With 2019 drawing to a close, our app developers at Launchbase have had a productive year. However, they were able to take some time and discuss the apps that they have been loving over the past year, with London app development agencies buzzing with new digital products on the scene. With Fintech and creativity dominating the favourites, it is safe to say that our mobile developers have been loving the fun applications. Here are our Launchbase app developers’ favourite apps of 2019:

TikTok

If you haven’t been paying attention to TikTok, you haven’t been paying attention. The short-form video app hailing from Beijing’s ByteTance just had its biggest month ever with the addition of 75 million new users in December — a 275 percent increase from the 20 million it added in December 2017, according to a recent report by the Sensor Tower. While it’s true that TikTok is home to some standard lip-syncing, it’s actually better known for its act-out memes backed by music and other sound clips, which get endlessly reproduced and remixed among its young users.

TikTok’s sizable user base, meanwhile, is due not only to its growth in Western markets, but because of its traction in emerging markets like China and India. This allowed TikTok to rank No. 4 worldwide across iOS and Android, combined, according to App Annie’s data on the most-downloaded apps of 2018. On iOS, TikTok was the No. 1 most-downloaded app of the year, mainly thanks to China. At times last year, TikTok even ranked higher than Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. Our London-based app developers have seen the shift from Snapchat to TikTok, though none of us feel like we are cool enough to have a Tik Tok account, we know that London Agencies are planning on taking this app and using this to integrate into their daily tasks and make memorable content.

Holiday Swap

Our developers may be biased since we worked with Holiday Swap, however they are making waves in the travel sector. Holiday Swap aims to disrupt the travel industry by giving people the opportunity to exchange their homes with thousands of spaces worldwide for $1. We partnered with Holiday Swap to design, develop and launch the app’s second phase.

Holiday Swap has a 4.1 star rating on the iOS App Store with glowing reviews and has over 100,000 downloads on the Play Store. Our Launchbase developers have worked with Holiday Swap for over four years, and the impact it has had locally in London has been received to a happy audience. Developers at Launchbase would definitely make use of this innovative idea on their next holiday.

Monzo

The Monzo app is available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play only, allowing you to use it on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple Watch, as well as Android smartphones. Monzo can be seen as the big daddy of Fintech that has taken on conventional banks. Valued over £2 billion after several rounds of funding, this startup has over 2 million users, with plans to expand into the US. The Monzo card can be used anywhere in the world with limited fee-free spending – ideal for short holidays. Using Monzo is also arguably more convenient than a traditional bank as you don’t need to tell the bank when you go away to avoid getting your card accidentally locked.

Since launching in 2016, they have had a redesign fairly recently, just short of two months ago. Our developers at Launchbase have loved the simplistic approach to app as well as the clean Front end design that enables you to track your finances through graphics and monitoring of your spending to let you know where your money is going exactly.

Faceapp

If you’ve been on Facebook, Twitter or pretty much any other social medium in the last few days then you can’t have failed to notice it – FaceApp is everywhere.

Despite launching way back in January 2017, the app has suddenly received a new lease of viral life. Controversial does not adequately describe how this app has been portrayed in the media during the course of 2019. London app developers have criticised the safety of the app as it has caused immense stress in regards to data breaches with the states have accused the Russian developers of the app for keeping the images of its users.

However, our Launchbase developers have understood that the app took the London app developer agency scene by storm. For app development agencies, data becomes sacred as you design and build applications in order to maintain the authenticity and safety of the product. However, we at Launchbase have found a Faceapp to be a fun experience that caused a lot of laughs in the office.