Oh, I don't NEED them - that probably was a poor choice of words. But, at times, they make life easier, most notably when a flight into a transit airport you are not familiar with is delayed.
My comment was more in exasperation that when airport apps first are a thing - why, oh why does every airport need its own proprietary one?
And why are they more often than not made with hardly a thought being spared as to UX - and all seemingly designed by some new media company who just hankered a bloke in from the street which had the good marketing sense and poor judgment to put 'app development' on his resume after successfully completing the 'Hello, World!' tutorial in Android Studio...
> why, oh why does every airport need its own proprietary one?
I can understand that. It sure sounds like transportation in general might benefit from some sort of a unified API world-over. This would make every airline/airport share the same kinds of information in the same ways.
I agree with your sentiment that one app should be all you need.
Extending this to other forms of transportation would be great. Just not sure how something like that would be accomplished.
That said, they (airports, etc.) could not rely on apps to communicate with passengers because you can't assume everyone will have access to them.
It's just like anything else that we used to live without ... mobile phones, call waiting, microwaves, you name it. Doesn't mean that having new things today isn't an improvement or more convenient in some ways.
I've used printed boarding passes sometimes and other times used the app. Using the app isn't necessarily more convenient when it comes to the boarding pass, but the Delta app can quickly tell me if my flight is delayed, gives me gate updates, and alerts me when my baggage has been loaded onto the plane. Could I get along without it? Sure. But is having that information on my phone useful? Of course.
My comment was more in exasperation that when airport apps first are a thing - why, oh why does every airport need its own proprietary one?
And why are they more often than not made with hardly a thought being spared as to UX - and all seemingly designed by some new media company who just hankered a bloke in from the street which had the good marketing sense and poor judgment to put 'app development' on his resume after successfully completing the 'Hello, World!' tutorial in Android Studio...