Life after The App – the rise of the physical
It’s January 2018, two years from now, and we’re frustrated.
The culprit? Our Smart Phones.
Over the last decade, these iPhones, Galaxies and Nexus things have become such a staple in our daily lives that they’ve worn perfect imprints of themselves in all our favourite jeans. In fact, with over 4bn of these things now in use around the world, they've become — in the truest sense of the word — a ubiquity.
The idea of not having one? Laughable. Leaving the house without one?! Reckless.
Piggy-backing this smart-phone explosion are the ‘apps’ that fuel them. Hundreds of digital, pocket-sized pick axes furiously chipping away at life’s daily frustrations for every demographic. They’ve become our interface to the world. Our music, our home, our lighting, our money, our books. The people we love, the news we want, the entertainment we watch, the holidays we plan.
But it’s fair to say that the booming cliché of stuffing our life’s mess into a rounded rectangle has peaked. The connected world has become apathetic and it’s thanks three things:
1. Commoditisation
The software companies responsible for the ‘appification’ of the world are in trouble. Running out of territories to conquer and portions of our analogue lives to digitise, these darlings of the digital age have now become commoditised. The gold-rush ensuing from the digitisation of our analogue interactions has peaked. These once kingly companies are now locked in endless cycles of minor tweaks, bug fixes and performance improvements. Struggling to differentiate amongst a sea of ‘7-star service’ they find it increasingly difficult to make their software to stand out. Few companies are managing to satisfy our well-trained, insatiable appetite for innovation. We’re bored and their employees are too.
2. Sterility
Thanks to such complete software ubiquity, we find that we simply don’t touch the world anymore. Everything we do is now accessed and controlled through a sheet of scratch-resistant glass. In a growing number of cases we’ve lost even that primitive interaction as vocal commands and gestures manage the interface between us and more and more of our life.
But at the invisibility has been introduced expense of the tactile. These services feel increasibly sterile and emotionless; my thumbs should feel different exchanging words of love compared to shopping for car tyres. But they don’t. My vocal tone should need to change when commiserating a friend in grief and when applauding one in celebration.
Everything feels a little too flat.
3. Fashion
The death knell of The App is tolled by the kids, of course. Penetration for those aged 60+ continues to swell but, in search of disconformity, rebellious teenagers seek out different experiences. Experiences that drive a separation between them and the rest of the population and re-introduce magic into the interaction. Experiences that reflect the passions they hold as an individual.
They find none of this in their pockets today and are in search of something new.
From such apathy, a new poster child emerges.
Hardware. The Physical.
Over time, we’re going to see a re-splintering of devices and products into experiences and interfaces specific to their function. They’re niche. They’re fashionable and they’re carried like badges, proudly advertising your personal hobbies and interests to the world. Rather than the obsession of doing millions of things well, these new devices return to an age where they do one or two things beautifully. They’re big. They’ve got buttons. They’re simultaneously genius and ignorant. They’re designed to be loved by the tribe and ignored by the masses.
My beloved practice of Service Design has found its home in hardware again.
Imagine, in just a few years time….
An amateur musician carries a professional-grade, portable loop pedal to capture those flashes of creativity that hit her when she least expects it. Six digital strings on the back emulate the neck of her favourite guitar and a telescopic HD dynamic microphone is pulled out in a miniature s-shape pointed toward her mouth. The device’s buttons emulate the twists, clicks and clunks of a 70’s amp and the sound is raw and scratchy. She feels like a fantastically well-organised Keith Richards and giggles through every chord and riff until she throws it in her backpack again until then next creative moment strikes.
An avid follower of the news steps through the closing doors of the London Underground. He finds a vacant seat and pulls from his breast pocket an A5 sized device that looks like a soft-backed moleskin notebook. He unfolds it four times to reveal a broad-sheet sized OLED screen that weighs no more than 100 grams. Each day, his personalised, interactive newspaper appears on the huge screen in e-ink. Syncing instantly with the news company’s servers, articles and headlines update in real-time. The pages of his personalised newspaper reshuffle every minute or two in response. Pinching his favourite articles, he saves them for later. Swiping others, he curates the newspaper around the stories that interest him. He loves it because it’s big, it’s almost disposable and it creates an enjoyable habit for his daily commute.
The school playground is a sea of clustered teenagers. Standing in circles they trade small discs about the size of a two-pound coin. Each is uniquely decorated using customising kits applied by the owners. Contained within the disc is a small hard-drive, wireless receiver, battery a fantastically high quality speaker and importantly — a single MP3 file. These strange devices have been purchased from the local music store and represent an old favourite of the music industry — The Single. When the holder of the disc compresses it between thumb and forfinger it sparks to life with a purple glow and a booming sound. The single plays. But fascinatingly, should another pimpled teenager in the group also own this same single, when they initiate their disc, the two devices syncronise. The two discs play together and create an amplified and stereo version of the same track. Should five of them play their discs at the same time, the next track in the artists album is unlocked automatically. Get 10 of them together and they can play the album.
Despite the noise, their parents watch in bemusement and grin uncontrollably because for the first time in a generation we’re touching music with our hands again.
Ok. Back to reality. What does this mean for us in 2016?
Walking down any street in any major city on the planet today and the ubiquity of smart phones and the helpful software on them is already apparent.
While the ocean of problems these small devices can tackle certainly shows few signs of evapourating up for some years to come, I can’t help but feel that software alone is becoming the cliché. I don’t see the killer services of 2020 being able to afford to limit themselves to an app. It will be too dull. Too… 2010.
So, if you’re involved in peering into the future and imagining businesses or services that will exist in 3–5 years time, I challenge you to push yourself further. Consider whether you can re-introduce the physical. Ask yourself:
- Is software enough? How can you avoid commoditisation and imagine even more incredible services that seamlessly integrate fantastic physical, tangible experiences into your software product or service strategy?
- Can you emulate a more ‘human’ interaction? We are hard-wired to touch and enjoy physical interactions. How can you delight your customers with a more emotional interaction that’s closer to the real-world.
- Can you find a fashion? As digital services become truly mainstream they will begin to be subject to the same fickle cycles of fashion many other products and services face. How can you turn this to your advantage by building fans out of your customers by appealing to their individuality, their passions and their idiosyncrasies?
Maybe we’re a long way off. Maybe software will continue to rule for decades to come. But when I see the hugely popular response to emerging products like Bragi’s wireless headphones, Digitsoles’ Smart Shoes and Astell & Kern’s beautiful AK380 HD Music Player, it seems a future of software-apathy and hardware-centricity could come sooner than we think.
Regardless, I suppose that’s in our hands. As they say; the best way to predict the future, is to invent it.
