Those of us who have been in the Mobility game for a long time have waited patiently for the Mobile Revolution, with a certainty that it would eventually arrive. And it appears (thanks mainly to Apple) that it's finally here, but perhaps not quite in the form that we expected.
If I think back to the Newton days, we all imagined that eventually everyone would carry some PDA form factor device which would largely replace desktop systems both for creating as well as consuming information. If I think back a little harder, I remember how excruciatingly painful it was to, say,
take notes using a stylus.
The information-creation use case, in fact, hasn't really got any better (with the exception of photographs and voice recording), and mobile devices have more or less become locked in to the information-consumption use case (with, of course, some limited interaction with the information - think "checking off a todo item").
What has become a lot better is the variety and volume of information to consume, and the ability to consume it in a completely painless manner. And while this isn't the only advancement, it's certainly the biggest.
So. Lets see.
If I count the applications on my iPhones, I can divide them into four categories:
- (5) Stand alone mobile applications (e.g, BookShelf)
- (3) Applications which are companions to a desktop application (e.g., OmniFocus)
- (15) Applications which are companions to a cloud (aka web based) application (e.g., FaceBook)
- (2) Games
For a grand total of 25 installed applications.
For me, this ends up being a whopping 60% of applications whose entire purpose is to put the functionality of a web application onto my phone.
If I take this further, I observe that 3 out of the 5 stand alone applications make seamless use of web based services to update content, which gives me 72% of my installed applications depending on a robust connection to the Net.
This trend was probably predictable, but it was only theoretical until completely brain-dead network connectivity became available, and developers could count on it. And, of course, the first (but clearly not last) device to provide this capability is the iPhone.
The perhaps more interesting trend that builds on this is the increasing appearance of what I'll call vanity apps - applications which are specific extensions of a service or brand, as opposed to a third party application which integrates with a service or brand (examples of vanity apps would be, again, FaceBook, or WeatherEye).
7 of the 25 (or 28%) of the applications on my phone are vanity apps.
There are a couple of reasons for this trend:
- A differentiator for the service or brand
Certainly, if I'm shopping for an application, I'm more likely to choose the one that has an iPhone companion than not. I'd choose Remember the Milk, for example, for task management based on this (if I wasn't already a hardcore OmniFocus user).
- A way of getting on the hype train
And I mean hype in a good way here. A compelling iPhone application generates brand awareness simply by existing and being compelling.
So now, if I look into my (admittedly cloudy and slightly cracked) crystal ball, my prediction for mobile applications and mobile development in general would be:
- A continued increase in the number of applications which are "fronts" to a web based service (aka "rich internet applications".
- A continued increase in the number of vanity apps provided on a "free" or token price basis, used to promote a service or brand.
- An increase in the number of software houses producing the above on a bespoke basis.
If I again think back to the Newton days, there's no way that I would have ever predicted this. It's certainly a Mobile Revolution, but it's not the one I expected.