Future of Mobile Apps

If you follow the latest technology trends, you must have read some articles where author discusses how mobile apps will look like in future. A very widely established belief is that mobile web apps with an user experience like a native app is the future. Flipkart released their mobile web app on the same line last year. They have done an impressive job, the user experience of this web app is actually very close to native app in many respect. The technology is still new and not many companies have released such apps. Such an app could be the future of mobile apps, but this is not the future that I want to discuss today.

My idea of future of apps is vaguely inspired by the Unification of Forces in nature. I remember my Physics teacher in class 12th, who tried to show us how different forces in nature are actually a part of a bigger unified force. He would take a problem from Electromagnetism and show us how it can be described parallel to other forces. Okay, no more Physics, conclusion is that my idea is inspired from the Unification of Forces.

So what do I mean by that! This example should clarify it. Suppose you want to ask your friend ABC if he has the 5th season of Game of Thrones, how do you do that? You can call him, but who calls these days for such small queries; a message should do. So you can,

• WhatsApp him
• SMS him
• Send message on Facebook Messenger
• Message on Hike
• Message on WeChat
• iMessage him
• Drop message on Hangout

These are the options that I could think of right away, there are many more ways. You just wanted to message your friend, that’s all you care about. Your friend ABC is one person, he has several profiles but he is one entity. You don’t want to message his WhatsApp profile or his Messenger, you want to message HIM. My idea of future of apps is that these mediums should not matter to users, his life is complicated enough.

Mobile phones are slowly becoming AppStores! Want to buy clothes? You have 3 apps. Want to order groceries? You have 2 apps. Another app only for morning milk & newspaper delivery. What’s happening around you? 2 apps. Want to read news? You have 3 apps. Talk to friends? 5 apps. Play some games? 7 apps. Order a cab? 4 apps. Order dinner? 6 apps. Don’t you agree that you have mini AppStore in your mobile? Apps were supposed to make our life easier, they did to a great extent, but now they don’t. If I were to draw a graph on How much apps simplified our lives over time, it would look like this

They simplified our lives over a long period, then it somewhat became constant and is now on decline.

When I want to book a cab, I should be just able to do it according to my preferences. I want to book a 4 seater AC cab from Airport to Connaught Place at 3 PM at the cheapest price, that’s it. I don’t want to try 4 different cab booking apps to set my preferences and see which one is the best for me. I want an intelligent interface over these 4 apps.

When I want to message ABC, I should just be able to do it without thinking about the medium, because medium is not my primary concern.

Apps need to become more useful in future, more user centric.