Think back to 2007. This is what Mac OS X looked like when the iPhone was released:

I took a look at some best Mac apps lists which was a nice walk down memory lane. It also shows the stark difference between how we interacted with our computers then and how we use our smartphones now. Apps like Caffine, Quicksilver, Roxio Toast, The Unarchiver, and coconutBattery never made it to iOS because they don’t make sense there. The things we go to our smartphones to accomplish are different than what we were using our Macs for in 2007.

As our phones became a more central part of our lives, the desktop responded to better-integrate our mobile and desktop words together. Apps like Tweetbot came to fame on the iPhone, but now have a Mac app as well. Pocket has a Mac app, but the service is really best used on a mobile device and their Mac app is really an afterthought.

We enter the smart watch era after having figured out smartphones. We understand where our phones fit into our lives, and most new apps you’ll see on the App Store makes sense for the phone. However, we are still figuring out what great watch apps look like. Even answering the basic question of “what should my app do?” is hard to answer. We’re in very early days, and we’re still figuring out how we can use these tiny screens to help make our lives better. We know that notificaions are the primary use case, but what can we do beyond that?

Smart people are working on it, and I think we’re going to see lots on innovation in this space soon. It’s going to be very exciting! One thing we can be sure of is that the best smart watch apps will look nothing like smartphone apps.