Another Vote for the Everything App
June 13, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
An online information service named 9 to 5 Mac published an essay / interview summary titled “Nothing CEO says Apple No Longer Creative; Smartphone Future Is a Single App.” The write up focuses on the “inventor / coordinator” of the OnePlus mobile devices and the Nothing Phone. The key point of the write up is the idea that at some point in the future, one will have a mobile device and a single app, the everything app.
The article quotes a statement Carl Pei (the head of the Nothing Phone) made to another publication; to wit:
I believe that in the future, the entire phone will only have one app—and that will be the OS. The OS will know its user well and will be optimized for that person […] The next step after data-driven personalization, in my opinion, is automation. That is, the system knows you, knows who you are, and knows what you want. For example, the system knows your situation, time, place, and schedule, and it suggests what you should do. Right now, you have to go through a step-by-step process of figuring out for yourself what you want to do, then unlocking your smartphone and going through it step by step. In the future, your phone will suggest what you want to do and then do it automatically for you. So it will be agentic and automated and proactive.
This type of device will arrive in seven to 10 years.
For me, the notion of an everything app or a super app began in 2010, but I am not sure who first mentioned the phrase to me. I know that WeChat, the Chinese everything app, became available in 2011. The Chinese government was aware at some point that an “everything” app would make surveillance, social scoring, and filtering much easier. The “let many approved flowers bloom” approach of the Apple and Google online app stores was inefficient. One app was more direct, and I think the A to B approach to tracking and blocking online activity makes sense to many in the Middle Kingdom. The trade off of convenience for a Really Big Brother was okay with citizens of China. Go along and get along may have informed the uptake of WeChat.
Now the everything app seems like a sure bet. The unknown is which outstanding technology firm will prevail. The candidates are WeChat, Telegram, X.com, Sam Altman’s new venture, or a surprise player. Will other apps (the not everything apps from restaurant menus to car washes) survive? Sure. But if Sam AI-Man is successful with his Ive smart device and his stated goal of buying the Chrome browser from the Google catch on, the winner may be a CEO who was fired by his board, came back, and cleaned out those who did not jump on the AI-Man’s bandwagon.
That’s an interesting thought. It is Friday the 13th, Google. You too Microsoft. And Apple. How could I have forgotten Tim Cook and his team of AI adepts?
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2025
Comments
Got something to say?
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
