After that telecom boom, tech companies saw an opportunity. They launched affordable smartphones and a flood of new apps that made online communication and collaboration way easier. The cheaper the access, the more time people spent online. Right around that time came another big moment — demonetisation. It completely reshaped how people made payments. The government’s BHIM app was a simple yet brilliant start. It was lightweight, straightforward, and introduced many people to digital payments. Soon, other startups jumped in, building their own UPI-based apps, and the digital payment ecosystem exploded.

Now here’s the main point — when new-age tech becomes widely available, it gives everyone, from startups to governments, the freedom to build new apps. And that’s exactly what happened in India. Every state government started launching its own apps and websites for citizens — one for electricity, one for gas, one for transport, one for industries, and so on. After the app boom, each of these services even got separate mobile apps. And the funny part? Every time a new government comes into power, a few months later new versions of old apps suddenly appear — same function, new design, and, of course, a fresh Chief Minister photo on the home screen!

But here’s where things haven’t evolved — no one, whether from the central or state government, has tried to combine all these services into a single app — a true “super app.” And I’m not just talking about government services. Imagine one app where you can handle everything — from booking cabs and flights to ordering food and medicines. Some tech giants like Paytm and Tata Neu have tried, but none have fully nailed it yet. On top of that, we keep reading headlines about states shutting down or banning private ride-sharing apps like Ola, Uber, or Rapido due to local protests. Some states even announce their own versions of ride-sharing apps to calm the situation, but these are short-term fixes.

Now think about it from a regular user’s perspective — should we really have to install a new app every time we enter a new state? That just makes no sense. One reason Uber works globally is because you can land in any city in the world, open the same app, and it just works. Why can’t we have the same convenience here in India? We already have Aadhaar — a universal digital ID that can easily plug into such a system. Imagine a single app for everything you need:

• Booking your gas cylinder

• Paying your electricity bill

• Recharging your phone

• Ordering food or medicines

• Booking your next flight or train

• Using the metro or local buses

In short, one app to do it all — anywhere in India. It should come with a built-in digital locker to store information safely and a wallet for quick payments. Apps like Paytm, PhonePe, CRED, Tata Neu, or even Ola already have the right foundation. The question is, who’s brave enough to take the leap?

Last year, I visited Malaysia 🇲🇾 to meet a friend, and trust me, I was blown away by their Grab app. It handled everything — rides, deliveries, food, payments — all in one place. For someone just visiting the country, I didn’t need to ask anyone for help. Everything was smooth and easy. When I came back to India, I kept thinking — why don’t we have something like this yet? Sadly, even now, we haven’t seen a concrete step in that direction.

Couple of Grab app screenshots are below :

Building such a super app isn’t just the job of tech companies. The central and state governments need to work together too. They should look beyond politics and focus on long-term impact. Once such a system exists, things like revenue-sharing or small service charges will work themselves out. What matters most is creating a unified digital experience that makes every citizen’s life simpler, faster, and more connected.

BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is a mobile app developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) that facilitates quick, secure, and easy transactions using the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). It was launched by the Government of India to promote digital transactions and enable cashless payments.

What’s the issue with the app now ?

tbh, when compared with other payment apps, BHIM is the most light weight app till date. No big features, notifications and no fuss. But the biggest issue with the app is the UX. I’m clueless about the designers point of view in selecting that colour palette, placement of buttons, features - user journey etc existing in the app.

Places where there is a scope to improve the UX in the app are :-

- App widgets -

Generally most of the apps are utilising the core features/API’s provided by the mobile OS companies, Google and iOS. UPI team didn’t utilise the most important feature for making user journey more seamless. Here they should have added shortcuts to core features - scan the code, send to favourites, approve payment request, check bank account balance, tap the machine.

- Verify the ID/number:

We all know that in India all the mobile phone numbers are 10-digit in length and also all the UPI id’s end with “@upi/@okhdfc/@okybl” etc. So whenever user finishes entering the UPI id’s with such ending or when they enter 10 digit number’s app should check the validity of the number/id automatically. Here also the user should do a additional step to check the id

- Colour palette & dead icons -

This part is the most important zone of the app and this is where the team has did a blunder i feel. The colours for the all the icons here are same which makes it a little difficult to identify the exact thing we are looking for. Even I personally found it very hard to find “approve to pay” icon whenever I am trying to pay money. Team should have opted for colours a little different to each and every icon which would have made a lot of difference in UX. Their intention to emphasise more on UPI lite balance and Credit card zones, as visible in the screenshot, should have been little less and should have been more on core features icons.

- Abandoned features/icons:

Payments to bills is also a vital feature to users. Few may argue that they may not be using it on a daily basis, but still the users will be using them if we do provide them at the proper place which in turn makes their journey easier. They don’t need to put extra effort in using that feature. Also when we swipe to the right of this area we go into a new page where we can see a ton of bills categories that we can utilise. This is similar to how internet gives us a gateway to access data about each and every corner of this world. Even in todays world there are people in tier 2-3 cities and villages where they try to go to a local office or internet centres to pay for bills, where they are charged additional fees to pay bills. If the govt’s intention of bringing services to users on phone is very much core to them then this zone also needs to have a better UX and user should be guided to that zone while onboarding.

- Scan to pay & Tap to pay zones:

even in this area the icons are too small and also they do cover other zone. Even this also needs to be properly redesigned at the first place.

- Grouping of services across the whole app:

all the services available in this entire app needs to be consolidated and put in one single place for simplicity so that user don’t struggle to find a certain service. As I said above all the services may not be used on a daily places but all should give proper visibility to the users.

Hope that NPCI UPI team looks into this kind of UX issues at least in their upcoming releases and make the user experience way more better and seamless.

But today Apple’s plans, as per news articles in response to EU demands is quite shocking to me. Apple always strived to be a company which reflects those 3 items, stated above. But looks like they will not be present in future if Apple implements all the proposed changes.

• Side loading of apps - It clearly states that apps can be installed without an app store - without the app review process. Generally, an app is reviewed by the app store team, before being pushed to the app store, to check whether user data is being collected without their consent and that data is being transferred to any other companies etc. Google’s Android and its ecosystem is the prime example of that. In Android, lots of user data gets leaked through side loading of apps from unsecured sources. I personally worked as an Android apps developer for many years and know how data can be siphoned off without user consent. Later when I came to know about the Apple ecosystem, I personally fell in love with it’s stringent policies for data collection and the way the data should be collected by the apps. These days even Google is trying to make Android OS a safe one step-by-step. It has yet to reach out to that place, but I am quite optimistic about that. And now if Apple starts allowing side loading of apps a huge user data will be at risk and. Here the question is whether Apple or the European Union will be responsible for the data loss that might happen. If it is up to Apple, then there will be a huge pressure mounting on them to figure out a way to handle those leaks and also stop them. There is an article on this - Why sideloaded apps and Is sideloading apps on Apple devices safe? (setapp.com) Another effect of this sideloading of apps is the revenue loss for the developers. Yes, we often find a lot of modified apps on the Internet to install so that we can skip that payment part. This is also a big issue which going to pop soon.

• Alternative app stores - Yes in one way it is correct to say that the app store is a monopoly but in another way, it’s the best thing. 1 question that pops up to me is “Do all the alternative app stores follow all the same rules regarding app reviews, data collection, security, privacy, etc ? “. Proposing alternative app stores on the same device just for 1 reason - app store commission - is not a good idea definitely.

Hope the European Commission and its members look at all aspects and propose a new solution by coordinating with the Apple technical team. Even though I don’t work for Apple still I am a big fan of its app store and its stringent policies for data security, privacy, and safety. I feel I am in a position to speak about this considering my previous technical work experience. Do let me know if I missed out on some critical views/points.

Hide Followers & Friends list -
Most of the teens these days feel insecure to have more people connected in a single account. So many of them are having an alternate account to add only close people. It would be much better if Instagram provides an option to completely make their followers and friends list private and nobody can see them except the account owner.

Post visible for certain people only -
If people really want to share pictures to a few select people, the above point makes more sense. Yes, it is similar to what Facebook implemented years ago, but in current time this custom posting feature would make more sense.

Trending Section topic chooser -
These days the trending section shows content based on your post’s interaction and searches etc. and lot of things. This would make more sense in a relevant ads-based products, but many people are really frustrated about this. For example, if a user searches for popular resorts in a particular ‘X’ city, all the ads and trending section changes after some time. This might be perfectly valid for some time till the user finds what he needed, but that might not be relevant when the user no longer wants to search for resorts. So, I feel the users should be able to choose the topics in trending section on which the content needs to be shown.

Birthday remainder -
This feature used to be too good on the FB since its inception and I personally loved the feature a lot. These days everyone is quite busy and since they are engaging more with Instagram when compared to other platforms, I believe Meta team should bring this feature to Instagram also. In this we way we can help the users to get track of their friend’s birthdays and wish then and also indirectly increase the user engagement.

Avatar quality -
The latest feature introduced by the Instagram team is the Avatar feature, which is a competitor to Bitmoji and Memoji, up to some extent. The primary reason why I said only up to some extent is the Avatar quality. TBH it is of very poor quality. The design of avatar faces etc. itself is not inclusive and does not accurately capture the user’s face into avatar. This feature needs to be redesigned with the tech where the user’s avatar details are captured accurately. If Mark and meta really wants to be successful in next booming tech - metaverse - they really need to focus more on this feature.

Issues/alternatives to fix that issue:-

1) charging: The number of people who prefer apartments over individual houses is very huge. In this segment, people will be puzzled about how to charge their EVs in apartments because they need their own charging point so that they can plug in & charge the battery without any hassle. Also, there can be a charging point in the apartment cellar that automatically recognizes the vehicle owner and sends the electricity bill to that respective owner. Some may argue that users can use public charging points, but why should people go outside and charge their vehicles? Fixing this issue might reduce the burden on govt to arrange public points, and also drive the EV to full-scale adoption.

2) Publicpoints - If the above-mentioned idea is not possible then people should definitely rely on public charging points. Installing public charging points by govt or private companies will take a long time for sure. In this case, as an alternative, Pvt companies and govt offices should install charging points on a full scale and also give some reward points to the employees who own an EV and utilize employers charging points.

3) Swappable- Time is the most precious thing in everybody’s lives. When you are traveling generally you stop at a petrol/diesel bunk & fill your vehicle and start driving immediately. But in the case of EV, you need to recharge the battery which takes a long time and there should be a recharging station at regular distances which is not an easy task to set up. Hence a swappable battery kind of should be present in EV’s.

Once these issues are solved, I believe people will have no fear/doubts about using an EV. Hoping to see these issues solved by EV companies in the coming days...

#EV #ElectricVehicles