All you need to know about Super Apps, the Mini Apps and Mini Programs

Introduction

Imagine going to visit China, and that the residents will look at with wonder when you try to pay with tickets for the purchase of a product or service. Why? In China, for years the transactions are made from the smartphone, leaving obsolete the use of the money in cash.

This way of life shows that the chinese and asians in general, are always a step forward.

Unlike the West, in China the initial contact with the Internet came the smart phones, and not by computers.

In the digital world that is known as Mobile First, a term that was released in 2011 after the publication of the book of the same name written by Luke Wroblewski (Product Manager of Google), which supports the theory that the websites should be created first in mobile, and then adjusted to the computer.

And it was precisely that tendency (Mobile First) that prompted them to invent in China's Super Apps, an app that lets you inside her live many applications (Mini-Apps).

Each of these Mini-Apps solves a specific topic. These solutions can allow from payments of invoices up applications for bank loans, completion of government formalities, purchases at merchants, payment of taxis, booking of air tickets, and much more.

To access these services, the user should only download on your phone as a Super-App, log-in and enter their payment methods only once.

In the West, most of the applications only meet a specific need, such as paying the parking or to reserve a table in the restaurant of a particular place. Until now they have not taken the leap to open up to allow other post mini apps inside of them and thus extend the range of services.

The good news is that GeneXus is already working on this side of the world can develop new digital ecosystems through the use of Super Apps.

Then you share the 38 curiosities (and more) that you need to know about this technological revolution:

Super Apps

#1
The concept of a Super App is a trend that began in Asia, more specifically in China, through applications such as WeChat and Alipay, and is gaining significant traction, expanding to other markets.

#2
The term was coined in the year 2010 by Mike Lazaridis, founder of BlackBerry, who during a conference on Mobile, defined the Super Apps as “a closed system of many of the applications that people use every day, because they provide a seamless user experience, integrated, contextualized, and efficient”.

#3
A Super App is an ecosystem that has a variety of services that are apparently not related to each other, but they all coexist within the same general application.

#4
Normally born as an application that covers a specific need, and then begin to include other services. Each of these services is a native app (Mini Apps) that is loaded into the Super App.

#5
The Super App is also a native app, but it ends up becoming a kind of ‘app mother’.

#6
The process to convert a native app a Super App started by creating an application that is intended to satisfy a goal and a specific need, and that have a high open rate. The second step is to develop the business, which may be internal or external (through partnership agreements or agreements with other organizations). This allows you to integrate different services to the initial proposal. Finally, it should open the product line and allow any person to create applications ("Mini-Apps) to provide this service through the Super App.

#7
The deployment of these applications is no different to what we already know. Once you compile the application, you must deploy the services of the backend, which are services that nourish the application on its own server.

#8
These are some scenarios that can be covered with one Super App:

Applications for payment, or fintech

Considering that this type of solutions already have a community of users that have payments that are integrated in the application, you can leverage that information to execute the payment of different services at different stores, of a very simple form. 

Applications Government

You could create different Mini Apps that solve all services or procedures that should do the citizens of a territory.

Applications for Communities

A city, a school, a university, or a business could also have your own Super App. This technology enables the development of products in an incremental manner, that is to say, we can go with incorporating small applications to then form this great app, and that these services even may be customized.

#9
A great advantage with respect to the web is that it removes the friction to get the identity and payments, avoiding the user having to register at different applications. The Super App solved this a unique time. 

#10
At the time of approving an application, it does not have the rigidity of the native, that is to say, applications will be available without the need to publish in each of the Store. 

#11
In the Super App, the information (the Mini Apps) can be displayed as a list of icons or prominently.

Mini Apps

#12
A Mini App is a small application that solves a problem inside the Super App, which is the host.

#13
The Mini Apps are applications that are embedded in a Super App.

#14
The Mini Apps are loaded dynamically when the user requires it, on demand. That is to say, when a user downloads in your phone a Super App, it will not have all the Mini Apps installed, but that will be accessing these through point of discovery that may be the start menu, embedded in an article by the official, linked on the user's profile, in a QR code, into the search bar, among others.

#15
The exposure of the applications can also be activated dynamically by the location of the user. Example: if the person enters a mall, could be viewed in the Super App shops that have Mini App and quickly access their services.

#16
Another mechanism of discovery that you can turn on the Mini Apps is the time. Depending on the time or of a particular week, they could be displayed most prominently the Mini Apps are relevant at that time. That allows you to develop Mini-Apps that can be useful for a few days or for a specified period.

#17
Your goal is clear and specific. The user does not have to learn what it is, simply by running the application can achieve the purpose of quickly and easily.

#18
The owner or manager of the Super App is the one who authorizes the publication of the Mini-Apps on their platform, and not the operating system or store the phone.

Mini Programs

#19
Mini Programs are Mini Apps that run in the Super Apps already established as Alipay, Wechat, among others.

#20
Have characteristics similar to those of any Mini App. Loaded instantly when the customer or the end user requires, because, as mentioned above, not all come installed with the download of the Super App.

#21
They are easier to develop than a native application. In China, for example, the companies failed to develop a native app for iOS, Android, or web app. They develop a Mini Program for a certain Super App, which can be WeChat, Alipay or Baidu, to name a few.

#22
Like the Mini Apps, which do not involve decisions of design and size, as these guidelines set the owner of the Super App.

#23
Some experts claim that the Mini Programs have 80% of functionality of a native app, but only 20% of development effort.

#24
Mini Programs are also highly integrated with the ecosystem of the Super App. Share the same login.

#25
Like Mini Apps, the Mini Programs are visible through points of discoveries.

Benefits of the Super Apps

#26

Less friction

The end user does not need to download each of the apps, but you can instantly access the services in a manner contextualized. 

#27

More security

Everything that has to do with the party identity of the user, and records of payment methods are performed only once on the Super App. The Mini Apps may use those services, but it will not be necessary to re-register them and give you that information that is confidential.

#28

Value delivery

The owners of the Super App can provide more and better services through partners, enabling the incremental development of their solutions.  

#29

Positioning

The owners of the Mini Apps have the ability to place your applications in an ecosystem already established, instead of posting them in the different shops, and compete among hundreds or dozens of other apps that offer similar services. 

#30

Simplification of the development

Everything that is related to the identity of the user and the payments comes from the Super App, we do not need to program it. This is a fundamental point, because they are complex issues to solve and are not necessarily the core of the business. 

#31

Agility

The process of launching a Mini-Apps in a Super App is very fast.

#32

Market knowledge

The Mini Apps can be directed to a specific audience, introducing them to the stated offer, at the right time.

#33

Reduction of costs

Many of the rules, or good design practices are given by the Super App. That makes it more simplified and integrated the development process. The costs of getting to know the client also decrease because that information is obtained through profiles who are subscribed to the Super App.

The phenomenon of the Super Apps in China and the world

#34

WeChat

• In the world of social networks, WeChat ranks as the sixth most used application in the world, with 1,200 million active users at the end of the year 2020.
• WeChat in chinese means “micro message”. He was born in the year 2011 as a messaging app. Tencent, which is the conglomerate of technology located behind WeChat, took the first messaging application and became the first Super App. Currently it contains more than a million Mini Programs, which offer services in over 200 categories.
• Its mobile payment system, WeChat Pay is a digital wallet that allows for the sending and receiving of money in China and 25 other countries.

#35

Alipay

• Is the group Alibaba. It is a super app that serves as a method of payment for the giants of e-commerce as Tao Bao and TMall.
• In 2013 equaled PayPal as the platform's mobile payment largest in the world.
• More than 300 international markets use Alipay to sell directly in China, through 18 foreign currencies.

#36

Grab

• Started as a transport company shared, helping drivers to earn a living, and then were added from street vendors to international brands. Currently they have more than 70 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES), employing more than 140 million people and representing 99% of all businesses in the region. “Entrepreneurs everyday life are the foundation of our economy and the reason for that Grab has expanded its services to become the superaplicación of millions of entrepreneurs”, they confess their creators, Anthony Tan and Hooi Ling Tan.
• Grab includes delivery, mobility, financial services, companies, and others, connecting to consumers from all walks of life with entrepreneurs and everyday life, in 428 cities and 8 countries.
• As of September 30, 2021, the liquidity of Grab cash around 5.2 billion us dollars.

#37

Gojek

• In Indonesia we find Gojek, which was born as a company travel share and then evolved into the category of Super App.
• It is the main competitor of Grab in the asian market and represents 2% of the Gross Domestic Product of Indonesia. It is the first unicorn of the country.
• In 2020 they launched GoStore, a solution that helps micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMES) local to establish online shops with ease.

#38

Paytm

• Paytm is a startup from India that already has 350 million registered users, who use their platform as a method of payment for different transactions and is, in itself, a bank with digital.
• Through this application you can also buy train tickets, book air tickets and pay in its wholly-owned subsidiary of e-commerce that is Paytm Mall.

GeneXus in the world of the Super Apps

For that one Super App work, you need a component that allows the dynamic loading of other applications.

This type of components we use in GeneXus from more than 10 years ago, when we release the generators for Smart Devices that allow you to dynamically load applications, to interpret them and give them a behavior-native.

What does this mean? that GeneXus has the technological power to create this new generation of applications. In fact we are the first platform Low-Code which allows you to generate Super Apps and Mini Apps. The best bit? you can do this the easy way, without learning anything new.

With GeneXus you can also transform in Super App is a native application that has been developed with our platform, getting all the advantages that entails: dynamic load applications, integration with partners, incremental development, and more.

For the modeling of this type of applications we have 3 components:

• Development of the Super App
• Development of the Mini App
• Server Provisioning, that is where they will be catalogued all of those Mini Apps.

To facilitate the development of Mini Apps offer components of Design Systems, Stencils, and User Controls.
 

Level of development, the user GeneXus not have to learn anything new. Develop a Super App is how to develop a native application. The only thing that is added is a component, that will let us connect to the Server Provisioning, created by GeneXus to get the Mini Apps of the Super App (this last one is going to have an API where we will learn the different services that will provide the Mini-Apps). 

The development of the Mini Apps is also equal to that of any other native application with GeneXus. It is an online application. The only thing that needs to be imported is the module of the Super App contains the services that I could get to interact with from the Mini-App. Once that is generated by that application, you should also get the deploy of the services that nourish the app. To be online, you'll certainly have that layer of services that may also be on its own server. And the difference here is there is no need to compile the application, but that metadata, the product generated by GeneXus, it is what's going to rank on Server Provisioning.

When the application is published on the Server Provisioning, it is notified to the owners of the Super App so that they can review and approve the Mini App.

What's next

Without a doubt, our technology and expertise in the development of generators, mobile, positions us at the forefront of the technical requirements necessary to create ecosystems around a Super App, and this is a door that opens great opportunities to the global community of GeneXus.
Within the range multi-experience, in GeneXus we are working on three fronts:
 

• Generator Mini Apps to Super Apps, GeneXus.
• Generator Mini Programs for the Super App WeChat.
• Solution to convert any native app (not necessarily developed with GeneXus) in a Super App.

The first generator's Low-Code of Mini Programs for WeChat

This channel will allow our customers in China and in any country of the world, to be able to create and publish Mini Programs for WeChat.

From the technical point of view, this generator is a hybrid between Web and Mobile apps. On the one hand resembles what is the Front-End development, with technologies like Angular, Vue, React, but the team of WeChat extended this by creating a new language.

The release will be done in the channel of beta, so that any person can use and prototyping on this platform. As this generator advancement, we also envision attack other Super Apps, adding properties and generating new projects, simplifying processes and reusing all our knowledge within these systems.

From GeneXus we invite you to us to bring his ideas about Super Apps and Mini Apps, so that we can collaborate on this new reality.

Write to us to request information about GeneXus