Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK
Bursting the iPhone bubble
John Casasanta has written up a pretty damning condemnation of the It's not that there isn't money to be made in the App Store -- there are some great programs coming out of there, and those programs are certainly worth paying for (even if a lot of them are offered for free anyway). But Casasanta describes a situation where venture capitalists are willing to pay out in spades even for shovelware, and in that kind of environment, no one profits. Not the VCs and developers who lose their money because no one wants their crappy programs, not the consumers who have to sort through a flood of terrible apps, and not the platform -- the Mac, as Casasanta says, is thriving because of the quality of the software, and the iPhone (though it will likely always be a popular phone) will thrive as a platform for the same reasons.
Casasanta's solution is for the developers to do things on their own, and that's a possibility everyone has to consider for themselves. Even well-funded developers can create valuable pieces of software. Whether you receive funding from a VC or from your own bank account, the focus while developing should always be on quality. And any developer pushing out 100 apps by the end of the year (as Casasanta's VC asked) lacks that focus.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Layton Duncan said 4:27PM on 8-27-2008
You know the overwhelming reaction I had when the App Store first launched was, what is all this crap doing on the store?!
John's posting for me hit's the nail on the head on all fronts! As a developer for the iPhone since September '07 through Jailbreak, and now onto the App Store. I want to see the App Store fully of quality apps, rather than the sea of crap we see today.
We're planning to help with this problem, and make this platform something to be proud of!
Bring back the focus on quality!
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Seth said 4:30PM on 8-27-2008
Were you going to pay for that booted iStockphoto image or just rip it??? Just asking.
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Kai Cherry said 4:53PM on 8-27-2008
So now we're going to blame VC's, eh?
Look, there is a problem here, no doubt, it isn't even *half* the problem.
(An aside: Mike Lee is a great guy who I've talked to many times, and represents what the engineering side of the business *should* be about; Tapulous has made a grave error that will certainly come back to haunt them.)
Apple gets some of the blame too; if you are a small outfit, it is *very prohibitive* to develop an "AAA" app, let alone an "A" one, on the iPhone Platform due to certain business risks that do not exist in developing for general computing, video game consoles...or even other mobile platforms.
Given the above, if you are small with a Big Idea, you aren't going to make it happen without that help.
The inverse of this of course is that if you *are* going to take a risk, it is likely to be a small one...further fanning the flames of the current environment.
The fix comes from the top. The fix comes from Apple. They know what devs want, need and have been asking for. It is up to them to provide it, effecting the overall market, and quality, of the apps in the ecosystem.
-K
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miltos said 5:13PM on 8-27-2008
I just don't understand the general attitude towards the app store by users (and bloggers). There is crappy software everywhere for every conceivable platform, and lots of developers and VCs making lots of money off of it. And there's lots of good software around that never sees the light of day. Why should the app store be any different than the rest of the free market economy?
I was really blown away by the reaction to the "I Am Rich" application. So what?! Let the guy put the app in there. Only a few people will buy it and it will shortly fade into the bowels of the app store. Kudos to Apple for creating the iPhone phenomenon and having people get all up in arms about their app store, but it just seems silly to me.
Of course Apple should do some QC on the apps going in, but other than making sure it meets technical and legal standards they should just let the economy sort it out. The app store is not some sacred grail meant to house all of our hopes and dreams for a peaceful, loving world . It's just a mechanism to distribute software.
All that said, I do wish Apple would beef up how users can interact with the app store. For one, don't allow people to post a review of an app unless they buy it. How sick are you of one-star reviews that say "this looks dumb and it's too expensive." Two, enhance the search options . Third ... well, I've already spent enough time on all this.
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Jeff Brown said 6:19PM on 8-27-2008
Here's the beef people have - there are almost NO GOOD APPS. There are something like 2000 apps in the store, and probably less than 10 (maybe less than 5) of the non-game programs are really any good. Most of it either stinks, or could be done by bookmarking a web page.
And all of this is just sort of piled in one place for you to sort through. Apple is clearly asleep at the wheel when they categorize apps, so even that doesn't help.
I'm starting to think they need to look at apps and put them on tiers. Leave it all there, but give quality stuff its own area. Put the 10 flashlight programs in the B room, and VNC or Pandora in the A room.
Kai Cherry said 6:37PM on 8-27-2008
What is exactly *wrong* with these other 1,950 or so apps, Jeff?
More importantly, *why* do you think they have the problems the have?
-K
Kai Cherry said 6:50PM on 8-27-2008
Said miltos:
"For one, don't allow people to post a review of an app unless they buy it. How sick are you of one-star reviews that say 'this looks dumb and it's too expensive.'"
This would be one of those "Apple" problems. Another is that if whatever *legitmate* gripe a dev's customer might have about a particular app (a bug of their own creation, not a feature that the OS won't allow to be implemented or an OS bug) that the dev has a fix for, it takes *weeks* for this to get out to the user. Weeks.
Also, miltos added:
"Of course Apple should do some QC on the apps going in, but other than making sure it meets technical and legal standards they should just let the economy sort it out."
This is pretty much the policy, actually...unless you are Good Pals with Apple and can put external pressure on them (I'm looking at you, MSFT and ATT) as long as your app [redacted], doesn't [redacted] and [redacted] doesn't plan [redacted] they will sell what you give them at the price you set. As it should be.
Finally, miltos said:
"The app store is not some sacred grail meant to house all of our hopes and dreams for a peaceful, loving world . It's just a mechanism to distribute software."
yeah. Good luck with that one...the Marketing is strong with this one. Some people would disagree with this sort of rational take ;)
-K
mentalsticks said 5:33PM on 8-27-2008
Hmm.... so John 'MacHeist' Casasanta doesn't like people who make their fortune over the back of hard-working programmers? ... Interesting!
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Nick said 6:14PM on 8-27-2008
The main thing that sets the App Store apart from other software distribution mechanisms is that it's absolutely, 100% an extension of the iTunes Music Store. Apple is no more afraid to sell you bad iPhone apps than it is to sell you bad music. The fact that an app is in the store does not reflect one bit on the company's reputation, in their mind. They're just throwing it up there and taking a cut of the sales.
Well, that system works fine in the world of music, where tastes are fluid and it's hard to make any objective value judgments. But when it comes to software, the absolute concept of better/worse DOES exist. Less experienced users are usually happy and eager to trust the opinion of experts, and on the basis of those expert opinions, the best stuff rises to the top and everyone buys it. And it's hard for that to happen in the App Store, given the sheer volume of applications that have flooded its shores in less than TWO MONTHS. I don't even browse the Store anymore; I just monitor TUAW and the like for buzz about useful applications, and then I go get them.
Right now, the playing field in there is completely level -- no entity, Fortune 500 company or indie developer, has produced anything too astonishing. I think it'll be a year or more before we start seeing a reasonable number of good, polished applications for the iPhone. Once that happens, the race among developers to catch up with each other will heat up, and the applications of genuine quality will push the masses of useless ones into the background.
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Kai Cherry said 6:34PM on 8-27-2008
Nick...you *do* realize you are talking about a mobile phone with not a lot of ram, with power consumption considerations in place, right?
As far as *mobile applications* go, given the current obstacles, I'd have to say that the iPhone has quite a lot of quality apps.
I mean, it is a mobile phone...you get games, to-do lists and the like. Not...Photoshop :)
The iPhone isn't a "Mac in your pocket" by any stretch; the computing and business constraints are *far more restrictive* than the marketing ones :)
What sort of app would you find "astonishing" and "useful"? Remember...it is a Mobile Phone.
-K
Nick said 7:54PM on 8-27-2008
Of course the iPhone will never run Photoshop or anything like it. That's actually part of the point I'm making here. The iPhone is a genuinely new platform -- there's never been a device quite like it, especially not one that's been so readily adopted by millions upon millions of consumers. I think it's mightily naive to assume that we've already seen anything close to a killer app, considering the infinitesimal amount of time people have spent writing programs for it.
Most gaming systems are on the shelves for years before titles that really show off the full spectrum of their technology are available. In the iPhone's case, no, that technology is not earth-shattering, but the breadth of its capabilities are pretty unique, and that's where I think the key to the astonishing programs I'm talking about lies.
Kai Cherry said 8:06PM on 8-27-2008
Well Nick, I dunno, man...
In the grand scheme of things, the iPhone really is technically on par with phones we've had for years.
Multitouch is nice, but it isn't really *practical* for shattering the earth on such a small screen.
GLES is *fabulous* for a phone, but in gaming hardware terms, we are talking Playstion/PSX graphics quality.
The nicest thing about the the iPhone is the fact that Apple employs skilled UI people...and the APIs for writing software aren't too shabby.
At the end of the day, its a small, portable device with a crappy camera, a GPS that [redacted] (in the case of the 3g) with a bit of flash storage and OK battery life. The options aren't quite as limitless as you imagine, because the underlying platform has contraints...on several levels...that at this time make the amazing un-implementable :)
Note that I didn't say "impossible" ;)
-K
robogobo said 8:05AM on 8-28-2008
The solution for the App Store is simple, and has loads of precedent in the Symbian and Palm environments:
1) Keep it open and Democratic. No need for Apple to govern the quality of iPhone apps any more then they do Mac apps. Let the masses decide.
2) Give us a better rating system. In order for #1 to work, only buyers/users should be able to rate and review.
3) Trial periods and refunds. We should be able to test drive an app for at least 3 days, and get a refund if it sucks. This should be easy for Apple to control, since they can remove apps from our device without our permission.
It really is that simple.
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Galley said 9:35AM on 8-28-2008
That's one thing I liked about Sprint's app store. If you bought something you didn't like, you requested a refund on their site, and it was issued; no questions asked.
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