There’s an App for That, It Shouldn’t Have

We all remember Apple’s iPhone Commercial, “There’s an App for That.” That eventually became a pop culture phrase and one of the most common reason in a company meeting to have “Apps, Lots of Apps.”

When smartphones were new, the App Store was, in Apple’s own words, “Magic.” Your phone could do things it never could before. Flashlight? App. Banking? App. Taxi? App.

Star Trek¹ was beginning to unfold right in front of our eyes, and we thought it was the start of significant progress towards becoming a multi-planet, multi-star civilization. Unfortunately, that ain’t happening, but we did get an app, when pressing a glowing red gem said — I Am Rich.

Today, that phrase has mutated into something absurd: “There’s an app for everything. Whether it needs one or not.” We have crossed the line from usefulness into excess.

App Fatigue

Every service wants a permanent spot on your home screen. Each one asks for updates, notifications, permissions, and background activity. It is a cognitive clutter explosion that we live with in the post-smartphone world.

App fatigue is the modern reality of having too many apps, too many choices, too many notifications, too much angst every time your phone buzzes.

App fatigue has gone way beyond mild irritation, affecting productivity, mental well-being, and user satisfaction. The promised land of a digital ecosystem was convenience, but we ended up with notification chaos and overwhelmed cognitive bandwidth.

App fatigue is the smartphone era’s version of “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Millions of apps, dozens of alerts, and an inbox that feels like a sieve mean we’re now fighting for our attention instead of enjoying convenience. Most of us do not use most of these apps, but we end up maintaining them.

If opening a coffee app requires a login, a forced update, and a loyalty pitch, the app is not serving you. You are serving the app.

Excessive Access & Permissions

Apps enjoy privileges that websites do not. They can ask for contacts, location, Bluetooth, camera access, background refresh, and behavioral data. Only a few of these are justified, while the rest are excess.

We are no longer surprised that many apps are just thin clients wrapped around trackers, the real product being just analytics. Websites are not saints either, but browsers have matured. It has sandboxing, permission restrictions, content blockers, and visibility.

We, as users, are trained to tap “Allow” without thinking. Convenience has normalized surveillance. A basic service that only needs text and clicks does not deserve access to your device sensors, full contact access, GPS location at all times, while working in the background even when the App is not active.

That App could have been a Website

A lot of apps today should just be good websites. Modern web technology is no longer fragile or second-class. The web respects intent. You visit when you want. You leave when you are done. No hostage-taking via notifications. The browser remains the most honest interface we have left.

This is not an anti-app manifesto. Apps earn their place when they provide:

• Deep OS integration.
• Heavy real-time interaction.
• Offline-first workflows.
• Device-level performance (camera, audio, sensors).

Maps, messaging, music production, navigation, professional tools. These deserve native apps. A restaurant menu, an event page, a newsletter reader, a support portal? Those deserve a URL — a Website.

Of course, the App stores made distribution easy. Somewhere along the way, that convenience was mistaken for necessity. Products were designed around install funnels instead of user needs.