From a user perspective, putting things in a browser is a lateral move at best and probably a bit of a regression. Desktop computing really hasn't changed much since the 90's. Wiring everything together was the big change after that.
Since then more interesting things are happening elsewhere like voice assistants. I can just say "play hound dog by elvis" while I'm driving and within seconds it's playing. Or "navigate home" and I get turn-by-turn directions. That's pretty remarkable.
If somebody figures AR out, that could be the next big UI/UX frontier.
Yes, it is very remarkable indeed. Some of these advances are really amazing and I am hopeful it will improve further.
The reality now is that e.g. Waze is not even able to recognize a broken, curvy road that is a bit shorter, but not really worth it, especially not at night and rain. It is not able to recognize a pattern of choosing the other road either. It can also not read house numbers in Czech properly, so it says not "house Nr. 42" or "house 42" but "house 42nd". Also, Google, Waze whatever often don't understand my and others English when giving commands and I was never told that people couldn't understand me. I do have an accent but I speak quite clearly as a singer.
There are many, many areas, where the computer doesn't support the user at all not speaking of adapting to the needs of the user automatically. People are instead constantly bothered by unimportant stuff, SPAM and settings where sane defaults would prevent 99,9% of the issues.
I guess, it is a matter of priority, focus and business model. If bothering people "engagement" is your business model you will not be motivated to "get out of the way". This is the same with ads. I don't mind good ads in a reasonable amount, good ads can be funny, interesting, educating. Nobody really thought about how to do really good ads on the web - it is mostly some trash I am not interested in in the slightest. Therefore people are using ad blockers, because too much is too much. Where is the UX there?
Engagement is a funny metric. For a lot of businesses it's correlated with revenue but from a user point of view, it may be the opposite of what we want. Do you want a product that tries to keep you using it for a long period of time or one that lets you get in and out quickly?
As far as ads go, I'm fine with them philosophically. I'll pay to remove them when I can but I have no moral objection to them. I do object to tracking though and that's why I use an ad blocker.
Since then more interesting things are happening elsewhere like voice assistants. I can just say "play hound dog by elvis" while I'm driving and within seconds it's playing. Or "navigate home" and I get turn-by-turn directions. That's pretty remarkable.
If somebody figures AR out, that could be the next big UI/UX frontier.