Launch Center Pro makers debut Group Text+ and Email+ for iOS
Contrast, the makers of the popular iOS automation app Launch Center Pro, released two new apps today that hope to “speed up tedious tasks on iOS.” Group Text+ and Email+ each include features that make texting (iMessage and SMS) …
Context & Ripple Effects
By late 2014, iOS made group texting and repeat emailing tedious enough that Contrast — whose [[entity:launch-center-pro|Launch Center Pro]] turned app actions into one-tap shortcuts — could sell two dedicated apps just to compose messages. Group Text+ and Email+ push the launcher thesis one layer deeper: not reaching the app faster, but pre-filling the task inside it.
The arc since then has been the platform catching up. In 2015, the Workflow app put shortcut triggers directly in iOS Notification Center with device syncing, and in 2016 Apple opened Messages itself to third-party iMessage apps in iOS 10 — official hooks into exactly the messaging workflows Contrast was automating by hand.
First-order effects
- Launch Center Pro users gain two paid companions that compress group iMessage/SMS blasts and templated emails into a few taps, widening Contrast's utility lineup beyond app launching.
- Anyone sending recurring texts or emails on iOS gets a native-feeling alternative to copy-paste drudgery, at the price of trusting a third-party app with contacts and message composition.
Second-order effects
- Apple's own platform moves squeeze the niche: once Messages accepts third-party iMessage apps and Workflow reaches tasks from Notification Center, the workaround value of standalone send-shortcut apps shrinks with every iOS release.
- Rival automation makers face the same fork — Workflow doubled down by embedding itself deeper in the OS, while Android-side players like Line answered with their own launcher app for Android devices.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, single-purpose iOS utilities survive only by out-innovating each system release or being absorbed into it — the consolidation dynamic that shaped the entire iOS automation category after 2014.
The trend: iOS automation is migrating from third-party shortcut apps toward capabilities Apple progressively builds into the OS itself, steadily narrowing the headroom for standalone utilities like Group Text+ and Email+.