Apple fears the killer app

This seems a well argued point; but when you break it down not so much,.<p>First off I think it does something of a disservice to Jobs - because if the theory is true I don't think it fits in with the vision he has.<p>The thing is that Jobs <i>does</i> have a vision for the iOS platform, and I don't think that is: <i>They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or crappy apps.</i> In fact as far as I can make out that is exactly what they don't want.<p>Jobs seems to much prefer the idea of a smaller number of really really classy apps. And that seems (to me anyway) to be reflected in their changes to the developer terms.<p>To claim the reverse is kind of going against years of Apple branding (clean, classy, slick).

I think the killer app in mobile are the devices themselves. They're all being sold as a package: web, e-mail, music, video, store, camera, etc. The apps are very important too but my guess is most people are mostly looking at the core functionality of the device. You don't really have to sell people with third party apps anymore though a lack of apps can still be a liability just because it weakens the package. It's not like the old days where hardware was somewhat useless to the average person without killer apps. SmartPhones come packed with a ton of functionality before you ever install a third party app.<p>To that extent I agree with the author of this article. Apple views third party apps as an accessory. They are going to do everything possible to protect what they think really matters: stability, reliability, good end user experience, easy OS upgrades, easy syncing/backup with iTunes, etc. I don't think there's much evidence to suggest Apple wants to play the Microsoft role and attempt to dominate the applications as well. After more than 3 years Apple has released very few paid applications for iOS and they haven't really undercut third party app makers by integrating a lot of additional features into the OS that would be better served as third party apps. They don't even bundle iBooks on their devices so it exists (more or less) on a level playing field with Kindle and the B&#38;N reader.

<i>the truth is users don't really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a small number that are really meaningful.</i><p>Funny hearing this from a pundit. For Mac users it was the same argument they were trying to use for years, but the Windows market used its superior numbers to bury Apple and even Linux. You could even say you have a choice of which crappy app you want to use today.<p>I can guarantee one thing. By, intentionally, excluding Flash they have sealed it's fate. As a developer none of my clients are saying, "I'd like 38% of the mobile market not know I exist". All of them know Flash. All of them have asked for a Flash and Flashless site. Most would rather not pay double for the same thing.

Building a killer app generally has nothing to do with using the hardware, a custom programming language, or any other fancy thing that gets engineers excited. Building a killer app usually means that you identified a common problem and solved it for users in a novel and useful way. I fail to see how any of the admittedly draconian policies in the SDK prevent you from building the next killer app for mobile.

I think it can be said a lot more simply: Apple doesn't want a cross-platform killer app that doesn't have a native interface.<p>example: no Adobe CS that ignores almost all Apple tech and implements sloppy custom interface widgets

I don't think what language you use to code an app really makes a difference in how killer your app is. Also this makes no sense because I'm pretty sure apple developers use objective-c, c and c++ to code their apps (look at their job descriptions.) They're pretty powerful languages. I'm pretty sure the operating system you're running was written with c. All the music you listen to was produced with an app written in c and c++. How is this going to prevent awesome apps from being created?

&#62;&#62;The greatest support for my thesis is that there are not yet any third party companies that have made a huge amount of money on the iPhone.&#60;&#60;<p>That's his "greatest support" for his thesis? Apple claims to have paid out US$1 billion to developers so far, what about Android Marketplace? During Steve Jobs's WWDC keynote speech, he quoted Theo Gray: "I earned more on sales of The Elements for iPad in the first day than from the past 5 years of Google ads on periodictable.com".<p>So if going by commercial success is the yardstick, then the App Store is ahead by at least 1825 times.

As long as they continue to improve mobile safari I'll be happy. Performance on it still doesn't match its desktop counterpart but it's definitely getting there.<p>Only issue of course is little or no access to the hardware. On a desktop you'd have flash to fill in that gap currently. Is it plausible that with HTML5 we'll be able to write native-like apps on an iOS device in a year or two? I don't know. Anyone?

I don't know what Apple is thinking, but it seems more likely they want as many and as diverse a field of apps as they can get. If some small company comes up with a "killer app," they can buy it and make it part of their brand. This would be a strategy by which they effectively out-source the dev risks of killer apps.<p>I don't know if that is what Apple is thinking, but that is what I would do.

This argument makes no sense. Mobile "killer apps" already exist, I'd say they are Maps, Facebook, YouTube, email and Exchange support. The iPhone has all of these, just like every other smartphone. Apple is under some threat from these apps in that Google or Facebook or Microsoft could pull them, but Apple hasn't avoided them.

It's a cool idea, but I'm skeptical. This strategy does nothing to prevent the creation of a killer app. All it does is prevent the creation of a killer app <i>on the iphone</i>. If we assume that someone somewhere is gonna drop an app-bomb, forcing them to other platforms might not be the best idea.

I tried to look for <i>why</i> Apple would be afraid of a Killer App on its platform in this blog post. I couldn't find a justification for why this might be the case. Did I miss it, or does the article just leave us to assume that "shame" is a compelling reason for it?

This is a pretty badly thought out, and badly composed article. The worst case for apple is that someone builds a 'killer app' that compels people to purchase the device, but it then <i>doesn't</i> get released to the iPhone, but the Android instead.

I find this theory really hard to discount and of all the dissent against the app store, it is the most damning to me.<p>The other things - delays, rejections, draconian rules - those were just risks. I can live with risk. I don't think I can live with a glass ceiling.

Maybe its just money. Of the 15000 apps, only a handful make money. Apple could just sell those, preinstalled, and be done. Apple may just think there's not much blood left in that turnip, so who cares about new apps.

Pushing all my red buttons like using the term "Lifestyle Business", mentioning <i>Google</i> Voice's non approval and the quality vs quantity discussion makes me very skeptical about this article.

killer apps on the iphone<p>* maps = google<p>* audio = pandora<p>both were launch apps, both made the iphone plausible, both, were not designed by apple.

If it's a killer app, it will be regardless of its acceptance onto the iOS platform. The notion that Apple is hegemonic enough to restrict the level of innovation on mobile platforms is silly.

Everything does suck because someone submits articles what make no sense whatsoever.

This is not the point. The Blog entry is way off.<p>Steve very clearly wants to create the best platform possible and does not want any thing holding him back.<p>(rumor) I have heard that Steve requires final say on circuit boards because he wants to make sure the traces are beautiful.<p>Other companies behave this way too, and Verizon at 1st did not have android phones because they did not meet their quality expectation.<p>There are many reasons to have a review process, even if you don't actually review all of the apps. Having such a process requires these independent companies to maybe, just maybe work just a bit harder before they submit it for review. On other phones like android and webos, it's easy to provide patches and they might treat it more like a website where you can always fix it later.<p>Secondly, Apple is trying to stay ahead in a very competitive market place. With the Evo4 coming out at Google I/O do you think think iPhone4, was a leak or not? Knowing that the iPhone4 had a front facing camera kinda stole the wind from the Evo4 showing that off at Google IO.<p>3rd, I think they are trying to keep a community together, and communities have languages.<p>If there is one thing to say about all of this, is that Apple could have been much more diplomatic about all of this and created a PR engine from the start about this process. But, then again, it could just be the typical silicon valley approach, ship it, launch it and fix what's broken. Apple just may not have expected this much back lash on 3.3.1.