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Comment by miguelrochefort | Hacker News Reader

We wouldn't need these crappy launchers if we didn't need so many apps.

Sadly, people have been brainwashed into believing that they need different apps to do different things, and this only reinforces the application paradigm.

One day, hopefully soon, there will be a single app (probably the OS) that will be used for 90% of tasks. Shopping, setting up a meeting, reaching a friend and requesting a cab will all be done through a single interface.

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Many of us need Skype AND WhatsApp AND Facebook Messenger AND SMS AND Kik AND Slack AND Google Chat AND ... because your customers and friends use different apps. These apps will not be integrated into one because they are controlled by different entities who want to offer their own clients.

What if there was a single communication platform that everybody used.

The fact that we use so many different communication apps today is absolutely insane.

I think that's his point. We wouldn't need launchers if there weren't 50 different chat ecosystems.

Someday I hope there won't be 50 different chat ecosystems anymore.

What you want sounds somewhat like WeChat in China...

Ref: http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/

That's fascinating.

If anything, this is precisely what I've been looking for for years.

I can't believe there's nothing like this here.

Thanks a lot for this link.

Well yes, some apps exist because software can't talk to us in our natural language. But I don't think it's true for all of them.

What if there was a single app that could communicate in your natural language. Would you use any other app?

I don't think that natural language is appropriate interface for all the apps. Think of Instagram, Facebook. It's probably easier to swipe through pictures, or make some other action than say every command out loud. I don't believe in silver bullets.

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