App Overload
I’ve hit app overload.
I realized this when I glanced at my phone recently. I saw quite a few apps I hardly used. Turns out, people have a limit. Users are spending more time on mobile apps each year, but the number of mobile apps actually used each month hasn’t changed much over the last few years. I experienced the next level of this at a recent tech event, where I tried out a few app prototypes. I’m normally excited to try out new apps and talk to designers and developers about how they’re made, but here my interest waned.
Then this week I listened to a talk by Christian Heilmann called, A New Hope: The Web Strikes Back. In it, he dives into how the web is catching up to apps and their abilities. It reminded me why I love working on the web – it’s ubiquitous and open. All you need to get it is a browser, and you’re not at the mercy of anyone. Beautiful.
Inspired by wanting to use the web more, I’ve decided to delete a lot of apps from my computers and devices. I want to only keep the ones I use at least once a week or need in certain situations (like traveling). The ones I delete, I’ll try to use its Web version – I’m looking at you Facebook. We’ll see how it goes! Delete, delete, delete.