Small is the new big thing

Applications are big, out of necessity. Apps are small, and should be.


Applications are programs that do everything you need. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are applications: They let you compose documents (or spreadsheets), manipulate them, and store them. Visual Studio is an application: It lets you compose programs, compile them, and test them. Everything you need is baked into the application, except for the low-level functionality provided by the operating system.

Apps, in contrast, contain just enough logic to get the desired data and present it to the user.

A smartphone app is not a complete application; except for the most trivial of programs, it is the user interface to an application.

The Facebook app is a small program that talks to Facebook servers and presents data. Twitter apps talk to the Twitter servers. The New York Times talks to their servers. Simple apps such as a calculator app or rudimentary games can run without back-ends, but I suspect that popular games like "Angry Birds" store data on servers.


Applications contained everything: core logic, user interface, and data storage. Apps are components in a larger system.

We've seen distributed systems before: client-server systems and web applications divide data storage and core logic from user interface and validation logic. These application designs allowed for a single front-end; current system design allows for multiple user interfaces: iPhone, iPad, Android, and web. Multiple front ends are necessary; there is no clear leader, no "IBM PC" standard.

To omit a popular platform is to walk away from business.

Small front ends are better than large front ends. A small, simple front end can be ported quickly to new platforms. It can be updated more rapidly, to stay competitive. Large, complex apps can be ported to new platforms, but as with everything else, a large program requires more effort to port.

Small apps allow a company to move quickly to new platforms.

With a dynamic market of user interface devices, an effective company must adopt new platforms or face reduced revenue. Small user interfaces (apps) allow a company to quickly adopt new platforms.

If you want to succeed, think small.