Applications were the staple of productive computing. Microsoft Office and Apple’s iWork have brought a bundle of applications that are designed to flex, build, and create. Most of the features that are poured into these applications, whether it is word processing or spreadsheets, are untouched by the vast majority of users.
Having been the in-house IT guy in a law firm, I saw the production habits of legal work. Their use of word processing was very intense, but even still, they only used one corner of the pile of options provided. Year in and year out, applications have increased in the number of options and tools available to users. By now, if all you do is use word processing to process your words, you’re considered a “lite” user!
Considering how bulky and robust these applications have become, not only is there a need for good IT, but there’s a heavy price to equip an office full of users with software. Plus, the traditional organizational scenario requires servers and the like, to share data across the office.
As these application muscle heads laughed at seemingly trivial API’s and their social media friends, applications are starting to take a back-seat to apps.
Apps are designed for a single-purpose, are highly-optimized, and unlike applications, apps get along.
As an example, consider the options available for posting a photo online. There are several different choices of camera apps, several different choices of photo editing and manipulation apps, even more choices if you want to make a collage or crop your photo into a custom frame, and of course, several different solutions to post online and announce you’re posting to your personal community of followers. Apps are being designed to get along with one another in what is quite possibly an infinite solution set of combinations.
When this is coupled with the rise in cloud computing, it’s a combination that cannot be ignored. It is the future trend.
No matter if someone uses a Mac, PC, or Linux system, or if they’re using iOS, Windows Phone 7, or Android, the ability to compute, communicate, and integrate is possible. Never have we had so many ways to get the same thing done.
In fact, Apple has even decided to pull apart their iLife and iWork suites. Why would I want to buy a package of software, when I don’t even need half of it?
After all of these years of “personal computing”, it looks like computing is finally becoming personal.
[via GIGAOM]
Matt Pugh says
This is another great example of how the personal computing side of the industry has taken the lead in redefining it. New technology used to spring up because of the need to solve problems in the business world and then trickle down to appear in your home. I’m excited to see how specific apps will get on the business side. Being in IT, most of the questions I have to answer end up being a case of the user not completely understanding the application they are using. Less featured apps will make the percentage of understanding in the common user higher, allowing IT departments to concentrate on bigger projects instead of “silly” helpdesk tickets.
Eric Dye says
Hats-off to you, Sir!
Very insightful. I was getting the sense from what I was reading, that this would hurt IT. You’ve put some insightful light on this, in that IT departments will be able to work on bigger and better things.
Awesome.
BenJPickett says
I don’t see this freeing up time for the IT guys. I’m full time IT for a small business and I’m one of the volunteer guys in IT for a local church and I encounter the same problems. Most of my time on help tickets is spent supporting users random “Apps” for this iPhone and that Droid because it’s different than what they are used or from the same thing on another platform or they simple haven’t figured out how to work the options of the phone and setting up notifications and that sort of thing. I love the ones where someone just bought a brand new phone and now they want all of their old apps on it, the apps setup the way they were on the old phone, and photos and other files moved. We can’t forget that this new phone doesn’t do something that they think it should; after all that is why they replaced the old one.
herbhalstead says
hmm… I really don’t see a distinction between apps and applications – they are the same thing – one is a word abbreviation of the other… I’ve been using computers since you saved on a cassette tape… while we called them “programs” back then, “app” has been a common abbreviation as long as we’ve been using the word “application”…. there have always been utility applications that do a single purpose along-side huge applications… I get the point of applications becoming simpler is en vogue at this time, but trust me: in time, there will be a “reaction” to the mess of icons on our devices and we’ll see some consolidation bringing that back into balance…
Eric Dye says
Price is another distinction between the two.
I don’t see things moving back as much as moving forward. That’s not to say you’re not right about all of our icons. 😉
I think there are unforeseen technological advancements that will dictate how things advance, no matter what you call these … programs. (I had a Timex Sinclair 1000)
BenJPickett says
It’s not personal computing finally becoming personal, it’s a change of audience and platform. If you ask the manufacturers, including Apple, there was never a lack of the computers being personal, after all you can change the backgrounds, download custom icons, skins, themes and all kinds of other things to make your computer as personal as you want.
Applications for years were done by the developers for other developers. Enthusiasts who wanted to learn them were the next audience. People who wanted to learn them would use lots of the application and be excited about all the features and everything that it can be done with the application, useful to them or not. And that’s where the separation occurred. Because the next group to learn them were the people that had to and didn’t want to, anything other than a basic adding machine, paper and pen made their job harder because it meant change and something new.
The root deals with why people got computers in the first place. Internet and email. Some simple apps that serve a purpose. Like Apps. The large and very robust Applications were needed because they were the only things that did the other jobs that were nice to do from home and quickly became a need.
We’ve been able to buy office applications by themselves for a long time. When breaking it down, there is no PIM that compares to outlook (calendar, mail, contacts, tasks and notes all linked?!?! yes). Not even the most advanced of users scratch the surface of the power that Excel has, I can automate 90%+ of my day with Excel. This includes auto-generating emails, pinging servers, full command prompt, batch scripting and macros; then run 30 processes in a row with the click of a button and have 2 hours of work done in 10 minutes with reports fed out to another spreadsheet. Amazing. Let’s not get started with the mark ups and publishing ability of Word, the shell design and amount of languages that Access can use and reference. Much less that the new One Note brings it all together, because people thought these applications needed a way to talk to each other (which was already there and now a ton easier).
The newest audience wants things simpler. That means they have an app to do geometry for them and another app to calculate their tip at the Olive Garden and another app to do other simple math. Then before they know it they have 4 or 5 calculator apps all for different things. I have a dumb phone that has a single calculator that will do volume and distance conversions, tips, basic and simple advanced math. It came on the phone.
This is a new face and era. No reason for Applications to adapt and become Apps because it takes 10 Apps to do what 1 Application can do. Things will go full circle at some point and Applications will be needed again to ease the pain of too many Apps.
It will be interesting to see how this effects Application pricing over the next couple of years.
Eric Dye says
Good thoughts, Ben.
I was talking to my wife, today, how there’s an entire generation of computer users that don’t really know anything about them, whereas, my generation grew-up with computers from the ground-up. We understand the hardware and software function, naturally. This new user group (young and old), just wants it to work, and work simply, just as you stated.
You’re certainly right about that!