Has Apple helped launch the next generation web? For a long time, many web analysts have been labeling the second web boom (also known as the read-write web) as Web 2.0. Watching the impact of applications on Apple’s iPhone makes you wonder if they were being a little too generous to the return of browser-led web.
Applications on the iPhone give users a different experience of the web than we’ve had before. They offer digital connectivity beyond the browser - custom solutions designed with the user in mind - interfaces that borrow more from phone and video-game menus than web pages. And if you couple the range of applications with the power of location then this new ‘web’ becomes something very different, very instant and very relevant.
Of course there is other phone technology like this - but it has failed to be as popular as these applications (25 million apps were downloaded in the first 10 days after the iPhone 3G launch). Apple is helping create the second version of the web.
The simplicity and user-centricity of the applications makes what we’ve been calling 2.0 look rather 1.0. I’d argue also that many successful old-school web services like Facebook are better through an iPhone application. In this version of the internet, users don’t need to access the web and browse to find their content. They just click and go. In fact, this second generation web isn’t so much about content as it is about experience - how the user can interact with the world online and offline simultaneously.
Caveat/Disclosure: PSFK provides occasional consultancy to Apple. This article has no relation with our work with them.
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
I guess this is why widgets or mobile apps are becoming so interesting. They help us forget that we have to “connect” … or use technology — it simply connects our will/desire with the outcome. In this way, the barriers to participation become almost zero.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:00 am