When Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone in 2007, accelerating the smartphone revolution, the revolutionary device came with only a small set of apps produced through Apple. There’s still no software progression kit (SDK) for third parties to extend apps, and there’s obviously no app store either. All of that was replaced in early 2008, when the floodgates of app progress opened.
Since then, millions of smartphone apps have been created for iPhone and Android devices and their effect on society has been nothing short of revolutionary.
But is it possible that the app economy is coming to an end?
The recent explosion of innovation in the realm of synthetic intelligence (AI), and in particular generative AI, suggests that potential situations for a post-application era would likely be ahead of schedule. This can also pave the way for entirely new tactics. interact with our devices and enable businesses to deliver products and services.
The concept that the days of apps are numbered is not a new topic. In fact, for more than a decade, observers have warned that an app (a standalone software application on a screen of icons that wants to be located, opened, and used) has the ultimate optimal experience.
Nowadays, some functions of a smartphone do not require such actions. You can read, and if necessary, respond to a push notification, bypassing the app altogether. Security can be controlled through the device right in your face. Siri and Android Google Assistant uses voice commands to locate and produce effects such as driving instructions and music playback.
Smartwatches, which provide many non-app capabilities haven’t displaced the ubiquity of apps, although their remarkable popularity provides an obvious hint that users are open to new ways of engaging with technology.
Despite those innovations, app usage remains the dominant interface between users and their devices.
Smartphones are massively popular, with over six billion in use across the world. When using their mobile devices, American’s spend 88 percent of their time using apps. Games make up a large portion of that percentage, followed by business, education, and lifestyle uses.
Apps have replaced the way we consume data and entertainment, buy things, and even the way we locate a date. For enterprises, apps offer a whole new business channel. A company without at least one app is an exception and can be an omission that puts a price tag on genuine money in missed opportunities.
How is it conceivable that the dominance of standalone, installed apps could be toppled from their leading position? One central answer comes down to whether there is a superior alternative.
Smartphones and apps have combined common desires into a single interface. The list is long and includes common features like getting directions, paying for things, gambling, food information, taking pictures, recording videos, and much more. There is no doubt that this transition has been a game-changer. Pick up your phone, locate or download an app, and you’re good to go.
But what if you didn’t want to locate an app and your wishes were simply fulfilled by a voice command, or better yet, if your device knew your identity and waited for your wishes, taking care of it for you?
Suddenly, applications can seem too heavy. With such a smart device, there would be no need to think about which app to use, locate and open it on a device, be informed, and not forget how to use it. and then go through its many steps. In this way, a noticeable layer of overhead would be removed. Technology would take a back seat and would be largely invisible.
What I’m describing is a post-app world powered by increasingly resilient AI. This is a long-term one in which devices have a connection to their own personal assistant.
Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft, has been writing about the future of software and the notion of software-enabled personal assistants, what he calls agents, for over 30 years. It’s only now that we’ve reached the enabling technology though advances in AI, that his predictions are beginning to be realized. In his words, “You won’t have to use different apps for different tasks. You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do. And depending on how much information you choose to share with it, the software will be able to respond personally because it will have a rich understanding of your life.”
In a post-app world, even smartphones can become redundant. Humane, a startup founded in San Francisco, developed the Ai Pin. It’s a small wearable device worn as a lapel pin, slightly larger than an Apple Airpods charging case, that responds to voice and hand gestures. It doesn’t have a screen, but it can assign text and photos to a person’s hand. The developers claim that it has all the features of a smartphone, but without a screen. The Ai Pin gives us an idea of what’s next and the odds of a whole new market.
There is no doubt that what I am proposing here is disruptive. We live in a world made up of millions of apps and app developers that generate billions of dollars every year. A post-application or software global agent will generate massive changes and awkward adjustments in such a vast and complex industry. It will also force organizations to rethink and reinvent the way they interact with customers. But as one era leads to another, more opportunities and inventions may abound.
There’s a long way to go to fully realize this future, but when it happens, everything about computers and the global will change.