Apple iPhone and App Store Ping!
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Posted on 10/25/2009 11:25:20 PM PDT by Swordmaker
There’s nothing geeks love more than to argue mobile phone platforms. Here’s Matt Blaisdell saying that apps weren’t key to iPhone’s success. That’s true, but now that Apple has apps the world has changed and challengers to the iPhone will find it very tough.
Here’s why: everyone is using a different set of 20 apps. Trillions of combinations. You can see this on Appsfire’s VIP list (my iPhone apps are listed there, along with a number of others). None of us have the same set of apps.
So, to get me off of the iPhone you are going to have to duplicate all my apps (and I’ve gotten several more since doing this list a couple of weeks ago).
Here, let’s play a game. Let’s say that a Chinese manufacturer ships an Android phone that makes me hot and bothered. Something, say, that’s half the thickness of the iPhone, has a screen that’s sharper, and the battery lasts twice as long, oh, and let’s just say it costs $50 less than buying an iPhone.
Would it get me to switch away from my iPhone? Probably not, truth be told. (I do have a second SIM, though, waiting, just in case that I use to test phones).
Why not?
Because I’ve grown addicted to Tweetie. So, now you’ll have to build an app, or get a third-party developer to build an app that works better. Let’s say you do that.
But do you have my favorite game? Tap Tap Revenge?
Do you have Facebook? Do you have Photoshop? Just today NASDAQ came out with a cool new app. Do you have that? And so on and so forth.
Every app is lockin.
I’m not going to be switching anytime soon, and neither are you.
So, what the other manufacturers are hoping is that enough users remain ignorant of all the uses of the apps and that they get enough of them built either by themselves (not gonna happen) or by developers outside the company before Apple just locks in everyone.
Joe Wilcox, on Twitter, says that iPhone users are “beyond reason.”
No, Joe, I just want my Kindle app on Android before I’ll switch. I have lots of books that I’ve invested in that I can read on my iPHone.
Or, I want my TripIt app on Android or Nokia before I’ll switch. My entire flight information is stuck inside there.
Or, I want to watch Leo Laporte’s show this afternoon (or more accurately, listen to it on my Prius thanks to UStream’s app).
Or I want to use Yelp’s app to find a great restaurant.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
If you get me all those, and all the other 85,000 apps, but on a device that is sexier and more fun to use (and more productive) then I’ll definitely be reasonable and switch.
Until then I have 85,000 reasons to be unreasonable. Oh, did you see this app called “RedLaser?” You point your phone at barcodes, and it gives you information about the products you are looking at, including what the price is on Amazon.com. Very cool.
Now I’m sure you’ll say you have an app like RedLaser on your device, right? (I’ve seen similar on Nokia devices, for instance) But do you have all the others I use?
Yes, I’m unreasonable. Let me know when I can stop being unreasonable!
Oh, and I met the guy who runs the iPhone app team (he asked to remain anonymous) and he told me his team approves hundreds of new apps every day. So, that’s HUNDREDS of new reasons every day that I will remain unreasonable. Sorry to Nokia, Palm, Microsoft, RIM, and all the other players.
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And this time, Apple is highly unlikely to repeat the mistakes of the Apple II.
What it REALLY is, is a challenge to any other smartphone maker, to get the 85,000 app WRITERS to port the apps to their new platform.
No reason they can't, other than... ummm... oh, right, the iPhone has a few years of support research, libraries, APIs, etc. that the others don't.
Well, c'mon competitors!! Get cracking!!
You don't think the Pre model will work? Pretend to be an iPod and connect to iTunes and just, sorta... you know...
Misappropriating another manufacturer's USB VID/PID is so egregious a breach of modern protocol as to be unmentionable in a professional context.
Identifying oneself as an iPod, yeah, there's precedent for that, look at web browser client identification. But VID/PID is off-limits.
I don't think masquerading will get the competitors nearly close enough in the long run.
I just bought the RedLaser app ($1.99) and tried it on several UPC barcodes I have handy. This is way cool! Super easy to use.
This is a KILLER app. Retail stores are not going to like it... you can shop, find something you like, scan the barcode, and RedLaser instantly tells you the product AND finds you the best pricing available on the Internet. How often have I wondered if I could buy something cheaper on the web but went ahead and coughed up the cash at the store because I was too impatient to wait and go home to do a web search? This will save me money.
I recommend the MotionX GPS Drive - it’s the turn by turn navigation system that others charge $50+ for, only it’s $2.99.
I just bought a iPhone 3GS. It is awesome. By far the best phone I have ever had. Highly recommend it. I have zero complaints. It took me a couple days to figure things out. Now I still have a lot to learn, but I love it. If you have trouble. Just go to youtube and there are usually videos on whatever is your issue. Also you can go to the apple web site.
BTW, I know you can get the 3G ($99), but I recommend the 3GS ($199 and $299), because it has a better signal, longer batter life, video e-mail, and able to run apps that that the 3G cannot. A friend of mine has a 3G and we compared them. The 3GS smoked it.
its the apps and itunes, not the hardware that make iphone above everyone else
3gs has a faster cpu, x2 speed
Of the 85,000 apps, how many are meant to do the same things? What is the minimum number of apps that a competitor needs to have on offer?
What’s nice about it too is that if there is a wireless router in the area it will ask to connect to it. If you do it your house you are beaming off your router.
My favorite app at the moment is Trapster. Basically tells you where all the cops are located. Not that I am speeding, but it does. I quite do not understand how it works, but it works.
There are more serious apps. Just depends what you want.
you have 16 or 32 Gigabites. Most aps are in the KBs and they are rather low. About 1 to 2 KBS. In other words you can put a lot in there.
Quite a few. It is a freewheeling market where apps compete on quality, not so much on price.
As to the minimum number, the iPhone can hold 180 on the screen... but there are ways to load even more. As noted in the article, the mix on any iPhone is different from the mix on another. While the author says "trillions" of different mixes, that is not true... because there are only ~50 million iPhones and iPod touches out there... so that would be the number of combination mixes. How many should a competitor offer to be competitive in functionality? Who knows.
Or alternatively, something the market perceives as better. The article author doesn't recognize this as a possible (better) strategy for a competitor.
Imagine if the iPhone had a carrier like Verizon. Its sales would be unbelievable then.
This is the ONLY reason I haven't bought an iPhone yet. I do have an iPod Touch that i love. But until Verizon gets the iPhone, I'm not going to go to a network that doesn't work in 98% of my state.
I picked up a pair of HTC Hero Android phones this week. Very impressive all the way around. Sprint turn by turn nav comes with it. The bar code scanners blew me away. I have one for shopping, and one that tells nutrition info. Put the scanner on a fuel filter for the boat and BAM it googles it right there. Haven’t had to pay for any apps, and haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s available. Since it looks like most major carriers do or will carry Android phones they will no doubt cut into Apple’s profits.
Apple approached Verizon as their first choice. Verizon was not interested. AT&T was.
Those maps remind me of recent election maps.
Any broadband map looks like an election map. The liberal urban areas have more broadband access. The conservative rural areas have less.
http://www.phonesreview.co.uk/2009/10/19/verizon-tests-cdma-iphone-on-their-4g-lte-network/
I wonder if there is a former director of new product development at Verizon who kicks himself fifty times a day.
bookmark
Good, now, where’s they map of angry former Verizon customers who won’t ever buy anything from Verizon again because they were screwed. Oh, wait, it’s the same map. (And I’m on it. I loved the triple billing they used.)
Remember, Apple offered the iPhone to Verizon first. Verizon said no.
Word is (I have a friend that works for VZ) that the person responsible was actually promoted for ‘avoiding the need to upgrade the network to support the iPhone.’
Verizon is all kinds of screwed up.
Given the current idiocy from VZ regarding their new Droid phone and its ad campaign, I would assume that the report is incorrect and that VZ will get the iPhone about the time hell freezes over.
Looking at the AT&T coverage map it strikes me that it's no mistake that AT&T's 3G coverage area is color-coded blue.It's a dead ringer for the 2000 Gore county map . . .
I wonder if there is a former director of new product development at Verizon who kicks himself fifty times a day.Apple approached Verizon as their first choice. Verizon was not interested. AT&T was.
Perhaps not . . . the Wall Street Journal had an article about the profitability of the iPhone to AT&T, net of subsidy for the purchase of the iPhone hardware - and it wasn't all roses.
As I understand it, Android uses and Droid will use Java. Java has been around for a while, has crazy amounts of code out there...and crazy amounts of developers. The graphs on this page compares Java and Objective C on misc usage stats and such. I am not sure about all of the ways/reasons they measured this (each graph has a brief explanation). Bottom line - there is a WHOLE LOT more java code/developers out there than there are Objective C. (There are better comparisons, cant find my links, but you will get the idea (and I think you already know most/all of this, just wanted to say it in general)).
That said, I just downloaded the iPhone sdk and have started working on learning how to write apps. As a Verizon customer, I don't have an iPhone, but I have an iTouch, and think the device is incredible. And it won't do much of what the phone will do...
I am one of the unreasonable iPhone users. I don’t see anyone doing anything to get me to switch. LOVE IT!
I am not much on anything Apple but aside from that - the map says everything - those iphone losers standing next to me trying to get something to work...
Its pretty funny
When will there be a ruggedized iPhone that I can carry with me at a construction site and not worry about bashing the screen out, etc?
Real geeks prefer vi/emacs debates.
Actually, it doesn’t say much. Verizon has a bigger 3G network than ATT, but they have lots of holes in it and per my users sometimes it just plain doesn’t work - and there’s no real 2G fallback for VZ.
Meanwhile, while ATT’s 3G network is a lot smaller, they have damn near universal coverage on 2G - and the iPhone can downshift.
Quite often my users with iPhones are the only ones on site with usable signal, when they’re out on rural construction jobs.
That would be useful. I've heard that the iphone is already moderately water-resistant.
If there is a need, someone out there will fill it.
> Real geeks prefer vi/emacs debates.
"vi"? "emacs"?? Dude, the real geek's editor is "cat >", or maybe "ed" if you're feeling lazy... There's no debating that... ;-)
There's a great xkcd cartoon on that...
That map is indeed a striking comparison.
A pity then that Verizon wrecked its image (at least to me) by crippling good phones. I was psyched about getting a Razr - then discovered that Verizon had redone the OS/GUI to downgrade the user experience (in the name of “making all Verizon phones work the same” - not realizing I don’t want to use another phone (and can cope with differences if I switched), I wanted a _RAZR_) and to charge users for use of free built-in capabilities (stripping out Bluetooth file transfer of photos, requiring me to either _pay_ to transfer photos to my PC or to use the PITA microSD card transfer method).
Sorry, Verizon just crossed the line too far by showing outright contempt for users. Yeah, ATT has their issues too, but I’m done with the red V.
It's not just a matter of replicating apps, it's that the hassle of moving from one platform to another just won't be worth it. That's a bunch of time, effort and money just to maintain the same experience (or marginal improvement; higher resolution and/or somewhat faster processor just isn't enough).
When switching platforms, users are looking for a paradigm shift, not an incremental upgrade.
is the purpose of the android phones to get people to switch to verizon from the iphone? i don't think so.
it's for people like me who never got an iphone even though i wanted one because i wanted to stay with verizon.
i've put up with substandard phones in order to stay with verizon. hopefully that will all be over soon when i get my new android phone in january.
Yeah, they did this to me too. I bought the first Motorola phone that had Bluetooth, but they crippled it. Without a full suite of Bluetooth functionality, they could sell you their ringtones and worthless proprietary applets, and charge you for photo transfers.
They've never got a second chance and never will. I hate Verizon.
-ccm
for X in abcd; do
dd if=/dev/ sd$X of=/dev/null
done
Just think of the cost and time savings!
BTW, have you ever read the BOFH series?
Ditto. It's why I'm not even considering re-upping with Verizon in Feb. I was extremely annoyed to find out that they intentionally crippled my phone to prevent it from synchronizing with my computer.
Of course I disagree with the USB consortium in that I think Apple using the PID as a lockdown method instead of simple identification is also an egregious breach of protocol and the fundamental ideal of USB as being completely interoperable. Basically, Palm though two wrongs make a right.
I’ve done USB development. You DON’T use a PID that isn’t assigned to you, any more than I start using your mailbox for deliveries (oh, don’t worry, I’ll separate my stuff from yours as soon as it arrives, you won’t even notice...).
I don’t doubt that, but you’re also not supposed to use the device ID for anything but identification, at least IMHO.
Look into the otterbox for iphone. I have one - it’s great.
The case is great but the belt clip is still lacking. I have caught mine on several things and had my phone fall out of the clip. I have a small rubber band around the top of it now until I can find something better.
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