When the APP gold rush fades away, what will be the next era of wildflowers?

Many of the apps in your phone are rusty, right?

They are like a cold, lonely asteroid belt, unable to feel the brightness and warmth of your attention like the sun. In this power game about attention time, not only may you only keep one APP in each category; but large category applications such as social , games, and e-commerce have even snatched the time of many users in small categories.

The end of the traffic dividend and the APP gold rush have left us with naked swimmers, and many developers and investors have returned empty-handed. Now, for those who still want to make a fuss about mobile applications, investors should tighten their purse strings.

It’s worth reflecting on what caused the app world to fail, and which of the remaining players will continue to reign supreme. As the main article says at the end: User experience is important, but remember, it depends on where the user is to have such an experience. Otherwise, any good app will be thrown into the digital desert.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. In the past 10 years, the App Store, which was born with the iPhone, has given birth to a huge application ecosystem. A report by mobile data analysis company Flurry at the beginning of the year showed that the industry has now matured and reached a critical state of saturation. While there is still growth—app usage is up 11% over last year—the rate of growth is slowing. Many apps are currently growing at the expense of other apps, whereas previously all categories of apps were growing in sync.

This shows that the app has reached its maximum limit in occupying limited resources, namely user time. In other words, if a new app wants to attract attention, it must take users away from other apps. This could become a problem for new apps that will be competing against current industry leaders like Facebook, Messenger, Gmail, Instagram, etc.

The app gold rush may have subsided

Unsurprisingly, 2016 was a great year for social networking and messaging apps, with usage increasing 44% over 2015 and time spent soaring 394% year-on-year.

The growth is attributed to several factors: the proliferation of smart devices, faster mobile broadband, new features that support voice and video calling, support for the combination of communications and entertainment, the addition of live content and the growth of the "I Generation" (teens who were children when smartphones were first introduced but now own mobile devices).

However, the growth of social networking and messaging apps came at the expense of other categories of apps.

For example, apps in the personalization category have lost the most growth momentum, with usage falling by 46%.

Time spent on gaming apps also fell by 4% — a small drop that speaks to their transient nature.

Other categories that grew in 2016 included Business and Finance, where time spent increased 43 percent; Shopping, which grew 32 percent; and Sports, which grew 25 percent.

Overall, the slowdown in the growth of app usage marks the end of the gold rush era and the maturity of the market . It will be harder for new apps to acquire users, and more startups will have to resort to gimmicks, such as spamming users’ contacts, to drive usage. Perhaps there will be more mergers and acquisitions in this field, and apps that rely on venture capital support will close down after running out of money.

Apple, Google , Microsoft, etc. are all looking for the next developer platform. The apps that are expected to stand out are those for wearable devices, connected TVs, media players, and robots. The most promising next frontier seems to be voice interaction. In 2017, Amazon is likely to show its strength in the "app" ecosystem with its Alexa voice assistant and many add-ons.

It's not the next generation of computing that will bring down the app world

Some people say that the apps currently on the market will gradually be replaced by virtual robots. "Just as clients have been replaced by websites, mobile apps will soon be replaced by chatbots ," said TechCrunch in its 2015 annual report.

But in fact, it is meaningless to set virtual robots and apps against each other. Virtual robots cannot solve the problems of today's apps, and vice versa. The truth is, the decrease in downloads is because there are more and more junk apps on the market.

What people really need is an APP that can solve problems, make life more convenient, provide seamless services, and make life more colorful . However, people are extremely disappointed and dissatisfied with the experience of many apps, which is the reason for the decline in app downloads.

Users are not moving away from their mobile devices; rather, they want a deeper experience. According to US Internet company Dscout, users click their phones an average of 2,617 times a day. Gartner predicts that new digital experiences will bring people into endless virtual interactions through VR , AR and mixed reality (MR).

Perhaps more importantly, users spend a considerable amount of time in the apps they use most frequently. So, how can those new apps stand out and win the favor of users?

Junk apps are like poison

Nowadays, almost all apps on the market have some defects to a greater or lesser extent, and these shortcomings are not all obvious. Every app does not focus on creating an amazing user experience for users, and does not invest more energy and time in those extremely subtle interaction designs.

Don Norman, author of Design Psychology, believes that "user experience encompasses all aspects of the end user's interaction with a business, its services, and its products."

This may sound absurd, but it is crucial to achieve the standard of "mindfulness" in psychology in user experience design . Unfortunately, like many tech buzzwords, people have completely misused and abused the term user experience, even confusing it with the concept of user interface, causing a lot of trouble.

Just like a car , the fancy interior is like the user interface. The essence of user experience lies in the reasonable location of the operating interface. The car not only drives but also allows the driver to have endless fun. This is the essence.

Those poorly made apps have a negative impact on the entire mobile ecosystem. In the app store , an app with a score of 4.5 and an app with a score of 4.3 may not seem to be much different, but the difference in profits is quite staggering.

Where is the user experience created?

Is the App Revolution Dead? In fact, it fell silent several years ago.

Now, a whole new movement is taking its place—the experience revolution.

There are so many apps out there, but the real game-changers are those that go beyond the device level and impact your daily experience. Take Uber as an example. Although its APP cannot change the rules of the game, its powerful force in affecting users' taxi experience is enough to cause shock to the entire taxi industry. Now, wearable devices are doing the same thing.

Wearable devices have pushed the experience revolution into high gear, but there is one thing that is even more important to the experience revolution that developers must keep in mind: the effectiveness of the experience depends on where you experience it . Have you ever tried to read an e-book on your iPad in bright sunlight? If so, you know what I’m talking about.

The idea of ​​taking “where to experience an APP” as a basic development principle was something I realized when I was in Kenya a few years ago. At the time, my colleagues and I visited a slum where a company was working to bring eco-toilets to local residents. Each eco-toilet was managed and operated by a franchisee, who needed to track usage in order to arrange a reasonable toilet allocation and waste removal schedule. But they are all recorded with pen and paper.

So, I suggested that a mobile APP should be developed to improve efficiency. At this point, my partner reminded me that this is in the slums of Kenya, and your mobile device can be robbed faster than you can say the word "iPhone."

Yes, I could write the best app in the world and give users an unparalleled user experience, but I forgot “where” users could have such an experience. Forgetting this will doom any good app to be consigned to the digital desert.

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