Password breaches are happening all the time. Stories of hundreds of passwords being stolen litter the news on a daily basis. While having a single password stolen is not the end of the world, if you use one password for multiple accounts, particularly accounts that contain your banking logins and so on, it could be a very different story.
Unfortunately, as numerous breaches have shown, organisations cannot guarantee the security of your passwords, and therefore it is essential to use a different password for every different site, application and service. Richard Firth, CEO of MIP, says taking into consideration the myriad sites and applications we all use on a daily basis, remembering passwords for each and every site, which most likely number into the dozens, is an onerous, if not impossible task.
He sees a potential solution as being app ecosystems, and predicts that within five to 10 years, users will buy a bundle or ecosystem that ties like-minded apps together. "For example, a travel app ecosystem would bundle together GPS and navigation, weather, perhaps sites such as hostelbooker.com or Trip Advisor. This could even be taken a step further, and be integrated with your calendar app or Outlook, to ensure your trips are in the diary, with notifications on the weather forecast, to help users pack sensibly."
The concept of "there's an app for that" abounds, he says. "Consumers today have thousands of apps to choose from that provide them with the freedom and flexibility to pretty much run their daily lives."
Firth says having an app ecosystem makes a lot of sense - consumers can choose the right bundle of apps to suit their needs, and budget. "In the beginning, there were only a few apps available, this wouldn't have been necessary. Gains in time and productivity from a single specialised app that met a specific need, or solved a specific problem were fantastic. However, in this app-focused day and age, the process of maintaining 20 or 30 apps, and remembering login details for each one, becomes a source of considerable strain and irritation for a busy individual."
It is his belief that an app-ecosystem will provide flexibility and time savings to consumers. "Multiple apps and passwords ultimately create an inefficient and disjointed experience. The lack of a central ecosystem to unify like-minded apps prevents a user from using these apps effectively, and reaping the full benefits."
The slew of niche apps in the marketplace is driving the need for the development of ecosystems, to consolidate apps into a central platform - one that is managed by a single password instead of a multitude of disparate systems, he says.
"Centralising all apps with a like-minded theme will empower users to be more agile, smarter and more nimble. Moreover, it will prevent users from dealing with their already overloaded capacity to remember numerous passwords, by either choosing weak and obvious passwords, or using the same one for each different app," he concludes.
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