Launch Center Pro is the quickest way to launch in-app actions with your iPhone
App Cubby has launched a followup to their app Launch Center, Launch Center Pro, and the application offers the quickest way to launch actions with your iPhone or iPod touch.
Context & Ripple Effects
App Cubby's followup to its original Launch Center turns the home screen into a menu of in-app actions rather than just apps — tapping straight into a specific function inside another app instead of opening, navigating, then acting. That the release drew same-day writeups from eight outlets including Macworld, MacStories, The Verge, and Lifehacker says the power-user audience for iOS efficiency tools was larger than the App Store charts suggested.
The timing matters: this lands in an iOS era when Apple provided no system-level shortcuts, leaving a gap that small independent developers like App Cubby were filling with clever uses of URL schemes and notification hooks.
First-order effects
- iPhone and iPod touch owners who rely on repeated in-app actions get a materially faster path to them, making Launch Center Pro a daily-driver utility rather than a novelty.
- App Cubby converts its existing Launch Center user base into a paid Pro upgrade, monetizing an established niche audience.
Second-order effects
- Other indie iOS developers now have proof that launcher-style utilities can command attention and revenue, inviting a wave of competing shortcut apps crowding for the same home-screen slot.
- Developers whose apps expose deep-linkable actions gain distribution through Launch Center Pro's menus, giving them an incentive to publish URL schemes they might otherwise have kept internal.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, a whole category of apps that reorganize how iOS is navigated will grow up outside Apple's own interface — putting the category permanently one policy decision away from friction over how much of the launch experience Apple tolerates third parties controlling.
The trend: iOS is developing a third-party shortcuts layer between the home screen and individual apps, built by indie developers in the space Apple's own UI leaves open.