Wafer Challenges App Store Economics
Wafer
This is a business model conflict as much as a product constraint. If Apple or Google trained users to get rides, send messages, book tables, and buy digital goods without opening the underlying app, they would weaken the storefront, payments, and developer relationships that make their app ecosystems valuable. That is why their assistant layer tends to route through developer approved hooks instead of replacing the app as the main surface.
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On both iOS and Android, assistant actions are exposed by developers. Apple App Intents let apps define system callable actions. Google App Actions and built in intents do the same by launching users into specific app flows. That means the platform owner can assist, but usually cannot freely read and write across apps without app level cooperation.
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The money layer matters. Apple still takes a standard 30% commission on many digital goods sales, with 15% for small developers and certain subscriptions. Google Play similarly charges service fees, commonly 15% on the first $1M and 30% above that. If assistants bypass app interfaces and checkout moments, they put pressure on the places where those fees attach.
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This helps explain why an independent OS level player can be more aggressive. Wafer is explicitly aiming to treat apps more like back ends and data sources, where the operating system watches what a user does across services and then triggers similar actions later. That approach is much harder for Apple or Google to push broadly without upsetting developers whose apps feed their ecosystems.
The likely direction is a split market. Platform owners will keep expanding safe, developer sanctioned assistant actions inside the app economy, while independents push toward an agent first model where apps recede into the background. If that second model works, the center of value shifts from app stores and screens to whoever owns user context and system level execution.