Mobile application development is a “touchy” thing – both literally and figuratively. I mean it literally, in the sense that users generally let their fingers do the walking across your mobile app’s interface, which has some very interesting implications for your GUI (graphical user interface), and figuratively, in the sense that there are a lot of ways to go very wrong in the mobile development process.

I’ve had some limited experience in trying to design mobile apps, and a great deal of experience in using them. Very few apps that I download – and they must number in the thousands by now—pass the acid test of becoming permanent fixtures of my mobile experience. Most are “one and done” affairs, where I end up regretting the time I spent trying them out in the first place.

So here are four things that make a mobile app really stand out, from my perspective:

Today’s workforce is increasingly empowered and enhanced with mobile technology. Colleges that are enabling their students to fully leverage mobile technology and learning are ultimately preparing them for success in today’s economy.

Consider some current trends:

First responders such as police, firefighters and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) play a critical, highly visible role in state and local government service. In fact, they’re often the public face of government itself.

In the past, public safety personnel relied on clipboards, paper charts and files. Employees had to commute back to a central office to synch devices, and complete and file paperwork, and information was only accessible from mainframe desktops. To significantly improve service and increase efficiency, public safety departments across the U.S. have turned to mobile computing technologies like laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Originally Posted by William Hong, Lenovo Blogs

Most of us only fuel our cars approximately once per week.  When can we expect to get the same mileage from our laptops?  Imagine charging your laptop once on a Sunday, and having it last a 40-hour work week without ever needing more juice.  With ever more efficient hardware and processors, we can see that sort of performance on the horizon.  So when exactly will it happen?

At more and more organizations, mobility is driving the need for desktop virtualization. This is largely due to what Linda Tucci, senior news writer at TechTarget, describes as “the growing appetite for using smartphones and tablets to access desktops remotely—even if only in a pinch and only for limited use.”

In “CIOs Sell Enterprise Desktop Virtualization with Mobility,” Tucci quotes David Johnson, senior analyst at Forrester Research: “‘I can’t quantify it, but there is a link…Mobility is a tipping-point issue for desktop virtualization.’”

Human services agencies are facing unprecedented challenges brought about by the ongoing fiscal crisis. As their resources are shrinking, employees are stretched beyond their capacity by the growing number of citizens seeking public assistance through programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid and HUD Section 8.

“Many human services workers view technology as a barrier to client interaction,” says Dr. Adrian Aguilera of the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Many shun technology advancements, such as mobile devices, despite the fact that such tools can actually simplify client relationship management. In addition, mobile devices, including laptops and tablets, can help human services caseworkers increase their efficiency as they adjust to higher caseloads.

Just last October, the U.S. Department of Defense approved an Android-based mobile OS for its military networks, and it’s not hard to see why.

With access to the Android ecosystem, members of the military will have access to information on their mobile tablets or PCs covering everything from high-level command and control programs to terrain data mapping.

Because Android is open source, the National Security Agency (NSA) was able to create a custom build of the OS, called Security Enhanced Android, which was certified by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in October of last year. This build is expected to be the foundation for more, typically branch-specific iterations as tablets continue to prove their efficacy on the battlefield.

But in particular, tablets are showing great potential with two main areas of modern combat: situational awareness and remote troop management.

According to a new survey by MeriTalk, technology managers in the federal government project that 20 percent of their employees will use tablets for work by 2013. Already, nearly half of federal workers rely on laptops to get their jobs done, and that number is expected to hold strong.

But mobility isn’t just for the federal government; state and local agencies are leading the way.

In 2011, the state of Wyoming adopted Google’s cloud computing solutions for 10,000 employees, which will save the state more than $1 million a year and improve collaboration and connectivity between their in-office and mobile workforces.

In Michigan, the Department of Human Services provided laptops and camera-equipped smartphones to over 2,000 of its social workers, allowing them to complete work faster, more accurately and at a lower travel cost.

San Diego County declared that “mobile government (mGov) is the next logical step toward service improvement and effective response to economic and other pressures” in its strategic IT report.

So what’s holding some agencies back?