“How come Apple let WeChat, Facebook et al. create universal transaction platforms on top of iOS? Wasn’t this the whole point of not supporting Flash?”

Here’s my prediction: Apple will enable On-Demand App Execution on iOS, reinforcing apps as the #1 delivery mechanism for customer interaction/transactions and transforming the web into one giant App Store.

Picture the following: On your iPhone, in Safari, you search for a certain brand, think Coca Cola, Ikea, BMW, FedEx, Gap, etc. Or you search for a nearby cinema, taxi, pizza delivery, etc. You go to their site. Without much ado, the screen is taken over by their iOS app, showing the app’s loading screen. You use the app. When you’re done, you get out of it, the app disappears.

The app doesn’t get and doesn’t need to be installed. It transparently loads in the background, on demand, and starts on your iPhone. Initiated directly by the website you invoked. This doesn’t only work in Safari, but also using the iPhone’s search function, Siri, maps, etc. Say “Launch Coca Cola” and bingo, the app loads.

Why does this matter?

Most importantly, this takes out the friction from getting your users to download and install your app . App installs, as a separate step and hurdle to user adoption, simply cease to be required . Go to any website, and the site can invoke the app.

. . Go to any website, and the site can invoke the app. iOS is strengthened as the direct, primary platform and delivery channel for software to interact and transact with customers, esp. in the wake of emerging alternate platforms like WeChat et al.

A key ingredient to making this work will be to get developers to decrease initial app sizes. Apple would have to enforce a certain threshold to enable on-demand execution (also alleviating possible infrastructure challenges on Apple’s backend), say somewhere in the range of 5–10 MBytes for the initial app, excluding additional on-demand resources. Most apps in the App Store are bloated and not optimised for storage, but there are decent apps smaller than 10 MByte, which download and install in under 10 seconds, demonstrating the feasibility of On-Demand Execution. If anyone can pull this off, it’s Apple with its devoted developer base.

The enabling technologies are pretty much all there:

App Thinning with App Slicing, Bitcode and On-Demand Resources.

Sandboxing for security; Deep Linking and Search inside apps to connect between web content and apps; plus all the good stuff to enable frictionless transactions “directly from a site” (i.e. tapping into existing customer accounts and related payment data), such as Apple Pay via Touch ID or In-App Purchases.

The distribution infrastructure remains essentially unchanged: Apps would still have to be submitted to the App Store and go through Apple’s review, and would still be downloaded (on-demand) from Apple. Smart App Banners link websites to apps.

Add a few select enhancements here and there to improve the overall experience, e.g. a cache on the device for on-demand apps; inclusion of recent on-demand apps in the app switcher; a permission dialog to seek the user’s approval to add the app to the home screen; ability for apps to persist a small amount of local data (cookies) in-between app invocations; user settings to control On-Demand behavior (enable/disable, auto-start vs. confirmation required, only on wireless connections); etc.

How will app discovery work in this new world? How will the Web’s role evolve (e.g., backend fabric plus huge App Store)? What does this mean for content search? Will every major brand renew their app development efforts? How will WeChat Official Accounts, Facebook’s Messenger Business et al. fare in the face of renewed app momentum? Lots to ponder about…

One small step for Apple, one giant leap for the next chapter in Mobile Apps.

NB: I have no insider information nor any other leads on this topic. This is pure speculation what I’d do if I were in Apple’s position, sticking my neck out (esp. given that there haven’t been any leaks on this so far).