Apps without borders

Previously on this blog I have spoken about a diverging experience, basically a person owning many different devices for different purposes. Now what is interesting in this experience is the role of applications and app stores. Obviously hardware manufacturers want to 'tie' consumers into their brand so you buy your smart phone, TV, laptop and tablet from the same company. Now there are some extreme fan boys out there that will buy anything branded with a big piece of fruit, or equally a slighty chubby green robot, but not all people work that way and buy into the religion(brand). Many people buy on a per product basis, choosing each product for its individual strengths rather than how it will connect and interact with their other products. Now this will change. Regular consumers will eventually get more savvy, catch up with the fan boys and buy systems of products. However we will experience a period of consumers owning multiple devices from different manufacturers running different platforms (I think we are in that period now). So from an app perspective how does that affect the consumer? Well currently it means paying for applications twice (or three, four... times). From an app development perspective you may think 'yeah! sell the same app to them several times'. However from a consumer perspective isn't this slightly annoying. If you have an android phone, an ipad and a windows netbook you have to buy an application 3 times. I am hoping in the future to see new ways for software developers to offer across platform app bundles so there is one less barrier to choosing the product you want rather than the religion you have to pray to.