In this political season, why not talk about the roughest political argument of them all: the real meaning of Apple’s announcement of over 100,000 apps in the app store. Are these apps important because, as Steve Ballmer says, the iPhone doesn’t handle the Internet well? Are these apps a testament to a strong ecosystem? Or are these apps a testament to Apple’s marketing might and the perception that you just might make your millions by selling a flashlight app for the Touch?
The announcement, which basically says that there are over 100,000 applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch with some of the true winners – Smule’s I Am T-Pain, for example – getting 10,000 or more downloads a day.
Clearly the concept of an app store is compelling. Why, then, hasn’t this taken off in the Windows Mobile space and why hasn’t Anrdoid’s market truly taken off?
The singular reason is obviously OS age, in Microsoft’s case, and OS fragmentation, in Android’s case. We’ll ignore Symbian for now because, well, it’s a nice operating system but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has been around for almost a decade. All the apps that could have been made for it have been made for it and, like a tired mule team the developers just can’t push out any more juice. Sure, you can make plenty of cash in the WinMo arena, but it’s all on your own marketing dime. Apple excels at marketing.
In Android’s case you have multiple “branches” of the OS for multiple devices. HTC and Motorola have their own UI tweaks and these branches for programmers to recompile for multiple devices. This, obviously, is a big issue for mom and pop shops run by a few developers and even worse for the 14-year-olds out there building apps in their basements.
So Apple’s refusal to expand its product line has finally paid off. By creating a regimented army of drone devices to run its marketplace they’ve ensured absolute compatibility at the cost of, potentially, consumer choice.
But, and I state this only to be devil’s advocate, does this consumer choice come with too great a cost — namely an app ecosystem that underperforms for the average consumer?
App Store lead the way with the innovative iPhone. None of the competitor even come close to iPhone User Experience and did I said App Store now have 100,000 Apps?
I’d be interested in knowing from anyone who has used or uses both the phones whether or not the well-over-done talking point that there are 100,000 applications in the app store has made the slightest bit of difference in finding one that does what you need it to do? Seriously.
I have about a dozen forks and spoons and knives in my silverware drawer, but I haven’t been able to determine whether or not one will do the job better than if I ate lunch in the cafeteria at a Farberware plant.
I’ve been using a HTC Diamond and an iPhone and I must say that you can definitely find what you are looking for at a lower cost on the iPhone. What costs 2,99$ in the App Store costs 49,99$ on windows mobile.
No experience with Android though, not interested as well.
Excellent point. My guess is most people don’t think about the ability to search and find the best App. Rather they hear there are 100,000 choices and figure this must be the better platform.
Exactly. Having this much choice is as much a burden as it is a blessing though you’d have a hard time convincing some people of this.
Take WordPress for example. When I was using the Blogger platform, I was monumentally frustrated with not only the quality of the plugins, but the lack of choice in a lot of areas. When I moved to Wordpress, I was overwhelmed with huge assortment of choices for plugins returned on a search. Do a plugin search for any common unit like “comment”, “categories”, or “pages” and you end up with so many choices that it’s impossible to decide. Half of the time you are considering installing a plugin you are wondering if this is the best one to use or what *everyone* is using.
I would argue that the same effect is in place with the app store.
Just a thought.
I have a pre, from switching from iphone and I have to say, yes. Sure the iphone has tons of crap, but it also has the best apps. There is no flickr, facebook, remember the milk app, yammer, tweety (tweed is ok) on pre (or android). Also web apps are not usually optimized for other devices, google reader, and gmail just work better on the iphone because they have been tested and developed for it. sigh.
Well, Android does have a gmail and facebook app (although the facebook app sucks). The browser is pretty good, renders pretty normally for most sites.
Yeah, but do you have access to over 1000 fart aps? Match that! Or what about the 90,000 aps that have virtually no usefulness? Huh? And, and, what about having to charge the phone after the 30 minute drive to work?
I dare anyone here to match that! Betcha can’t!
Don
I don’t know if OS fragmentation is that big a deal for Android. Linux’s software ecosystem is at least as big as the iPhone’s with at least as many less-than-useful gadgets and obscure tools.
And that’s with over a hundred notable distributions.
OS fragmentation and multiple devices increases development costs exponentially, because you have to QA on every OS branch and smartphone. So fragmentation is a big deal for Android and if they aren’t careful, they could end up the same place as BlackBerry for the reasons described here: http://bit.ly/fA4wH.
Interestingly, that is one advantage the Palm Pre has over BBry, WinMo, and Android: Like apple: one OS, one Device = frictionless third-party app development.
“OS fragmentation and multiple devices increases development costs exponentially, because you have to QA on every OS branch and smartphone.”
Not necessarily. By your argument, one would need to own dozens of desktops, notebooks, and netbooks to develop for Windows (e.g., different screen sizes, different GPUs, different sound cards). Many Windows developers do not need this, because they work within a set of APIs that are known to be solid across the platform. However, developers pushing the envelope, such as game manufacturers, need to do more work here, to test their apps out on different types of video cards and all that jazz. Developers, by their choice of what they are developing, “dial in” how much they have to deal with multiple types of hardware.
The same thing holds for any multi-device mobile OS (Android, Symbian, WinMo). When planned in advance, many apps need to do little to no testing for N devices and will still work well, but some apps may require much more testing.
Developers not testing across multiple platforms often find themselves with code that works unreliably across the gamut. The APIs do their best to provide consistency but often the underlying platform doesn’t support the new features of the APIs and you end up with different behavior on different platforms.
You might want to check you facts. Gartner has been predicting that RIM would lose market share to Apple since the iPhone was first announced, and thus far RIM’s market has grown more than Apple’s, every single quarter the iPhone has been on the market.
Seriously, RIM is selling more than three times as many phones as Apple, and their market keeps growing. I don’t think any companies are particularly worried about “ending up the same place as BlackBerry,” Given that they are in second place in the Smartphone market right now, and have been for a couple years.
Look, you iPhone people like your iPhone. That’s cool, I’m happy for you, but will you please quit going all over the web trying to convince everyone that the entire industry is selling less than Apple? Apple is selling about as many units in a year as RIM does in a quarter, and about as many units as Nokia sells in a month.Really, HTC and Palm might be happy if they were selling as many phones as Apple, but Nokia, Motorola, LG, Samsung and even RIM would have to go into bankruptcy if they moved that few units.
I know Steve told you it was the most successful device ever sold by mankind, but I’m afraid he lied. It is just now, after years of hype, and billions of dollars of advertising, outselling Windows Mobile, which anyone will tell you has been an abject failure for years. Before you extol the virtues of how everyone should learn from Apple’s lead, you really might want to look at some numbers and make sure you aren’t being misled by some Apple PR.
Actually Lee, RIM don’t sell three times as many phones as Apple, it’s about one and a half times as many.
However guess which phone company had the 40% growth according to Canalsys and which one had 7.8% for QonQ.
Clue: It was a fruit company but not a US based one.
P.S. Is it just me or does the fact that the launch numbers for the 3GS are only slightly better than those for the 3G suggest that the iPhone is kind of approaching saturation?
well, i wouldn’t be surprised if the iphone was one of the best selling phones/gadge ever, because there’s only 3 versions of the iphone compared to numerous versions of the blackberry and android devices. Can any one model of blackberry or android even compare to the numbers that iphone has produced?
“P.S. Is it just me or does the fact that the launch numbers for the 3GS are only slightly better than those for the 3G suggest that the iPhone is kind of approaching saturation?”
yeah, that’s you ^_^
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/15/iphone-3g-sold-out-in-21-states/
@mike
Sorry, an article from mid July is relevant to the quarter ending 30 September because…
Point is that the numbers aren’t that much better. Oh well, at least they’ll have China’s numbers to boost things next quarter…. or not.
@eric
Yes, the Blackberry Curve, the Nokia N95, the Nokia N73, the Nokia N70…
Mark A > ok, so here’s another one : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/6248263/O2-sells-out-of-iPhone-3GS.html
30th september 2009. of course it wasn’t sold out everywhere from launch to that date but there have been big problems with the 3GS delivering.
Phil Schiller explained that Apple wasn’t expecting a very big success for the 3GS and thought the price drop of the 3G would be very appealing to consumers.
In fact, they wanted the new phone, not the older even with its price cut in half.
@mike
And they filled those orders in October and November. There was a delay of about a week.
As for your other comments, I agree – Apple didn’t disclose the split between 3GS sales and 3G sales at the last earnings conference for the rather obvious reason that hardly anyone bought the out of date product.
Schiller was being naive or disingenuous if he seriously believed Apple’s core market would ever be attracted to anything but the latest model. However, growth – though good – isn’t stellar and, as I’ve been saying for a while now, the iPhone is at best 25-30 million a year product, half of those sales in the US. That’s as good as it’s going to get and, frankly, it’ll probably get a good deal worse unless they vary the product line.
“an app ecosystem that underperforms for the average consumer”
Care to quantify that? I suspect that most consumers are ecstatic about the App Store and the choices being made available to them. If that weren’t the case, the iPhone would never have reached this level of success.
buying a WinMo phone USED TO require quite a bit of hunt and peck to find new apps. I think this problem has plagued uses for so long that something like a WinMo App store is completely ignored.
On what basis, John? Do we have download figures or number of applications for the Windows Marketplace – which is how old again?
IF you can find them Windows Mobile has a massive app catalog of programs that are often more feature rich than iPhone apps (due to more unrestricted access to a phone’s hardware and software). And they’re often freeware or shareware.
For now the search box at XDA forums is still the best “app store” for winmo; but if developers all migrated to the winmo app store it would be a strong contender.
Winmo apps have a 6-7 year headstart on iPhone, but iPhone apps have a 2 year headstart on distribution. If Windows can adapt their distribution and have most developers get on their store they can close that 2 year gap really fast and make a much quicker comeback than most people expect.
@Kerensky97
When I looked at the WinMo app catalog, there were tons of programs, and almost ALL of them were exponentially higher cost than any equivalents on the App Store. I’m taking $30 vs $2. Huge, huge differences in pricing structure, and for apps that are definitely far uglier, though sometimes more functional.
And before you say “I’ll take function over form” I’m talking Windows 3.1 / Windows CE levels of ugliness. They want people to pay $30 for that? No wonder that OS is dying.
Top 4 Windows Mobile apps on handango.com as of 11/4/09:
$30 – SPB Mobile Shell: A UI shell to replace the way outdated Windows Mobile interface.
$15 – Wizcode Photocopy Mobile
$2 – Flashlight
$25 – SPB Backup 2: A backup program.
So we have two apps to the sum of $55 that are unecessary on iPhone OS because they’re built-in, a flashlight app (hey, look everyone, WinMo has flashlight/fart apps too!), and one useful looking app that costs about 5 times more than the equivalent on iPhone.
And people wonder why Windows Mobile is dying?
seriously… $2 for Flashlight ?
can’t they type “about:blank” in their browser and save it as a webapp ? o_O
@Scott
You know, some would call that cherry picking…
Just sayin’.
John,
You should really do some homework first before your hands touch the keyboard. Handango has been around for years (well before the app store) and provided all of the features of the App Store including license management, upgrade alerts, etc… And that is just one store Mobihand is another one.
I had a Windows Mobile device for a long time and never had an issue finding an application that I needed.
The reason Windows Mobile is not doing well right now? Simple, Microsoft is not advertising it and the carriers are allowing crappy, underpowered phones to be sold since they are looking for the contract and not the satisfaction of the users. The HD2 is a perfect device that combines all the right hardware and software elements to be a great device.
Let me ask you another thing. If Windows Mobile is so bad, how come Apple uses it at their stores exclusively to do all of their point of sale? How come they are not using an iPhone to do it or a palm device? Why does every single Apple Store around the world use a Windows Mobile device?
“Why does every single Apple Store around the world use a Windows Mobile device?”
What are you smoking?
Funny you should mention the Apple Store thing. iPod Touch POS system is being rolled out as we speak: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/03/exclusive_look_at_apples_new_ipod_touch_based_easypay_checkout.html
yeah, probably not the best idea to use your competitors OS on your POS
It’s the whole package, stupid. (No offense, just paraphrasing.) It’s the gestalt. The boxes work. We long for stuff that just works. Like a TV box. Like a radio box. Microsoft co-opted what IBM invented — the support system for complicated systems. Apple provides the complicated systems that work without an army of snarky geeks. And beautifully.
I wonder if these are 100,000 active apps available in the US app store or worldwide. Once you could inactive apps they crossed 100,000 apps more than a week ago.
Since you mentioned “Devils Advocate”….
Let me give you a little inside information about “Apple”. “Apple” likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man “iPhone”. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, His own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Call but don’t Touch. Touch, But dont type. Type, But dont Copy/Paste. Copy Paste, But Dont MMS. MMS, but don’t develop Fart apps. FartApps, but no B*obs app. B*obs app but not without PuS*y apps.Ahaha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is He doing? He’s laughin’ His sick, fuckin’ ass off. He’s a tight-ass. He’s a sadist. He’s an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Devil’s_Advocate
That was awesome, man! I hope more people get the reference (at first i didin’t). + 1
Nobody cares for WinMo and will never…Apple,Google and RIM rule the mobile world with their mobile technology and innovation.
Its all about softwares,apps and hardware quality.
Apple iPhone OS 3.0 is the best and their Hardware is the Best also as always.
I think next iPhone(June 2010) wil have 8 MegaPixel camera,front 2 MP camera for ichat, 1 GHZ processor or dual processor,512 MB- 1 GB ram,upto 64 GB space and multitasking. I still dont want flash becuase its useless,webkit based HTML 5 works great.
Actually Symbian and Nokia rule it with sales numbers which is the only thing that really matters.
Mark – anyone with sufficient capital could rule the “sales numbers” if they are willing to give up profits to do it. Hell, a completely free phone would probably do the trick.
Unfortunately sales numbers are not the only thing that really matters.
Actually they are, Brad, as long as the product is profitable.
Oh and before anyone mentions Nokia’s last quarterly results you may want to look at the handset division’s profits and not the FUBAR that Nokia made with their TPAs. That’s the figure that counts here.
Historic trends matter too Mark, and if Nokia doesn’t correct their course, they’ll no longer be #1 by 2012.
Blackberry is currently the most popular smartphone in the US, but no one things they have the brightest future either at this point. They need to innovate or risk losing the business market as well as the consumer market.
Not a chance. Nokia are concentrating on pushing smartphones into the dumbphone market. They’ll still be comfortably ahead by 2012.
HTC HD2 blows iPhone out of the water in terms of hardware. More devices are coming out that will look iPhone looking mediocre.
I would not discount WinMo just yet. Microsoft mismanaged consumer/marketing aspect of mobile platform, but they have the technology. You will be surprised how soon it will be back in the game.
WinMo sucks…Microsoft will never become a leader in tech…you are wrong Microsoft fanboy.Please dont cry.
Apple,Rim and google tech is much better and advanced.
“Apple,Rim and google tech is much better and advanced.”
How?
Specific please.
99,000 fart apps and counting!
Quantity isn’t everything.
I do agree that Android is shooting itself in the head early with fragmentation. The point made in a previous comment about Linux fragmentation (and it’s still popular) misses the bigger issue. I can put any Linux distro I want on any hardware I want, any day I want. With Android I’m beholden to some handset company to release an upgrade for their specific hardware. I can’t just say screw you, I’m going with a new baseband. We all know where the incentive lies. It’s in buying a new handsets, not making it easy for me to upgrade my existing one.
I love Android, but I’m not going to f* around with anyone’s proprietary variations on a good thing.
Steve Ballmer says “the iPhone doesn’t handle the Internet well”? Has he tried using one of his own mobiles? It hurts, Steve. It HURTS.
Yeah, I never understood why he said that. I’m guessing by Internet he means web pages, and if so he’s way off. The iPhone is probably the BEST phone for browsing the web out there. The whole pinch to zoom in and out and double-tap to focus on content works brilliantly.
I’m yet to see another OS do a better job TBH.
He meant that all applications that run on the Web should be able to run on the iPhone as well. Take for example a flashlight app… imagine if someone were to create such an app as a Flash application sitting on a webpage… The iPhone should be able to play it, but of course it wouldn’t, thus we’re forced to download it from the App Store.
This could be said of many apps, from augmented reality, to games, to twitter clients, etc…
You realize that a flashlight web app would just have to be a completely white, blank web page right?
You need to pick a different example for your point. :P
“these branches for programmers to recompile for multiple devices.”
This isn’t English.
If you are trying to claim that “programmers have to recompile for multiple devices”, I would be interested in the proof of that claim.
I’m assuming Android provides common interfaces to hardware in the VM’s framework, so I doubt you’d need to change anything for different devices.
My point exactly.
In truth, you may have to do a little extra work when writing your apps to plan ahead for other screen sizes. And, there is every chance that you’ll trip over some foulup in some device’s edition of Android — some Hero ROMs appear to have a couple of glitches, for example.
Had Mr. Biggs written “programmers might have to do more work to do a great job of supporting multiple devices”, I probably would not have quibbled. Many apps will work fine without anything custom, if they follow the rules, but some apps may require changes. The key is “some” and “may”.
Good to see you’re here to clarify this for people, Mark. John Biggs clearly doesn’t understand the Android development environment and he’s misleading people to the notion that each Android device requires a separate application binary and a separate SDK to compile against. The analogy to Windows is a good example. As long as you follow good practices, your Android app will run on all the devices without hassle.
John really needs to clarify this in the article.
How many of these 100,000 apps are fart noise generators, burp noises, fake weapons, that’s what she said apps, a shiny jewel glowing in the middle of the screen, picture slideshows, or a lighter?
I’m just bitter I don’t have a good lighter app for my blackberry. I can’t be cool at concerts. :-(
What are these “multiple “branches” of the OS” you talk about? as far as I know if it has android the app will run, if you have some facts about this I’d like to know.
word on the street is that the Commodore 64 (8-bit computer introduced in 1982) is the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. a computer that, at it’s peaktime, hardly had any posibilites of official hardware expanding. the same piece of code would run effortlessly on several million computers.
Apple launched it’s Apple II around the same time but it was never a real success. however, it does appear that Apple learned something: streamline your future products and ensure the user-experience becomes the same for all.
the iPhone (and iPod Touch) is one brilliant example: this article (and the enormous popularity of said devices) is merely a testimonial of Apple’s capability of “learning from the past” and re-applying themselves.
“We’ll ignore Symbian for now because, well, it’s a nice operating system but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
Or because if you didn’t it would completely destroy your theory.
Plus, of course, you miss the point that WinMo and Symbian have been around for years and their app catalogues have had the weeding that the iPhone’s hasn’t.
So, because I’m kind, I’m going to suggest that questions that you should really be asking, which are:
1) Of those 100,000 apps what are the download figures per app over the last three months?
2) What is the split between free and paid?
3) How many of those apps have an equivalent that comes as standard on a WinMo, Android or Symbian handset?
4) How important is an app store regardless of platform to the average purchaser?
Off you go.
I would suggest that the simple metric of 2+ billion app downloads is enough. The numbers you request are simply not available. Nor are total downloads out a cohesive alternative app store outside of the iPhone ecossytem.
You may not like Apple, but they did a fantastic job of getting people to develop and use applications. In the past I was a fan of Symbian and in particular UIQ and the development kits from SE were fun. Loved my SE P810… But, the usage patterns were horrible. When I swapped my P for an iPhone, I immediately began to regularly use data on an entirely different level. So, data usage is another metric that is important.
Some of the information you request is available. Google knows all. Some not, and proprietary. As a developer, I am ignoring Symbian as well, and focussing my attention on the iPhone and Android. There are a lot of people who are simply looking to Android. The smartphone world is going to be much different by next year.
“I would suggest that the simple metric of 2+ billion app downloads is enough.”
I, however, would not. How many downloads have been made to WinMo and Symbian phones over the last five years or so? How many of those downloads replicate functionality that already exists on other phones?
Nope, not a good metric. I mean it’s impressive but it doesn’t really mean anything by itself.
“The numbers you request are simply not available. Nor are total downloads out a cohesive alternative app store outside of the iPhone ecossytem.”
Exactly. So how can we say it’s a success when we have no idea what the other numbers are as comparators? I mean we could ask Handango what their total sales volume has been but it’s not going to be a complete figure, is it?
Now I think the iPhone will have more because it’s easier to use the app store than third party sites (obviously this is far less of an issue with the marketplaces that have been introduced by Nokia, Microsoft, RIM, etc although they do have a long way to go yet) but 40-60 lifetime downloads per customer (including iPod Touch downloads which should really be discounted to give a direct comparison) isn’t that much really.
“You may not like Apple”
I don’t. I do, however, like some Apple products – I use a Macbook for example. The company? No. I detest the free pass they get from fans with typewriters even more though.
“but they did a fantastic job of getting people to develop and use applications.”
Yup. I agree there.
“When I swapped my P for an iPhone, I immediately began to regularly use data on an entirely different level. So, data usage is another metric that is important.”
Especially when it’s included in your contract which is actually the main driver. If it wasn’t I doubt you would be using as much.
“Some of the information you request is available. Google knows all. Some not, and proprietary. As a developer, I am ignoring Symbian as well, and focussing my attention on the iPhone and Android.”
Probably sensible since most of the applications that you’ll be writing – with the exception of games – already exist for the other platforms. Mind you, with so many apps now available for the iPhone you’re going to find it equally hard to make money out of it too.
“There are a lot of people who are simply looking to Android.”
Because it doesn’t have the app catalogue the others have. Once they’re done, they’re done though.
“The smartphone world is going to be much different by next year.”
Perhaps but not for the reasons you outline. There will be a lot more smartphones but that growth is going to come from the transition from feature phones and dumb phones to mid tier smartphones. Nokia have gathered this which is why their efforts are focused on this segment. Android also realise this as do other hardware companies – that’s why DROID is a brand and not just one handset.
Apple? Diversify or get left behind. That’s really their choice.
Incidentally, Nicholas, Apple could tell us the download figures per app for the last three months tomorrow if they wanted.
But they wont. Want to guess why?
What are you talking about? Windows Mobile has more than 60000 apps written for that platform. The reason you don’t hear about it? Well, there are several:
1. Unlike Apple, Microsoft never really advertised Windows Mobile. Apple does nothing but advertise the iPhone.
2. Most Windows Mobile apps are written for a specific purpose and generally for business apps. There are thousands of apps that are written for the financial industry for example. Apps on the app store are generally not business minded and are mostly categorized into entertainment categories such as games and pictures of celebrities.
3. The bad publicity of the App Store and its practices is known world wide and Apple isn’t doing anything to make it better.
4. Apple created a system that devalues the work of developers by allowing 99 cent applications. Even if you wrote a great app and want to sell it, you are faced with trying to sell your hard work for a measly 99 cents out of which Apple takes it cut. And if someone demands a refund, you actually lose money since Apple refunds the full amount but does not return their cut.
I keep on hearing the 100,000 number being thrown out but you really need to look at the other numbers that are associated with the App Store such as number of apps that are nothing more than pictures of celebrities or the average lifetime of an app on the actual phone (I believe it was around 20 minutes last time I saw the number – don’t quote me on it), or the number of clear violations on the app store by apps that do nothing more than copy the functionality of another app and stick another name on them.
Granted, most people do not see these numbers and are glamorized by the total number and the catchy phrase “there is an app for that”, but I find it interesting that aside from games, there is really only a handful of apps that are considered to be truly great and useful apps.
Just my two cents…
Finally someone with some sense and numbers. Jim, can you do some writing for TechCrunch? I love this.
People are like sheep. They blindly follow the Apple iPhone machine. Say that “it’s beautiful.” Give me a break. I have a smart mobile phone. I have an awesome 63″ flat screen TV. I don’t call these things “beautiful.” The iPhone crowd are a bit over the top with their worship.
I’m a lover of music and a musician. When the iPod came out, a buddy of mine gave me one. I never used it. Three weeks ago, he shows me Castle Wofenstein on his iPhone. My answer was: Is that the best they can do? That is the same port I had on my PocketPC 5 years ago!
Apple’s marketing team needs something to talk about. So just like McDonald’s saying they’ve served billions, Apple has 100,000 apps, 99.9% of which are useless.
You’re so rabit in your illogical hate for Apple that you were given an iPod and never used it?
I wouldn’t throw stones from a glass houses either. Window Mobile tons and tons of useless apps. I’m guessing if you cut out the to-do lists and task managers, you’d probably remove a good 80% of the platform’s entire catalog.
Maybe he didn’t use the ipod because he already has a PMP that he is more comfortable with? I was also given a free ipod years back. I do use it occasionally but I still prefer my basic Sandisk player.
Not using Apple products doesn’t equal hate. Be smarter.
“Three weeks ago, he shows me Castle Wofenstein on his iPhone. My answer was: Is that the best they can do? That is the same port I had on my PocketPC 5 years ago!”
So you know the word “port” but apparently you don’t know what it means…
“Are these apps important because, as Steve Ballmer says, the iPhone doesn’t handle the Internet well?”
Oh yeah … please Steve … please … send me one of these marvellous winmo 6.5 phones … my iphone user experience is so shitty …
Sometimes people should seriously reconsider saying something
Like this one you mean?
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/04/htcs-hd2-has-landed-at-engadget/
WinMO is dumb.This phone looks good ,all becuase of HTC UI and Hardware.
Jesus, Andy. If you’re going to type like that then don’t call anyone or anything dumb.
WinMo is a great OS with a really, really bad UI. Since Sense UI takes care of that it should run pretty well.
Before I had my iPhone (I was an early adopter) I had all sorts of phones. I had a sony, nokia but they never hit the spot I wanted to do things taht just weren’t possible. Then the iPhone hit the market and not only did it look good but it did stuff beyond what everyone else said a phone should do. And it was easy to sync with a familiar tool, iTunes.
The the app store arrived and now I find incredable stuff arriving in the store every week. For example – As a graphic and web designer I visit many clients at their office, the other day I had a client with a logo designed by another company and we needed to know the font. I found an app in the store that could take a photo and analyse the font and tell me what it was. It worked.
I went to shot some reference shots for a 3D architectural project 2.5 hrs from my house and stupidly forgot my SD card for my camera. I wanted to take panorama shots to send to my brother in the states who is working on the project with me. I went to app store downloaded the panorama app took the shots and sent them whilst also being able to GPS reference the images so he could match up the shots with the location on google earth.
Now that’s productivity and solutions to real instant and varied needs. I have never had a device like it. I don’t care who makes it (I’m a fanboi so I am glad it’s apple) but if any other company can solve everyday problems like the app store point me at it cos I’ve looked and these guys do the business.
And everyone else can either get with the program and start solving problems the way apple does or shut the hell up.
The app-store is the real disruptive genius, I don’t know why it’s currently limited to the iphone, or mobile devices.
Why isn’t there an online appstore for Desktop (Windows or the Mac)? It’s hard to buy software for your PC – I’d much rather download it with one click to try then buy. Or do they need to send me a DVD to justify charging $40-100?
Someone will figure this out…
because normal developers don’t want to be stripped 30% of the profits for their work. only apple junkies do that
Are you insane? Apple and other companies put the R&D in produce the product, create the SDK the market place and handle the marketing how much would it cost to do it all on your own? Nothing? I don’t think so. Normal developers work on machines and devices, and hardware and backbones that they did not create themselves.
So if a company provides all that to enable you to make a product that is easy reach of a huge market and gives you the tools to do so I think you should show some damn respect and say thank you.
And not complain about putting some money back in the pot to allow the opportunity to continue and expand.
Stop wanting everything for FREE already. Tell me do you work for FREE or do you charge for the service you provide?
Think about it next time you want to place an inane comment.
So does google, but they allow you to download apps from anywhere
“I Am T-Pain” is getting 10,000 downloads a day at $3 a pop, I’m sure they’re not complaining about a cut that is just part of good business.
@igniman Big WTF?! Just saw your site. You HAVE an iPhone app, you “Apple Junkie.”
did i ever say i did not?
I guess you’ve never heard of Linux? The “app store for desktops” of which you speak is built-in.
They are called repositories. You access them with a package manager.
Anything you could possibly want is a few clicks away.
android is cross-phone, there is no app that you cannot run on a specific handset, even if it lacks certain hardware components. the UI hacks of htc are pure decoration. for example hero runs both htc widgets and android widgets
the only reason the apple store makes money is that apple places an electric fence outside their products forcing them to pay to keep using it.
the problem with android is that it’s too customizable , which may confuse first time users. other than that, most of the $1.00 apps you need to buy on the iphone are free on the android. and, frankly, can you suggest which app that would be a deal breaker for android?
it’s not an 100000 point lead , it’s 2 years in tech time, which, as you know, runs fast.
I was going to post something to that effect. Google can well afford to finance 10,000 projects at $5k apiece, and rapidly get an ecosystem. More importantly, there needs to be a focus on some frameworks for media and interaction. Implementing more of WebKit would likewise help a lot. I looked at a project and couldn’t even implement any tech in a meaningful way (media).
In this tired argument of mobile app “quality over quantity”, I find it interesting that comparisons aren’t made to the PC world, where the opposite has occurred: it’s the the quality of apps (especially free/shareware) for OSX that really make it take out against the background of thousands of apps, of variable quality and security, for the Windows platform. Just compare the spit & polish of Mac Freeware, for example.
In the end, fantastic quality apps will end up being made for all platforms; it’s the integration with one another, in Apple’s case with iTunes & the iTMS that create the perceived value. Android’s value will undoubtably come from being completely open and the perception from certain consumers (like Arrrington) that customer choice and freedom to choose is paramount over the platforms synergistic “ecosystem health”.
I think both models stand to do very well, with some obvious losers in the making (WinMob).
The http://www.appgiveaway.com website has certainly helped in promoting these apps ;-)
“In Android’s case you have multiple “branches” of the OS for multiple devices. HTC and Motorola have their own UI tweaks and these branches for programmers to recompile for multiple devices. This, obviously, is a big issue for mom and pop shops run by a few developers and even worse for the 14-year-olds out there building apps in their basements.”
Could you please provide some evidence for this? I know it is popular and all to claim that Androids is fragmented/fragmenting/soon to fragment, but I have yet to talk to a single Android developer who has ACTUALLY had any difficulty with all of this supposed fragmentation. Seeing as how you are a tech blog and all, do you think maybe you could actually give some proof, instead of just parroting whatever Apple PR tells you to?
Oh wait, you are a tech blog, of course you can’t.
100,000 apps doesn’t mean anything. How many of them are garbage? 99,000?
It’s like bragging about your computer’s megahertz back in the day – if you think that’s all that matters, you’re a clueless moron.
100,000 apps does mean something whether 90% of them are crap or not. It means that all those developers have embraced a new platform and produced something to share no matter how good or bad with the world.
Some of the apps like the app for helping diabetes sufferers are amazing uses of the technology, zip car have added value to their product and Facebook has given an app to work along side the trends of more mobile computing.
I wouldn’t say that the iPhone is the greatest thing that will ever happen in the mobile market but when tech journos and news sites rate ever new phone along side the iPhone they must be getting something right.
Would Motorola, HTC and Samsung be as advanced if Apple had not pushed the button? I honestly don’t know but I would think Apple has made companies review and rethink about what the future needs to be for consumers.
100,000 apps in what 2 years nearly 2000 apps on average per month thats not bad for a completely new platform.
Lets see what everyone else does cos all this means is more features for us the consumers.
Anyone on TC is considered a geek to the common folks and that is exactly iPhone´s biggest barrier to reaching the masses.
iPhone will be a true winner when it reaches the mass audiences and that won´t happen until an iPhone is self-utonomous. (no Mac/PC iTunes physical connectivity).
@Alvarrr: “iPhone will be a true winner when it reaches the mass audiences”
The other day I had breakfast in a popular low-priced restaurant, and one of the servers was showing her iPhone to another server behind the counter. And it wasn’t the $99 3G, it was a 3GS. Sounds to me like the iPhone is now reaching the mainstream. I also recall reading an article about how an iPhone is in many cases THE computer for the $25-40K annual income set because it’s mobile (and cleaning people, etc. don’t usually carry around netbooks or sit at a desk).
My personal belief at this point is that the 100K App milestone is the point when Apple should shift tactics and focus on something more meaningful than mere quantity, as subsequent numbers become less and less meaningful, and we get it, “There’s an App for That.”
Otherwise, the ‘magic’ starts become clinical and cold, which is very un-Apple-like, something that I blogged about in:
iPhone’s 100K Apps is the New ‘7-Minute Abs’
http://bit.ly/rJkEC
Check it out, if interested.
Mark
Or ‘weeding’ as all the other platforms call it.
You are right, Apple is really good in marketing. Plus they have some good products and a strong community.
iPhone is the Walkman of 21st century. It will reach a peak and will go into oblivion.
Apple is excellent at marketing. It’s because of their marketing campaigns that we all think having an iPhone is the “cool” thing to do. We’ve done it to ourselves though, so we can’t really complain TOO much about under performance.
There are apps that I use on the iPhone every day of my life and some of them are done so well I don’t have to travel with a laptop anymore.
iSSH – can’t live without it.
Jaadu VNC – the only app that I found (at least at the time) that can control 2 monitors – quite fast..auto detection – love it. Use it at least 5-10 times a day
QuickOffice – love it. Makes it easy to edit word/excel docs
PocketTunes – best way to listen to XM
Of course you got great built in apps too. My point is that these apps have found a way to use Apple’s API so effectively that using any other phone feels clunky and 2nd class. Apple has 50+ million devices that can purchase from the App store – it’s very hard to compete against that number. As a consumer I don’t care about having a “walled garden” as long as I can use the phone easily and use the apps I need for personal and business.
Everything you named there has an equivalent on Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and even the old PalmOS.
As far as not being able to compete with the supposed 50+million devices (which is a completely bogus number by the way, because that is the total number of devices sold since launch, not the total number of devices currently in operation), you do realize that Nokia sells 110 or so million devices every quarter, right?
But Nokia is actually LOOSING market share, while Apple is increase market share. Nokia is been doing this for how many years now? And apple has just as many devices in only 2+ years.
And yes, I know other phones have similar type of apps, but they don’t have the user experience that I have on the iPhone, and most importantly the apps on the iPhone are much, much, much cheaper then on WinMo. I have no idea what the prices are on Blackberry apps.
Look, there’s a simple reason why iPhone is dominating smart phone sales right now, one simple reason that people would rather turn to the iPhone for everything, one simple reason why people dig it… iTunes. iTunes makes buying music, buying video, buying apps, organizing everything, really easy. There’s no good competitor out there that sits on your desktop and easily syncs with your phone and actually works and works well. I have an android device and if Google would finally make an iTunes competitor that sat on my desktop and allowed me to do all of these things in one place and let me easily sync to my phone I would be a happy man. Without a decent iTunes competitor it these arguments about OSes don’t really matter.
100,000 apps doesn’t mean anything, really. China has probably that many companies that sell cheap crap to the USA … but can you name a single CHINESE company?
Yeah, I know … lousy comparison. But having thought about it for a bit, it’s hard to name more than a couple Chinese companies.
I’ve downloaded ~100 or so apps over the last year or two, probably 75% paid for apps. Do I use any of ‘em? Not really. I tend to spend my time with two – Crosswords from Stand Alone Inc., and Facebook. Other phones have these.
My 2 cents.
What does it matter if most of the apps are “fart apps” – the point is that millions of people are buying them. Every phone has these type of apps, but why are developers coming to the iPhone in droves? Because Apple’s UI has brought 50+ million people, and it’s quite easy to develop for the platform. It’s 1 phone, and 1 OS. You don’t have that for Android or WinMo. Palm Pre just sucks because all apps are basically HTML & CSS – so you can’t do anything the way the iPhone can.
Ok, I am so sick of this complete BS!
First off, the iPhone product line is not “just one phone” any more than the BlackBerry is just one phone. To get up to that 50+ million number, you had to include every iPhone, which was multiple SKUs for different storage sizes, every iPhone 3G, which was another pack of SKUs, every iPhone 3Gs, another set of SKUs, and every iPod Touch, which also has multiple SKUs. That is somewhere arounf 10 SKUs, which you are claiming are “just one phone.”
Next, no, actually after having used handheld devices since the Casio and Sharp electronic organizers that were out before the first Palm, and just about every flavor of device since then, I can honestly say I never saw a flood of fart apps on any platform before the iPhone.
Next, why are developers flocking to Apple? Gee, could it be because every news source on the planet has been fawing over the iPhone since 6 months before it even came out, and Apple has put billions of dollars into advertising it, and every accomplishment it achieves is heralded as revolutionary, even if it isn’t? Let me give you an example. At the height of it’s popularity, the RAZR was selling north of 10 million phones a month, for an entire quarter, yet when the iPhone sold fewer than 10 million in the first year, it was declared the “best selling device ever” by Apple, and the press happily went along.
Lastly, have you ever developed software? There are thousands of development houses that have had no problem making apps that work accross all Windows Mobile handsets, or PalmOS handsets, or Android handsets. For that matter, what you say is quite simply a lie. I kinow for a fact that not all iPhone apps work with all iPhone OS versions, on all iPhone handsets. There are apps that require you to update your OS, there are apps that only work with the 3Gs, there are apps that will only work with an iPhone, but not with an iPod Touch, and there are apps that worked in earlier versions of the OS, that no longer work in the current version of the OS. That isn’t even getting into all the apps that require you to hack your phone and install warranty-invalidating cracks to make them work.
Now, if what you really mean to say is that the iPhone is the first phone so easy to develop for, that you don’t have to have any programming knowledge at all to kick out something you can sell for $.99, then you might be right there. Of course that gets us right back to all those wonderful fart apps that add so much value to the system.
Sure, it is easy to paint a rosy picture of how superior the iPhone is, if you just lie and focus on the negatives of every other device, while specifically pretending that the iPhone has no flaws. That isn’t the reality of the situation though.
for some reason my response below was supposed to be to you, but ended up being it’s own message below yours instead of a reply. Please read my comment just below yours.
“What does it matter if most of the apps are “fart apps” – the point is that millions of people are buying them.”
Thanks – it proves to me the lack of sophistication of iPhone users. You will simply buy anything and try to convince us that it is meaningful because a lot of people buy useless aps.
I want a phone that contributes to my work life and my real life not play fart sounds and run out of battery every three hours of hard use.
Lee – the iPhone definitely has it’s flaws. My point is that the reason that Apple has so many good apps, and why so many people purchase them is because it is a) easy to develop for, b) easy to buy c) easy to upgrade, d) easy & intuitive to use. On the Android phone you have to use a clunky method (Google checkout) or go to individual stores. It’s definitely not as clean as the iPhone – I can’t even really accept any debate on this point because that is a fact. Blackberries and WinMo are just starting to centralize their apps – up until now you had to hunt and peck for apps.
You have to remember that most people that use smart phones are not techies – they are average people that simply want to get things done. A lot of the points you bring up really only matter to geeks like us.
As far as having 1 phone, and 1 OS. Updates are easy as pie – you plug your phone in and click a button – I can’t imagine anyone having an issue doing this if they want an app that required an update, and most people would only encounter this if they don’t sync their phone with their computer because iTunes + iPhone works incredibly well. Yes, there are apps that require the 3Gs vs. the 3G but that is because of the new hardware. With Android, for example, it’s not just hardware changes, but software changes – however I assume now that 3 Andriod phones are coming out the developers will start to program more for it, but if you look at some of the most widely used apps (like for Facebook) you will notice that these apps are not at all full featured when compared to their iPhone counterparts. This is because of a) the numbers of devices Apple has sold, and b) the ease of the developing for the OS.
Well of course, I don’t really have fart apps on my iPhone. I actually have apps that help me stay connected with friends, and apps that help me with work (like Quickoffice, iSSH). You seem to think that that a lot of apps are crap – and I had 2 points. a) there are many apps that I can’t live without, and b) who cares if there are garbage entertainment apps – those have existed for all devices. The reason the iPhone has more of these is because the platform is so easy to develop for.