[ElFitz]

I used to wonder what "apps" might become in an "App Intent-first" world.

Bundles that provide data and capabilities to iOS and Siri? And perhaps libraries of UI components to display and interact with said data?

But then, if that works really well, and gets strong adoption, why ever open the app? What’s the point of having navigation flows inside an app? Could one make entire apps solely dedicated to providing a set of data, capabilities, and UI components to the system?

In that world, what drives user retention, for such apps? What even is an app? App engagement disappears as well.

And that’s not even diving into the use-case of Siri, say, planning a trip across five different apps (flights, hotel, restaurants, whatever) using just App Intents. If done well.

In that world, do most apps just become plugins, providers for Siri?

[halapro]

If you remember Windows Phone 8, it has already been tried and nobody (ahem, no company) wanted that.

No company is stupid enough to give up their content and infra and get none of the screen real estate.

I can see a parallel with hotels and OTAs, but in that case appearing on an OTA brings in sales. Showing $userA's content on $userB's screen won't earn any money from $company.

[ElFitz]

I remember Windows Phone 8 existed, but that’s pretty much it. And yes, that’s the big question: what’s in it for the app publishers?

:/

[MattDamonSpace]

Well, there’ll always be room for people who want different UI/UX. Humans are too visual to ever move to “pure voice” and so we’ll inevitably have nice screens and thus UI preferences (technically you get preferences with voice too but it’s weirder)

[ElFitz]

Yes, but you can have this by providing surfaces as UI components to Siri.

Not sure if they do that (yet), but no reason an app couldn’t expose "Here’s what you can use to present data of shape X", or "here’s a UI for process doing y".

It feels like turning the common approach inside-out. But it works.

Edit: you could even imagine, in that world, apps that only expose surfaces, composable UI libraries, multi-step flows, declaring what they’re for, what kind of inputs they take, and what output they produce. Without ever owning any of the data (eg flights data, hotels inventory, booked trips, financial data, etc) or capabilities (eg book a flight).

[ex-aws-dude]

The whole idea of an app becomes a much more fluid and transient thing

Everyone can have their own “view” into the data