每次变革中都蕴含着改变的事物，有时改变是变革的原因，有时改变是意料之外的结果。iPhone和iPad两者的面世让iOS系统平台进入公众视野，技术使用方式的某些改变可以预见。开发者设计和开发软件方式的改变属于意外变革，而且这项改变带来的冲击似乎远远超过人们的想象。

变革的源头

变革的大部分功劳不属于苹果，真正的源头在于Twitter和Facebook以及Google搜索界面简单化之类带来的交流变革。游戏邦发现，高度优化、单功能和快速发展的解决方案瞬间涌现。苹果所做的是提供生态系统供开发者展示自己的效能，也就是应用开发。这个趋势的起点或许不甚明朗，但随着App Store的出现，iPhone已商业化成为开发者可迅速从中获利的进入市场战略。直到这些智能设备可以真正掌控多重任务，个人工作流程才开始发生演变。

App Store

智能设备上的多重工作流程

以在网上发布照片可选择的方式为例，有各种不同的照相应用、照片编辑和修改应用。如果你想要制作相片集或把照片拼贴到自定义相框中，可选择的应用就更多了。当然，将照片发布至个人社区也有许多不同的解决方案。设计的应用可以兼容，事情也就有无数的解决方案组合。

趋势扩散至桌面上

这种制作单功能和高优化应用的趋势也扩散至电脑桌面上。Mac App Store已证实是披露整合点工作流的优良媒介，类似在移动设备系统和应用中看到的那样。支持此等单功能设计的云基础服务的增长进一步为这种应用设计变革推波助澜。用于定义API的技术已经从紧密的、以Schema为基础的样式中移出，转向更为开放宽松的Restful样式。

企业疏于防范

这种现实让企业感到害怕，由于个人IT成本已低到令人难以置信，个人开设自主IT服务不仅有可能，而且还变得如同有线电视稀松平常。从宽带到无线数据通道，再到网络邮件、数据存储和某些更为专业化的工具、想法和协作服务，个人共有知识产权随处可见。（游戏邦注：甚至连苹果都决定分离其iLife和iWork，进一步发展这种趋势。）

你的想法是什么呢？你日常使用应用的趋势如何？你是否觉得自己每天使用单功能应用的次数超过此前使用的多功能应用呢？（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

The Application Is Dead; Long Live the App

With every revolution there is change. Sometimes the change is the reason for the revolution, and other times it’s an unexpected outcome. With the dawn of the iOS platform and the introduction of both the iPhone as well as the iPad, certain changes in the way we use technology were to be expected. One of the unexpected changes was in the way developers design and develop software, and this appears to have a much farther reaching impact than you might have imagined.

Origins of the Revolution

The bulk of the credit does not go to Apple. It actually started with the communication revolution brought on by the likes of Twitter and Facebook as well as the simplicity of Google’s search interface. Highly-optimized, single-purpose, rapidly-developed solutions that improve without necessarily expanding over time. What Apple did was provide an ecosystem for developers to create their own rendition of this paradigm: apps. This trend may have started in the cloud, but with the introduction of the App Store, the iPhone was commercialized into a go-to market strategy that developers could quickly capitalize on. It wasn’t until these smart devices truly conquered multitasking that individualized workflows started to evolve.

Multitasking Workflows on Smart Devices

As an example, consider the options available for posting a photo online. There are several different choices of camera apps, several different choices of photo editing and manipulation apps, even more choices if you want to make a collage or crop your photo into a custom frame, and of course, several different solutions to post online and announce your posting to your personal community of followers. Apps are being designed to get along with one another in what is quite possibly an infinite solution set of combinations.

The Trend Is Spreading to Your Desktop

This trend to create single-purpose, highly-optimized apps is spreading to your desktop as well. The Mac App Store is proving to be a great medium for exposing workstreams of integration points similar to those seen on mobile devices between OS X apps. What’s further fueling this revolution in app design is the growth of cloud-based services that support such single-purpose designs. The techniques being employed to define an API have been moving away from a tightly-coupled, Schema-based paradigm and toward a more open and loosely coupled Restful paradigm.

Enterprise Caught Off Guard

This reality scares enterprise. With the costs of personal IT reaching ridiculously low levels, the ability of individuals to self-fund their own IT services is not only possible, it is becoming as common place as cable television. From broadband to wireless data access, to online email, data storage and even more specialized tools, ideas and collaboration services, individuals are spreading their corporately-owned intellectual property all over the place.

Even Apple has decided to pull apart their iLife and iWork suites, which furthers this trend. What do you think? Have your daily app usage trends changed? Do you find you are using more single-purpose apps each day, and/or fewer, general-purpose apps than you have in the past? (Source: Gigaom)