile)

, which was ﬁrst held in 2013.

More papers directly addressing the relationship

between Software Engineering and Mobile Software

Engineering (or Software Engineering primarily for

mobile devices) were published in the following

years. Nagappan and Shihab (2016); Baresi et al.

(2021) are two prominent examples that discuss the

trends and challenges.

3 THE END OF MOBILE

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Let us take a closer look at the relationship between

ICSE and MOBILESoft to see if there are signs that

Mobile Software Engineering as a separate research

ﬁeld is coming to an end.

Figure 1 shows the number of accepted research

papers at ICSE and MOBILESoft from 2015–2023

MOBILESoft is held in conjunction with ICSE

DeMobile was held in conjunction with FSE in 2013

and 2014

In 2014, no data on accepted papers was published in

the MOBILESoft conference proceedings.

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132

Figure 1: Accepted research papers at ICSE and MOBILE-

Soft 2015–2023.

Figure 2: Publications from ICSE proceedings with mobile-

speciﬁc keywords.

While ICSE shows a steady growth in publications,

MOBILESoft’s publications are declining - although

the acceptance rate is higher than before (2023 had an

acceptance rate of 47%; 2016 had an acceptance rate

of 33%).

Does this trend mean that most of the research in

Mobile Software Engineering is done? Of course not.

It means that the need for separate research in Mo-

bile Software Engineering is coming to an end and

we are back to the need for "software engineering re-

search related to the development of mobile applica-

tions" (Wasserman, 2010).

Figure 2 shows publications from ICSE proceed-

ings where the keywords contained either "Mobile",

"iOS", or "Android". The ﬁrst publications were pub-

lished in 2011 with a steady growth up to 2013. In

2014 - the year of the ﬁrst MOBILESoft conference

- and 2015, no such papers were published. How-

ever, mobile related papers appear again from 2016.

It seems clear, at least for the considered conferences,

that there was an initial boost for speciﬁc research in

Mobile Software Engineering which came to an end.

In fact, it goes far beyond that: results and re-

search that where obtained and conducted for mobile

devices and applications have an impact on Software

Engineering in its entirety.

4 MOBILE IS EATING THE

WORLD

Andreessen (2011) stated that "Software is Eating the

World". However, nowadays it is not an exaggera-

tion to state that mobile is (also) eating the (software)

world. According to StatCounter Global Stats An-

droid ﬁrst exceeded Windows in terms of internet us-

age in 2017 and in 2023 Android had a market share

of 39.56% compared to 29.21% for Windows. Mo-

bile is the dominant platform for internet usage and

has to be considered in many software development

projects.

4.1 Mobile First

From the perspective of the industry, there can be no

doubt about the impact mobile has on Software En-

gineering. The term Mobile First is a good exam-

ple for this observation. First used by Wroblewski

(2011), the term described at the time the idea of de-

signing web pages for all devices for mobile devices

ﬁrst. The importance of this paradigm change, which

was adopted by Google in 2010, is self-explanatory.

As a second example, let us consider Apple’s strat-

egy change with regard to macOS apps. A substantial

reason for introducing technologies like SwiftUI and

Mac Catalyst was to enable developers to do Mobile

First for native development (see e.g. Sun, 2024, for

the impact of iOS and iPadOS on macOS develop-

ment). Examples of Apps developed Mobile First by

Apple are News, Home, Stocks, and Voice Memos.

Similar observations can be made for other tech-

nologies that originated in mobile development and

are now used in other areas. For example, the use of

React Native for web and desktop development or the

use of Flutter for web, desktop, and embedded devel-

opment. .NET MAUI is another good example for

a technology that originated in mobile development

(Xamarin) and is now also used for desktop develop-

ment.

4.2 Reconsidering the Research Agenda

The need for Mobile Software Engineering as a sep-

arate research ﬁeld originated in the mobile software

The End of Mobile Software Engineering (As We Know It)

133

Figure 3: Citations of Wasserman (2010) by year according

to ResearchGate.

Figure 4: Percentage of papers with topics related to

Wasserman (2010)’s research agenda according to Clarivate

Web of Science.

boom starting in 2008, was recognized in the litera-

ture and most prominently addressed in the research

agenda proposed in Wasserman (2010). In Section 3,

we saw a research boom in Mobile Software Engi-

neering from 2014–2019.

Figure 3 shows the number of citations of Wasser-

man (2010) by year according to ResearchGate. It

shows a similar trend to the number of publications at

MOBILESoft.

However, the declining citations and publications

do not mean that the research agenda proposed in

Wasserman (2010) is outdated. Figure 4 shows the

percentage of papers with topics related to Wasser-

man (2010)’s research agenda according to Clarivate

Web of Science, which is steadily increasing.

The research agenda proposed in Wasserman

(2010) is now part of the research agenda of Software

Engineering in its entirety. In 2023, only 11.64%

of the papers in Figure 4 also cover mobile speciﬁc

topics. Many topics that were originally mobile spe-

ciﬁc are now part of general Software Engineering re-

search.

5 FUTURE PLANS

We have seen that the need for separate research in

Mobile Software Engineering is coming to an end.

However, the impact of mobile on Software Engineer-

ing is as strong as ever. Many papers still strongly dis-

tinguish between mobile and other devices at present,

although the separation of research areas is no longer

necessary.

The number of exceptions is limited. Beghoura

et al. (2017), for example, consider energy consump-

tion, inspire their research with the negative impact

of high energy consumption, especially on mobile de-

vices, and then proceed to develop a tool that is not

limited to mobile devices. Maghawry et al. (2020)

consider program transformation sequences to reduce

lines of codes (LoC), motivated by limited resources

on mobile devices, but this is also applicable to other

devices. Oliveira et al. (2021) also consider energy

consumption motivated by mobile development, but

their research is not limited to mobile devices.

Future research should reconsider research con-

ducted for mobile devices and applications and con-

sider the impact on Software Engineering in its en-

tirety. Researchers who are currently working on

mobile-speciﬁc topics should also consider the im-

pact of their research on Software Engineering. Con-

versely, Software Engineering researchers who have

not included mobile devices and applications in their

research so far on the other hand, should consider the

impact of mobile on their research.

With this approach, Software Engineering will

beneﬁt from the generalization of previously over-

looked research results. The aforementioned research

topic of energy consumption is a good example. Man-

otas et al. (2016) show the relevance of energy con-

sumption for the entirety of Software Engineering by

stating that

[...] 40 % of experienced traditional prac-

titioners indicated that they have energy re-

quirements or goals.

However, relevant and generalizable research like

Cruz and Abreu (2019) only discuss the applicability

of their results to "Cyber-Physical Systems and Inter-

net of Things". This seems too limited given the ob-

servation that of the 22 discussed design patterns only

"WiFi over Cellular" and "SensorFusion" are strictly

mobile speciﬁc and many others are also relevant for

saving energy on other devices and applications.

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134

Mobile application development will also beneﬁt

from Software Engineering research results that did

not consider mobile devices and applications before.

Nunkesser. (2022) for example, consider the applica-

tion of Hexagonal Architecture for mobile application

development.

As a ﬁnal note, it is certainly also worth looking

at related research ﬁelds such as Embedded Software

Engineering, Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical

Systems to see if there are research results that can be

generalized to Software Engineering.

6 CONCLUSION

In this paper, we have seen that Mobile Software En-

gineering as a separate research ﬁeld has been rele-

vant in accelerating research in the area of mobile de-

vices and applications. However, the need for sepa-

rate research in Mobile Software Engineering is com-

ing to an end. Researchers who up until now have

concentrated on mobile speciﬁc topics should elicit

the possibilities of generalizing their research. Re-

searchers who have not included mobile devices and

applications in their research so far should consider

the impact of mobile on their research.

It’s the end of Mobile Software Engineering as we

know it and I feel ﬁne.

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