The Future of Apps Part II
Last month, I shared my vision on the future of apps for personal use as well as the future of business enterprise level apps and what companies should consider before and during development.
This month, I would like to share my vision on the next evolution of apps for the Television. Today's newer televisions are Internet enabled. (And, by the way, all our devices will be Internet enabled one day.) That means the processor and the television browser are built into the TV set so you don't have to plug the computer into our television; the TV is the computer.
With this comes the wide-scale use of Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV for short. It's essentially TV over the Internet versus on cable and satellite. In fact, many Millenials use IPTV service for all of their television viewing rather than cable or satellite. Knowing this, it's only logical that we'll also see apps for TV, Television level apps. (Some new models already have them.) Flat panel displays provide even more visual real estate and will most likely have faster processors. Many new TVs are also 3D equipped, meaning that your apps will be 3D too. As you can see, in the app world, this is a game changer. Smart companies need to stay ahead of this evolution and create their apps accordingly.
If you look at the types of apps currently available in the app stores, you can see that most of the companies developing apps don't see the future of apps. They're doing simplistic and basic apps that don't take into account future needs and they certainly aren't enterprise level apps. In fact, if you look for business apps in iTunes, the largest app store, you'll find numerous apps on such things as document scanning, creating to-do lists, and document sharing. Such apps are so common that some could argue they're commodities. Standing out in the business world requires you to be more than a commodity - you need to be a unique solutions provider. Tomorrow's apps will do precisely that.
Realize that apps are a major tectonic revolution in computing. We went from servers, mainframes, and terminals to having our own desktops and PCs to having our own laptops. Smart Phones and Smart Pads that enable us to connect to the world from anywhere are no becoming our main computing devices.
By making the Smart Phone and Smart Pad a multimedia PC powered by dozens if not hundreds of apps, people can now have a powerful computer with them at all times. As a result, people from all walks of life and every industry have the ability to do some amazing things they couldn't do before. That's a giant shift in thinking about phones and apps... and one your company needs to be a part of.
Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of six books
Copyright 2010. Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.
