Is it focused on a single function? Or do you want the application to try something different?

It can be said that there are two different kinds of applications on the iphone today: one that focuses on something and then makes it deep, while the other is trying doing a lot of different things in one application. So which of these two is better? And that's what the author's article wants to discuss.

The philosophical thought of two methods

The core of the current OS X operating system is UNIX, and for that, Mike Gancarz, one of the X window team members, once had the following famous discussion about Unix: "You should let every program do something to the fullest." This further affects the design philosophies of many Mac and iOS application developers, and the followers of this school of thought often make the applications they develop revolve around a feature to do the best.

On every page of the iphone, the page provides a lot of space for the application. It is important that users manage their applications reasonably.

On the other hand, there are applications that want to try to meet the diverse needs of users. These apps often offer a wide range of features (such as "writing"), or a complete platform consisting of many different services, like Twitter or Facebook. This genre argues that if an application is provided with a variety of functions, it will be at least as convenient and much more comfortable to have many icons on the screen.

The first question to consider in these two different thoughts is the function of the application.

Digital fragmentation

If each application solves only one problem, the problem may be that it requires many different applications to achieve a goal. For example, I want to have the best Twitter experience. If I want to tweet, Birdhouse's user experience is good; if I'm busy, but don't want to miss the information on Twitter, I'll use trickle to reduce the information interference on Twitter.

Admittedly, these apps are doing a good job in the direction they focus on, but in your limited home space you have to make a choice: do I prefer to speak, or do I like to look at other people's tweets? Or, put two Twitter-related apps on the main screen?

Tweetbot provides more functionality in one application and less space to occupy the home screen.

In this case, a full-featured and easy-to-use application like Tweetbot can preempt the user's main screen space more than birdhouse and trickle. But the question is, what if this "versatile" application works better than a single functional application?

Optimization

The bright spot of single application is how to optimize. If developers decide to focus on one thing, they can do a great job. A recent example is Facebook's launch of their Facebook Messenger app. While you can also read information in Facebook apps, a single Messenger app allows you to get into a program faster, talk to others, and so on. There is no doubt that Facebook apps can provide more functionality, such as allowing you to read the information you subscribe to, change status, add photos, and more.

There are many features in Facebook apps, and Messenger apps are more focused on immediate communication needs.

Optimization is the most important. If you're adding other features that you might not use in an important feature like IM, it's hard to get a really good IM experience. Facebook Messenger shows that a single purpose can have a place on your home page, even if it does not provide the full functionality of its Big Brother app.

Find the balance.

This is not necessarily a 0 and a game, you will not be using only single function applications or multi-function applications. Find a balance point for an application, although this balance may be difficult to find.

The factor that really affects what application you use is your priority level of use. Take Twitter for example, whether it's trickle, birdhouse or tweetbox, it's all about your habit of using. Another example is Evernote, which is a powerful application, and you can do a lot of things with Evernote. But does that mean you can't use a simple note like this to keep some plain text that doesn't need to be formatted in the cloud? Absolutely not.

Build Your own application

This article may cause more thinking for developers. It is important to think about what kind of problem your application needs to address, whether you have the time or resources to hide a lot of things to a good degree, or focus on one thing and do it to the point of absolute scale.

Also important is the service you offer, where is your market? Who is your user? Is your application relevant to other applications? Is this a solution that can handle all the needs of users? This requires early decision making and validation to potential customers.

But there is no doubt that writing a good application with many features requires more resources than writing a single functional, outstanding application. The important thing is that you have to jump out of the way before you start doing it, have a clear impression of the overall situation and start doing it as a living person rather than providing you with a market for income and profit. If you can't do anything like Google, don't think about all-inclusive things.

Conclusion

Obviously, this proposition is more dependent on individual preferences. Personally, I don't mind having a single feature app like Messenger that occupies my home screen, but I also use some versatile apps like Facebook,tweetbot,evernote and so on. It all depends on what kind of application you want: an application that works best for one thing, or the ability to handle multiple tasks flexibly?

Original link: Are single-function Apps decoupled?