The End of Apps as We Know Them

Apps are not necessarily your user's final destination anymore; they're just an engine that translates raw data into actionable information. Some users might still occasionally open that beautifully-designed weather app to check the forecast, but the most useful thing the app can do is to send users a notification 15 minutes before it rains – reminding them to bring their umbrella as they leave. Yes, a notification. Mobile OS features such as the ability to take action right from the notification center on iOS or Google Now on Tap on Android are going to make people need to see an app's UI less and less over time.

We will still open apps. Sometimes

In this world, it feels dumb to open apps just to see what lies behind the red counter, or to have to switch between apps. Opening apps is still necessary and great for many contexts, especially composition of new content and dedicated deep workflows, and maybe changing preferences. But not for seeing what’s new and interesting. A bank of app icons as a dominant design pattern feels old and inefficient now, and I think it’ll disappear within a couple of years, correctly relegated behind a “show me my apps” action.

The system will learn, creating new competitors

As people interact or don’t interact with cards presented to them, the system will learn when to show more or less from a specific source (app). As content from different apps will be presented side by side, this changes who you might think you are competing with. Competition is between products that do the same job, not products that are in the same category.  This is already the case today; when faced with multiple notifications on a phone screen, they all compete with each other for your attention.

Apps will realize they are competing on Jobs they may not have realized their product addresses. Twitter for example, may be competing much more with apps addressing the Job of ‘entertain me while I have a short amount of free time’ e.g. Games and News apps, than with other social products.

This intense competition means businesses will have to spend time designing great notifications/cards, because they will potentially be competing with cards from Facebook, or Amazon, or Google. The days of sending lots and lots of notifications to bring people back to an app are going away, with a much better focus on designing notifications that people engage with there and then, independent of opening the app.