In the hype that's surrounding Apple CEO Tim Cook's royal visit to India, the announcements that Google is making at its annual developer conference in San Francisco may have just taken a bit of a backseat.
The company to watch though, is definitely Google and it may just have changed the whole world of apps, if everything goes according to plan.
So, users are fed up of having to download a separate app for just about everything. One thing to order food home, another to book a restaurant, yet another to get a cab, and another to pay for it... Not just as these a nuisance to manage and navigate, they take up the limited space on a phone and slow it down to a crawl.
Of course, you could download as you need and throw out the app later -- as I often do with airline apps - but this isn't the convenience technology promises.
Google has found a way for you to not have to download the apps at all. Go ahead and be skeptical about the search giant's motives though. When the Internet came along, we became used to going to a search engine and clicking on URLs and spending time on websites. Then along came apps and we all but abandoned websites to spend time inside the apps. You may spend time searching for furniture, for example, in the Urban Ladder or FabFournish app instead of searching on Google. This was leaving Google behind in a big aspect of the mobile world. So here's how it's going to fix things.
Slowly rolling it out, Google will enable Instant Apps, a way of getting into an app by clicking on a URL. So don't say goodbye to your browser yet. Instant Apps will need developers to work on configuring their apps in such a way that takes from within them run as soon as a URL is tapped for them. Signing in will happen through Google and just a tap will get the user to see and interact with a specific part of the app without downloading it on to the device.
When Instant Apps is combined with things like GPS and NFC or even the camera taking a picture, Instant Apps will pull out the local bits of an app that you need right where you are -- such as an airline's app for which you've booked a ticket and are ready to go catch your flight. Or a grocery buying app that opens up your list when you reach the shop.
What will happen to app stores in the process and whether you'll still find it useful to download and use some apps on your phone will pan out as the new features rolls out. Obviously not all apps need instant treatment. For example, Amazon's Kindle app with a book you happen to be reading at the time.
It will be interesting to see how Instant Apps change the balance of power online.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
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