As a follow up to the Feb 18th post on “What’s Next”, I wanted to highlight this article from Endgadget, which goes along with my thought that the development of specific, narrow use-cases is one of the “next things” in technology. These can be developed on platforms, or developed by individual small teams as startups, and then integrated by the big players into their ecosystem.
Example [1]:
Google Photos / Camera app improving their capabilities to allow their users to crop out unnecessary background, when they are trying to capture receipts. I would think this took some user research and/or feedback from the community, after which that product team at Google decided to develop and roll out functionality to cater to that use-case and thereby, that user-base.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/29/google-photos-clear-pictures-receipts-crop-adjust-documents/
Example [2]:
A bit more well-known and older, but still solid - Shazam.
It has strong focus on allowing its users to “capture and identify music”. Eventually it expanded into TV sounds, commercials, etc. But the point is - that team must have had a very specific use-case in mind, and they nailed it with their user community.
Then, Apple picked them up, to add to their story.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17896350/apple-shazam-app-acquisition-complete-free
Lots of apps will claim similar focus, but are usually not nearly enough.
I’ll expand on this topic more…
Will cover my belief that the best mobile apps have a single purpose.