Yesterday David posted Ten apps is all I need. The crux of his argument was that the platform doesn’t matter as long as the basics are spot on.
I have a different take on the topic.
First, here’s where we agree: The basics absolutely matter. If the basics aren’t right then worrying about the other stuff is futile. This is why Apple put years of thoughtful work into getting the basics right. Then they released the iOS and the iPhone. Then, a year later, they turned the iOS into a platform for third party developers. And today that platform is available on tens of millions of iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. Apple got their priorities straight.
Now, here’s where we disagree: This isn’t about need, it’s about want. The iOS platform cooks up a hot tasty plate of want. That makes it smart for Apple, lucrative for developers, satisfying for existing customers, and lustful for potential customers.
What fraction of the 200,000 apps do I use? It would round down to zero. Same as on my Mac – I just use a few apps. On the iPhone home screens of 18 37signals employees, I counted over 50 unique apps. But counting apps and debating which ones matter is the small picture.
The big picture is why people buy.
In Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Paco Underhill argues that if we all bought just what we needed, the economy would collapse. Once our basic needs are taken care of, we move on to buy what we want. Anyone who can afford an iPhone is well into the buying-what-they-want stage.
So what do people want when they buy a smartphone? Quality? Entertainment? Coolness? Utility? It depends who you are. Different people want a different mix of those things. Imagine if you could buy one thing and turn it into just about anything in a matter of seconds. That’s the iOS platform pitch and it’s a hard one to resist. That’s why 200,000 apps matter.
But let’s go deeper. When people spend a few hundred bucks on a phone, and sign a long term contract, they want something more fundamental: They want to know they’re making a decision they won’t regret over the next two years. What are they going to want to do with this phone over the next two years? They aren’t sure. Maybe they’ll want to play some games. Maybe they’ll want to store some recipes. Maybe they’ll want to make a movie. That’s why 200,000 apps matter.
Now you could argue that they could do all these things if the platform only had 50,000, 10,000, 5,000 apps. And maybe they could. You could do a lot on your Mac in the 90s, but a shitload of people bought Windows machines instead because there was more software available on Windows. They wanted to know that if they walked into the computer store, just about anything they bought would work on their Windows machine. Rational or not, people buy into safety. That’s why 200,000 apps matter. Windows had the moat. Now Apple has the moat.
There are more points to be made, but that’s enough for now. The platform matters because it makes you feel confident about spending a few hundred dollars on a phone that you’ll have for the next two years. 200,000 apps have you covered. And as the TV spots remind you every day… “If you don’t have an iPhone you don’t have…an iPhone.”
RELATED: iPhone SDK, Apple’s Touch Platform, and The Next Two Decades.
JD
on 23 Jun 11It’s so weird to see Apple as the big dog and Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, etc as the underdogs. My have times changed.
I don’t use many apps on the iPhone. I think it is because I don’t really travel much, and I don’t go out to bars, clubs, parties, etc. (have kids). I also don’t really like the form-factor. Apps on the iPhone seem too dinky. Web browsing sucks too.
On the iPad that’s a different story… You need apps for that. The form factor is great too.
Jon Pynn
on 23 Jun 11200k apps is a nice to have. However if I caught the drift of David’s article, Nokia is trashing what appears to be a good functional design because of a lack of app support. Do you feel that Nokia is doing the right thing by not releasing?
JF
on 23 Jun 11Jon:
Here’s my take on that… For better or worse, apps are currency these days. A phone with that sort of form factor is going to run into a market that demands “apps”. I’m sure there’s a slice of people who don’t care, but I don’t think that’s very big at that price point.
So I think when you make something that looks like an iPhone, you’re forcing yourself to play Apple’s game. Apple set the trap and Nokia got stuck.
I definitely think you can play the no-app game, but it’ll have to be with another concept. Anything in the iPhone/Android-like universe will likely be judged with iPhone/Android glasses.
Eric
on 23 Jun 11I would argue that “good functional design” is not applicable when, in the case of smartphones, the design does not support a rich and varied app ecosystem.
JF’s last point is the relevant one: Smartphones are now expected (by most consumers) to support a wide range of apps now and the potential for many new apps later. Perhaps there’s a market for phones with no app support, but they need to compete in a different arena than Smartphones.
Jon Pynn
on 23 Jun 11Fair points. I guess Nokia would need to be order of magnitude better at the 10 things most ppl use a smartphone for. I’m not really sure that is even possible since the apple designs have few things even the most picky user would consider annoyances.
Dave R
on 23 Jun 11Agreed. It’s funny how we have a need to keep options open even if it’s likely we will never use those options. Predictably irrational, right?
http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N7/behavior.html
Bob
on 24 Jun 11in US, prepaid smartphones at 150 dollars will change all that, this present scenario is only because of the huge contracts that they have to sign, next year moores law will allow Iphone 3gs, android 2.2 phone types to be available for 150 dollars, what happens then ? and even if in US, prepaid smartphones do not take hold, it will happen around the world. Another big disruption is coming. Phones will be truly disposable
Phil Larson
on 24 Jun 11I think people that work on a computer all day underestimate the value of having a mobile computer than can do a lot of stuff. Many many people have jobs or do other things where they spend the majority of their time without a personal computer with them or it’s a locked down company computer. Some will use it just for entertainment, but others use apps to make their lives easier. For some it’s like watching a tv show, get what you want out of it, now it’s something to talk about, like reading the sports page.
It’s really endless what people get out of a mobile computer that fits in your pocket, and comments such as “you only need these specific apps” are equivalent to Bill Gates saying you only need 640K of memory.
Mark Morrison
on 24 Jun 11When you go to the supermarket do you buy one of everything in the store? Yes, wouldn’t it be great if all the shops in the world carried only the things that you want to buy.
I guess some people think the world just revolves around them.
Jarin Udom
on 24 Jun 11I think it’s key to note that while many of us may only use 6 apps on a regular basis, the 6 apps we use are likely to be different than the 6 apps someone else uses.
Using only 6 apps regularly doesn’t mean the iPhone only needs 6 apps to be successful, it means it needs everyone’s 6 apps. That’s why the huge number of apps available matters.
Jarin Udom
on 24 Jun 11Bob: I don’t know if I would really call a $150 item disposable??
simon
on 24 Jun 11i agree with davids post. I hardly ever use any apps now for my iphone. they were a novelty when first getting them and trying them all out but all i do really is call people.
Philipp Sackl
on 24 Jun 11@Jarin I absolutely agree!
I’d argue that most people use no more than ten or fifteen apps, but it’s not the same ten or fifteen for all of them.
Johannes Rutzmoser
on 24 Jun 11Didn’t Apple succeed due to the good decisions they made to move out the trash and focus on the things that really matter? I love to buy a Mac without hassling, that there might be another option that fits better to my requirements. A Mac has all I need.
Different with the app store. With 200K of apps, I don’t feel comfortable picking an app. For every task the vast amount of competitors make the choice difficult. I guess, apple leaves the path of the user friendly reduced but excellent proposal that makes the choice easy.
Steve R.
on 24 Jun 11I think one thing seriously muddying the waters is the use of apps in a business model for phone development. If there is a subsidy effect (anticipated app sales allowing the hardware to sell for less, perhaps even at a loss), it would be impossible for a hardware maker to break out of the ‘app trap’ – they would simply be unable to make a 10 app phone that would compete in the market. More expensive, fewer apps?
Brian M.
on 24 Jun 11I somewhat agree with David in that there are usually only about ten apps that a person uses frequently.
Though a platform like iOS needs to serve its customers. Doing the basics well is not enough to satisfy customer needs. Being able to develop against iOS was a huge thing and it has brought Apple much success.
But lets be honest, even if you have 200,000 apps in the app store, who cares if the platform sucks. This is why I think WinMo is dead: it failed to execute well and on time.
Rick
on 24 Jun 11Both are important. Without a strong core, the apps would be flimsy, buggy, and not worth the effort. Without the apps, you’re relying solely on one company to give you every experience you could want.
To me, Jason’s point boils down to community. If 200,000 apps are on the market, there is one hell of a passionate following. And that kind of enthusiasm carries a lot of weight to someone picking a technology… because I know it’s not going away, and it’s being constantly improved upon.
Simon Hibbs
on 24 Jun 11Very true. It’s not the number of Apps as such, it’s the knowledge that thousands of developers are invested in this platform. It’s confidence that the platform is well supported now, and has a secure future.
Russell
on 24 Jun 11Stop arguing, you’re both pretty!
I do agree with both DHH and JF though. It’s interesting to see twitter ramblings become blog posts and to see some healthy disagreement regarding.
I’ve been disappointed with many App purchases, though. many i’ve found to be sub-par, faulty, don’t work as specified, and there’s little course it seems for refunds. App’s used to be cool things to solve problems, now it feels like developers will push out whatever they can to make a few bucks, with no mind paid to quality, usefulness, or take-home value. I know i’ve been tempted by the IOS/Android development path, but I feel the craze for those things is fad more than anything. In the changing landscape of OS’s and platforms, web applications are still timeless and universal. Mobile application development has it’s place, but I do not feel it is anything to bet your business model on.
Apple (mostly) nailed the core experience with the app’s that came with the device. Everything else is pretty much just icing.
Michael
on 24 Jun 11Love the point-counterpoint, and how it provides interesting, thoughtful discussion. Additionally, it reveals some deeper principles commonly held of which these differing opinions are expressions.
Ben Garvey
on 24 Jun 11I think Jason is right here. The basics are super important (and 90% of my use is in the standard apps), but there are a few 3rd party apps (kayak, twitter, kindle) that I use all the time.
The Agreer
on 24 Jun 11I agree.
Jeff Putz
on 24 Jun 11I can’t really agree that the number matters. People think it matters, because they’ve been told it does. Let’s not forget that Steve Jobs said at the launch of the iPhone that “apps” were Web sites. Games and computationally intense tasks aside, I suspect it will swing back in that direction.
But there are two related problems in this post. The first is that apps are “lucrative” to developers. There is a fair amount of credible research indicating that just isn’t the case. If you hired one developer at $100k to build an app, assuming you charge for it at all, you’re a long way from every making that money back. That’s the second problem, that there’s so much noise and crap that a huge percentage of the app count is irrelevant anyway.
A funny thing happened when I got my Windows Phone last fall (for free, because I work for Microsoft): I didn’t miss my iPhone. I have a lot of shiny things made of aluminum and glass that I’m very passionate about, but as it turns out, the iPhone wasn’t one of them after all, despite buying the first gen version the day it came out. Why? Because the WP does the core stuff exceptionally well, just as the iPhone does. Some things it even does better, especially with regard to Facebook and contact management (via Gmail, no less). What apps I did use on occasion on the iPhone, mostly from the Weather Channel and IMDB, had WP versions (better versions, actually).
Apple deserves enormous credit for more or less inventing a new type of platform, but in the long run, its heritage and number of apps won’t matter. It certainly hasn’t for Android, which is activating more phones every month than iOS.
Ildar Samit
on 24 Jun 11Will be very interesting to revisit the question in 5-10 years to see who’s right :)
Jon Kiddy
on 24 Jun 11JF, your reference to “The Science of Shopping” and your use of Apple products in your post to reinforce your argument reminded me of a TED talk I watched recently.
This 20min (are they all 20 min?) TED talk has less to do with “leaders” as a topic, but more to do about what motivates shoppers to make a purchase:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html
Mark
on 25 Jun 11If there were only a handful of apps available on the iPhone, would you still be as excited and willing to campout all night in front of the store to get your hand on one?
No.
Why? Because simply, less is not more. More is more.
The same logic of only using a few applies to everything. You only regularly surf a handful of websites on a regular basis out of the billions of sites available. You only pay real attention to two or three television and/or radio stations, you come no where close to listening to the 8,000 songs in your music cloud.
However, you totally dig the idea that it’s there, and that’s where the real meat of the matter is. It’s there and available.
Jeff Putz
on 25 Jun 11How many apps were available with the iPhone launched? You know, when people were camping out for it the first time?
Oh yeah… zero.
Weak correlation makes not causation.
Marcus Hast
on 25 Jun 11I think theres a point to make that while many iPhone and Android users may have a lot of apps, we are in the phone minority in the world. Even with sharp increase in sales only about 10% or so of the world 5 billion mobile phones are running a “modern” smart phone OS.
So while a lot of people here, and their friends and collegues have a lot of apps we’re not representative of the average phone user.
Also, it would be interrsting to know what apps people had. To get an idea of how many unique and overlapping apps there were. (Eg. Did a lot of users have some sort of Twitter app, even if it wasn’t the same one? )
GD
on 26 Jun 11My issue with this whole debate is that people feel they need apps because they were told they need apps.
The whole app movement is based on an inadequate OS. By missing out on nearly half of the websites out there (Flash-based sites), Apple’s apps were born to cover up that serious blemish because iOS is an inefficient OS.
How can an OS like QNX run Flash on a tablet and still yield 10 hours of battery life when iOS cannot run flash and have the same battery life (which is Apple’s main argument)? It’s because QNX is a highly efficient OS, designed to handle rich web-based functionality without breaking a sweat.
If iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users could access the other half of the web (millions of sites), no doubt they wouldn’t need 200,000 apps. App addiction is one of the greatest Houdini moves Steve Jobs has ever pulled off, all based on a poorly designed and antiquated OS. Bravo, Mr. Jobs! Bravo! Please tip your waitresses…
Robert Hill
on 27 Jun 11unfortunately if a company makes a touch slab or a touchscreen phone they will be compared to number of apps in android or iOS. My take is do something innovative like kinect or chromebook and people may forget the lack of apps because it is new style of computing or new kind of interface. Heck even android failed on tablets because of lack of apps.
Jean-Rémy Duboc
on 27 Jun 11Once our basic needs are taken care of, we move on to buy what we want. Anyone who can afford an iPhone is well into the buying-what-they-want stage.
Amaury Bouchard
on 27 Jun 11Well, it’s true. But when the iPhone came and has just it’s basic applications (remember 2007? No App Store. Apple was given documentation about how to create web apps for the iPhone). Back then, the number of available applications was hilarious relatively to all Nokia/Ericsson/whatever mobiles which were supporting J2ME. Not a big deal: the iPhone was such a quantum leap (global hardware, user interaction), it gain enough traction to sell massively. Then developers left the J2ME world and started to do ObjectiveC development when the SDK came out.
Sure, when your jumping in a competition which rules are defined by your competitor, you have to play by the rules. But it’s a fair move from Nokia to try to do the same process than Apple 4 years ago (and Google, Palm/HP, RIM, Microsoft, ...): Try to create the better hardware, try to fill it with the better software, and cross the fingers that developpers will come.
The real shame, when we see the Nokia N9 mobile phone, is to know that it’s irrelevant to buy it, as long as Nokia will not support it. If it not strategic for Nokia, it’s not for us either. The Nokia N9 phone should came 2 years ago. But this is another discussion.
Hamranhansenhansen
on 28 Jun 11If you have 200,000 apps on your platform, that means anyone can find their perfect 20 apps, no matter who they are or what they do. So you do need 200,000.
For me, FourTrack is indispensable, and no other platform but iOS has anything even like it. Most of my mobile apps are music and art related and those categories barely exist outside of iOS.
You also have to have a rich API that can support marquee apps from PC’s and consoles. Skype or Keynote or iMovie and so on. That way, the mobile can replace a PC or console, at least part-time.
I would have liked to see Nokia make a go of it with their own system. But they would definitely have to build an app platform.
Ron McElfresh
on 28 Jun 11Just bought an iPad 2 and I was surprised at the number of iPad apps. Yes, there are tens of thousands of iPad apps. But the first impression was that there’s fewer quality apps than for iPhones. I can only imagine how bad it must be for Xoom users, Android users, WebOS users. Shopping for apps on the App Store is pleasurable, exciting, and worthwhile. I can only imagine how bad it must be for… wait. I said that already.
Afarro
on 28 Jun 11Afarro
on 28 Jun 11Here is a simple math: number of iPhone/iPod users: 70,000,000. Average number of apps they “need”: 6. Users with a unique 6-app subset : 1 from 2000. Number of unique apps needed: 6 times 70,000,0000 times 0.0005 = 210,000
addicted44
on 28 Jun 11@Jon Pynn – People have been reading too much into Nokia’s decisions. I could obviously be wrong, since I don’t have any special powers to divine reality, but it seems clear to me that the reason Nokia is ditching its platform is Stephen Elop.
Think about it. This is the first North American CEO of a proud European company, which is struggling. He comes from MS, i.e., a background of doing really well with proprietary software, to a company whose software is almost completely open source. And within a year of his coming, he releases the “burning platform” memo, which absolutely trashes all the work that the employees of that company have done.
Elop came in convinced that Symbian and Meego were the problem, not the solution. There was no way he was going to be convinced otherwise, so it didn’t matter how good those phones were.
(Adding more fuel to this theory is the “leaked” video of WP7 on the N9 within a couple of days of the N9’s unveling with Meego. That was absolutely astounding to me. How many CEO’s you know go out of their way to Osborne their company’s products? Its clear that there is a huge turf war underway at Nokia).
Don
on 28 Jun 11Um, the latest news says that QNX can’t run Flash efficiently and battery life sucks on the PlayBook.
http://www.fark.com/cgi/go.pl?i=5853574&s=1
addicted
on 28 Jun 11@Don – But clearly Apple did not include Flash on the iPhone 4 years ago because Steve Jobs hates Adobe…
/sarcasm
dskondin
on 28 Jun 11To: Jeff Putz. Jeff, you may have found all you need in your Windows 7 phone but I agree with the opinion piece here that the number of apps do matter. To my mind, the article is simply saying: Perception is 9/10th of the law ;-), so to speak.
As for Windows 7, I like that they’ve pushed the boundaries of how an OS can function rather than come out with something that seemed to have all but cribbed iOS. I’m not personally convinced but I do know the original Android OS concept build that was shown off was operating on a Blackberry like device with a very different approach to UI…
Lawrence
on 28 Jun 11A very interesting discussion. Going way back to Symbian on Nokia the choice you had was customisation — wallpaper, themes, ringtones — or some rather badly written “business applications” or unit conversions and yes, maps. All crammed into a very small screen. Then, I had about 20 different applications. Now, on my iPhone, I have 156 apps, and I would say I use about two-thirds of them in a week, approximately. Total apps on my iTunes account: 506. Some are lifetime free, some, free try-outs and the remaining I’ve paid for ( got a thing about photo apps even though I use a Pro DSLR! ). I’m a disabled man of 50 so many of these apps help me with my basic needs and some are just for pure enjoyment and have got me through many a bad day. There is so much to explore, to reach out to a broader wealth of opinions and release creativity. So, to conclude, having access to such a dynamic place as the App Store is both an enjoyable and sometimes frustrating experience until you find the right app for you. And that is what it all comes down to. A broad variety of choice, ease of access and well designed apps, no matter which OS you are using.
Iain
on 28 Jun 11@GD
The whole presumption is that the web is enough is predicated on the idea of constant, universal and free web access. I want my data and don’t feel the need to be sharing it with anyone. I use a program to track my where abouts when exercising so as to compare speed and distance travelled. All I need is a GPS signal.
Anyway, Flash or the need thereof is way overrated. I uninstalled it and don’t miss it on my laptop.
KenC
on 28 Jun 11@JD, for people who only have an iPhone or equivalent, the size is fine for apps; however, once they get an iPad and use iPad-specific apps, they find the smartphone to be too small for convenient app use. The smartphone app usage drops, because the experience on the iPad is so much better.
Scott G. Lewis
on 28 Jun 11@Jarin – I see a LOT of people (mostly teens) carrying iPhones or other smart phones with cracked screens. A $150 prepaid smartphone is disposable, in that, you can replace it for $150 without having to wait two years if something happens.
Anonymous Coward
on 28 Jun 11@AmauryBouchard, you wrote: ”...Back then, the number of available applications was hilarious relatively to all Nokia/Ericsson/whatever mobiles which were supporting J2ME . Not a big deal: the iPhone was such a quantum leap (global hardware, user interaction), it gain enough traction to sell massively. Then developers left the J2ME world and started to do ObjectiveC development when the SDK came out.
Sure, when your jumping in a competition which rules are defined by your competitor, you have to play by the rules. But it’s a fair move from Nokia to try to do the same process than Apple 4 years ago (and Google, Palm/HP, RIM , Microsoft, ...): Try to create the better hardware, try to fill it with the better software, and cross the fingers that developpers will come.”
The key is the hardware has to sell to the installed base in sufficient numbers to be attractive to developers. In your timeline, that’s what the iPhone accomplished. By the time the SDK was available, something like 14M had been sold, a ready market. The new entrants don’t have that luxury that the iPhone had. They have to have apps at launch, thus Nokia’s jump to WP. Their thinking is obviously to be leader of the third ecosystem, after iOS and Android. The other WP OEMs have their feet in two camps, mfring both Android and WP handsets.
James
on 28 Jun 11The platform is absolutely what matters, but not just because of the sheer number of apps. I have 45 apps installed on my phone and use probably 20 regularly. If the number of apps in the App Store shot up to 500,000 – or dropped to 10,000 – would that severely affect how I use my phone? I doubt it.
However, the fact that there ARE that many apps means the platform as a whole is healthy, and THAT’S what matters to me. I don’t want to pay hundreds of dollars for a smartphone only to see it become obsolete within six months. What are the odds that we’re going to see any kind of significant software updates for the N9 after it ships, for instance? There won’t be any kind of software ecosystem around it because everyone already knows it’ll be replaced with WP7, which means Nokia basically has no incentive to improve the core OS.
Now, contrast this to my iPhone 4, which will be getting a free update with tons of new features later this year, and will probably support at least some features of iOS 6 in the future too (as Apple generally supports the last two prior models).
So, in a way, both arguments are correct. 200,000 apps doesn’t matter to each individual user, but it serves as an indicator of how healthy the platform is overall, which benefits ALL users as a whole.
Matt Johnston
on 28 Jun 11Apps matter now because of the same reason that they didn’t matter four years ago. The times have changed, expectations have changed. Apps existed obviously but no-one was buying. Developers could expect to hand over up to 70% of their revenue to aggregators. And now we have people screaming about Apple’s massive 30% cut. My, how the times have changed and the expectations with them.
While Apple may have the largest number of apps at the moment, you’ll see a market change where the sheer number of apps will matter less and it will be the number of quality apps that start to matter. It’s going to change from “Is there an app for that” to “Can you do this”.
What disappoints me in mobile is that in order to combat Apple (which is dominant only in profit, not in handsets, market share or anything like that), both manufacturers and carriers have been so quick to sacrifice everything that represents their value. My local carrier shop now has one space specifically for “Android” and not broken down by manufacturer as it used to be. The software has now become the dominant factor. While this is good for Google, it’s a dumb move by the manufacturers who have essentially contributed to replacing Symbian with Android at the low end. Note how we didn’t see signs with “Symbian” in the carrier shops?
Similarly, the manufacturers seem to focus on Flash as being the be-all and end-all. The thing that will wrest the consumer away from Apple is Flash? Really? Your product differentiation is so poor that you’re going to use a third party plugin to market your machine?
Samsung et al need to wake up and smell the coffee. Build insanely great hardware. They can do this. They need to build software which truly differentiates them from the carriers and also from “generic” android while, at the same time, not slowing down the iterative process of the operating system. Make it easy to upgrade and make your CDN into the Hulu or Netflix delivery system Make YOUR stuff work.
At the moment we have dozens of manufacturers, 301 android handsets, all fighting to be the lowest common denominator. That’s plain dumb.
Apple is not the competitor. They’ve shown with the Mac that they can do well with a tiny percentage of market share. They’re comfortable with that. Your real competition is Samsung, Motorola, Acer, Dell, Sony Ericsson and others. They’re the ones going to eat your lunch and kill you stone dead.
Westacular
on 28 Jun 11James’ thinking aligns with my own. Past a certain point, the absolute number - 10k, 200k, whatever - is not important. It can act as a relative indicator for the platform’s health, but even then, the number alone doesn’t tell the full story.
For me, as a potential user, when comparing the “developer support” between platforms, I think the important questions are:
1. Are there enough great apps that I can do all the things I need to? Or all the things I care about that I might be able to do on a competitor’s platform?
2. Are developers actively supporting the platform? Are they continuously improving their apps, and are new apps and new ideas continuously being added?
3. What priority do developers place on this platform? If some fantastic new app or service comes out for another platform, what is the likelihood that they’ll bring it to this one? Or that someone else will make something similar, native to this platform?
4. Developers will get bored and leave if the platform itself isn’t continuously improving, or if they feel the platform owner isn’t supporting their efforts. How does the platform owner fare at this? Are they adding not just new user-facing features but also better APIs, developer tools, and other new features for developers that will encourage them to continuously improve their work?
4b. How good is the platform owner at providing such updates to the platform to existing devices? I don’t want to be left behind, just because the update isn’t available to me, and developers start using a newer version as the minimum requirement.
Fundamentally: I want the device I choose to continue to be relevant for its expected lifetime. I want to avoid, as much as possible, experiencing a premature obsolescence because of a lack of apps/developer support.
The current total number of apps doesn’t directly answer any of those questions. A large number makes (1) more likely, but it can be deceptive; in any case, if I have a rough idea of what those needs are, I should be looking into the availability of apps that address them—not relying on some big number to reassure me that it’s probably there.
(2) is better addressed not by the number of apps, but by the rate of growth of that number. 200k doesn’t mean anything if the number is not going up.
The number of available apps really says nothing to address the other questions.
Aside: There’s a lot of junk on the iOS App Store: I’d say at least half that 200,000 are “gold rush” apps out to make a quick buck but are, quite seriously, in no one’s “top 10” / must have list. The number of quality, useful apps (or fun, good games) is much, much smaller… but still much higher than the competition.
That’s not a dig against the App Store, but just a function of human nature. The crap:great apps ratio is pretty high for any platform… and it tends to go up as the total number of apps increases: since it’s much easier to make a crap app than a good one, so they tend to really inflate that number.
But: this, by no means, implies that a different platform with a smaller number of apps would have a smaller crap:great ratio. There’s too many other factors, you can’t make those comparisons.
Which, again, drives the point that the total number really isn’t the important thing to look at as a consumer.
But most consumers probably aren’t as scientific in their thinking about this as I am: to them, hearing “200,000” might be all the reassurance they need.
Martial
on 28 Jun 11The best device is the one with you. For example, I don’t take the bus every day, but when I do, NextBus helps me use my time well. She doesn’t usually need to know the tides, but during last week’s vacation it was important for my wife’s scheduling have that info at hand. Having it bundled with wind direction and weather forecast on the same screen was an added bonus.
The 200,000 apps aren’t for everyday use, but they (or some useful portion of them) are there when you need them for the task at hand.
The Count, Ah ah ah ah
on 28 Jun 11The trouble with counting is the same one that Apple had in the 1990’s: not all apps are created equal. The App Store approval process is terrible not just in what it rejects but what it accepts: it is a measure of safety, not quality.
Somebody above suggested that half of the apps are crap and in nobody’s top-10. After living with the App Store and trying to find usable apps for the past year, I would say that on the iOS app store, at least 80% of the apps are complete crap and not on anybody’s top-10. That might still be better than Android, or Windows.
Unfortunately nobody is ever going to advertise a platform as “40,000 apps that don’t totally suck!”, because it’s very easy to say “200,000 apps” but very hard to say what “don’t totally suck” means.
But I think everybody is drastically overestimating the number of apps a platform really needs. Remember, the iPhone itself launched with a grand total of 15 apps, and that’s including Settings, Clock, and Stocks (which nobody in the history of iOS has ever used). Yet it did OK because these 15 covered many common use cases, and overall were very good apps.
When a platform has 15 great apps, they didn’t advertise “15 great apps!”. When a platform has 10,000 apps total but 15 great ones, they do advertise “10,000 apps”, though. It’s like the megahertz wars all over again: we need a bigger number, and who cares if it actually means anything.
It’s sure nice to say 200,000 apps but if they just removed a lot of them (like the 10% of them that simply crash on startup) we as users would be better off, not worse off.
Tom G
on 28 Jun 11Right on, but if I may pick a nit…
“lucrative for developers” – I think not
I have apps in the IOS app store and Android marketplace.
Unless you somehow hit the lottery, e.g. Angry Birds, most well designed and liked apps could not support a sustainable business model.
This discussion is closed.