These Apple veterans want you to never have to leave your texting app to get things done
ColaThere has recently been some chatter about the era of owning a bunch of apps being "over" - if it ever began in the first place. Research shows that while we spend an enormous amount of time in apps, it tends to be the same couple of apps over and over again. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.
And this has certain developers looking toward not trying to develop single-use apps, but an app that could serve as an ecosystem for endless other mini-apps. The best example of this possible future is WeChat, the Chinese messaging behemoth that has 549 million monthly active users. People love WeChat because without leaving the app, you can call a cab, pay your bills, check the news, and practically everything else you can think of.
Now a new app called Cola, which is entering beta after raising a seed round of $1.3 million, wants to bring that idea to the US. Cola bills itself as the world's first "Messaging OS," and its goal is to put app-like functionality into your texting stream.
Cola's interface is meant to mimic iMessage, and when I tested it, it's hard to tell the difference if you are just swapping messages.
But Cola's big innovation is the introduction of "bubbles." Bubble's are Cola's version of widgets - they are mini-apps within the Cola app. Bubbles appear directly in your messaging stream, like a text, but constantly update and allow you to interact with them in real-time.
Let's take the, "Where are you?" bubble as an example.
In a regular messaging app, if you are trying to meet up with someone, you can send them your location, or they can send you theirs. In Cola, you can create a bubble (for a specific time period) and invite them to share their location. For the amount of time you've chosen (say the next 30 minutes), you'll both see a constantly updating map with both of your location points on it - directly in the messaging app.
Cola's bubbles are mostly focused on "collaboration" and interacting with your friends. You can drop in a dynamic calendar invite with possible times, or create a shared to-do list. These are all things other apps offer, but Cola's promise is to keep it all in your messaging app.
Cola's development team are veterans of the industry that have worked on products like the iMac, iPhone, Photoshop, and Nest Thermostat. This experience shows in how polished the app is, even in beta.
ColaAnd now we get to the problem - is this functionality enough to convince someone to download yet another messaging app?
First, I should say that Cola works well even when you are interacting with people who don't have the app. What happens is basically that Cola texts them a link to the "bubble," and they access its functionality on their mobile phone browser, whether they're using an iPhone or Android phone. It's not as convenient as having it in your message stream, but it certainly works, and feels streamlined.
But the whole ecosystem of bubbles and the app itself isn't going to catch on if no one downloads it. Cola is something that would be clearly useful as a component of another messaging app - like the built-in one on your iPhone that Cola's interface is meant to imitate.
What Cola seems to need is an everyday use.
The maps, to-do lists, and calendar invites are things that would come in handy periodically, when other apps that do the same things fall short of what you need. But they are not a blockbuster use that would lure me in.
The promise of Cola though, isn't in the pre-packaged bubbles, it's in third-party development. WeChat rules China because it has an insane 10 million third-party apps within its own messaging app. If Cola can inspire people to write amazing bubbles, it could, at the very least, be gobbled up by a bigger company and integrate the bubbles into their service.
Check out Cola's website here.