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this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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@yogthos "Super App" never made sense to me either. It's just an operating system and a dozen apps in a trenchcoat.
It's about integration, the amount of actions it takes to do something in a single app is vastly reduced compared to having to juggle multiple apps. For example, you want to go out for food with your friends. With WeChat, you can message your friends, find a restaurant on the map, book it, etc. all completely seamlessly. This is a really good video explaining the benefits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMFnJnY7EA
So, similar to Emacs?
lol sure
You're literally just describing apps that have open APIs and can integrate with each other.
That used to be the norm here too. The problem is entirely one of capitalism encouraging anti-competitive walled gardens.
Same thing you can do in the Google app ecosystem, but in that case we say 'hey maybe I don't want this company to know everything about me, my plans, and what I like'.
@yogthos I'll give it a watch. Regardless, a good operating system should be capable of such seamless integration. That's why "Super apps" are an operating system in a trenchcoat.
An operating system doesn't solve the problem because it's fundamentally a UX problem. You can look at a super app as an OS that also handles the UI layer and apps are just APIs below that layer. This is not how the OS works on Android or iOS however where each app couples its API with its own UI.
@yogthos You misunderstand. If you make a "Super App", you ARE making an operating system. Yes most OS's have UX problems that prevent this level of integration, but the critical difference is that you're giving complete control to a single entity.
The client-server pattern perpetuates power imbalances, and "Super apps" make that problem much much worse.