Desktop OSes were data centric.

Desktop OSes were data centric. Mobile OSes are app centric.

Data centric means that there's a shared filesystem that applications write to and read from.

There's a default application for most filetypes, but you can open many files with many different applications.

New applications can show up to innovate on existing data.

App centric means that the data doesn't exist outside the context of a given app.

If you uninstall the app your data evaporates.

Data does not make sense as a concept outside an app, with limited exceptions like a photo roll.

A user can only access their data in an app on terms the app defines.

Don't like what the app does? Too bad!

A data-centric OS allows data to be reused in novel ways.

Let's return to a data-centric world.

Where a user's data is the center of their universe.