A New Technology Wave Might Be At Our Doors: iMessage Apps
The iOS 10 release brings a new concept: iMessage apps. After personal computers, the internet, smartphones, and mobile apps, Apple might have hit on something more interesting than their beloved iMessage stickers.
With the success of WeChat in China and generalized app fatigue (Let’s be honest, when was the last time you downloaded an app?), it might be time for another technology to come up. Don’t get me wrong: apps will always be useful, but there is a lot of noise and apps need to be 10 times better than before. It’s also the first time we’re spending more time communicating than using apps. In that context, iMessage brings a new paradigm that can be useful: collaborative apps within our conversation flow.
The UI problem
When Facebook released chatbots, my first impression after some excitement was: and now what? Am I going to have a lengthy discussion with a bot asking me which toppings I want on my pizza and type long sentences like: “I would like a large all dressed pizza with mushrooms only on half of the pizza and peppers on the other half. Make sure it doesn’t touch pineapples because I’m allergic to that.” ?
Besides the hot debate that might follow with the chatbot on whether pineapples are good or not on pizza, this doesn’t even count the possible back and forward discussions I would need to have trying to order. Even with the standard buttons, Chatbots are offering an incomplete solution in terms of usability and covering the multitude of options needed — in short there’s a discovery problem (what can I say/do) and an action problem (how do I easily access the option and see its holistic effect on my interaction). Sometimes, UI is just better. Period.
After watching the Apple Keynote in June, I was surprised by how Apple focussed on Stickers and collaborative ice cream building and not on the potential power of those app bubbles.
Live Collaborative Apps with a Conversational Backbone and a Unified Identity. Say what?
Let’s dig in:
Live Collaborative Apps
Right now apps operate under a paradigm of fundamentally individual use with non-standardized share-out mechanics.
What would the world look like if there was an app “common room” or “sandbox” where you could collaboratively interact within your Apps with your friends while being able to have a conversation in iMessage. Could this experience be standardized?
Sharing and collaborating on information in our communication flow can be truly useful. Imagine an event you’re sending to your colleagues that you can update live both on your calendar and theirs. Imagine working on a document shared in a conversation, without leaving. Imagine updating a grocery list with your loved one when you’re at the grocery store. Imagine sharing picture albums: You send a bubble and you have access to all the album pictures and everyone can add their own. It can be lean and truly simple.
Conversational Backbone
Any live collaborative app would need a standardized way for people to interact and share information while they work together. What better way to share a flow of information between people than inside conversations they are already having with friends and family.
iMessage chats can act as an informational backbone for people using these collaborative apps; sending messages, images, video, live collaborative apps/bubbles, etc. between each other.
Unified Identity
Apple has spent a lot of time and resources working on the iCloud Keychain as well as Apple Pay and Touch ID. Right now using Apple Pay, even online, is many times equivalent, in terms of processing fees and fraud, to using a physical card with a chip and pin.
Apple Pay is the key to unlocking this ecosystem. Once user payment information is inputted and secured, it unlocks a plethora of potentially monetizable low friction interactions.
Could we have a unified identity that knows and securely stores everything about us, and automatically gives us control of the apps we need sans logging in?
Health and HomeKit look like emergent attempts at unifying user identity. Perhaps having an Auto-Log-In (and pay) with Apple is not that far fetched.
Combining these together can lead to an unprecedented level of integration and frictionless experience between apps and services.
One login and Touch ID could theoretically log you into all your apps at the same time. This is important because it can create a web-like fluid experience between apps and the data they share with each other.
Extra Brownie Points
Apple said something in their keynote about apps not having to download at all. If someone could send you a collaborative app bubble and you could interact within that native app on the fly in a similar way to a webpage, that would put any HTML5 based model that apps like WeChat and Kik developed to shame. Apps could get downloaded on the fly, identified to you, logged in, and ready to collaborate. Once done, the app disappears up in the conversational thread, ready to always go back to if need be.
The result: Live Collaborative Apps with a Conversational Backbone and a Unified Identity making all our interactions and collaboration with others frictionless.
Apple’s Response to WeChat
There’s already an app out there that has all the information about you, provides a unified identity that auto logs you into apps, provides secure payments, and a conversational backbone. I’m talking about WeChat.
WeChat is in effect the web when it comes to China. They built a fully integrated mobile OS that provides identity, payments, and full integration between every app under the sun within a single experience. There are more WeChat official accounts launched every day than websites in China and most people coming back from China are telling us how going back to our “Constellations of Apps” feels like stepping back in time.
I can imagine the world where apps are truly live collaborative while having an informational chat backbone with other people and perhaps even a helpful bot. It would be a vast improvement over the old paradigm of apps being fundamentally individual experiences that then get shared with others in a non-standardized format.
We hope Apple builds a fully integrated and functional western WeChat-like experience at the core OS level.
Potential Issue
The biggest issue with what Apple is doing is the distribution or lack thereof. While Apple has the most secure identity hardware on the market, the early adopter market, and vast resources, this doesn’t change the fact that there are many devices running Android or the Web which Apple can’t integrate with using their OS level solution. We spent a lot of time analyzing this as it relates to competitors like Facebook Messenger and the nascent ability to run on the fly React Native apps on Android, iOS, and React Native Web at the same time. We will touch more on this in our next article :)
(Thanks to my co-founder Chris Turlica for helping me write and edit this article.)
Give me UI. No login. No download. Let’s collaborate together. I would love this seamless experience. Could it be as revolutionary as the internet or mobile apps? No one knows, but it’s up to Apple and others to push those new features and make it happen!
We created an iMessage Collaborative app in React Native if you’re curious. Feel free to comment at the bottom of the story! I’m always interested in discussing about these topics. : )
