Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blogging, iPhone, App Store
Robert Scoble: 85,000 reasons why the iPhone won't be disrupted
Whether you think he's the voice of reason on the Web or an annoying pest, when Robert Scoble over at the Scobleizer blog speaks, people listen.Yesterday, a Twitter follower of Mr. Scoble stated that he thought "iPhone users were beyond reason," referring to the almost unnatural fixation that most of us have for our phones. Scoble brought up a very good point in his blogged response -- every app that comes out on the market (more than 85,000 at this point) provides another way to customize your iPhone to the way that you live and work.
In order for another manufacturer to come out with a device that will pry that iPhone out of our fingers, they're going to need to exactly duplicate or surpass the functionality that we've become used to. That's not likely to happen, in Scoble's opinion, because the 85,000+ apps that filter down to a couple of dozen (or hundred) apps on each iPhone turn that iPhone into something completely unique. It's not likely that any iPhone user is going to want to give up that up unless every app in the special combination on his or her iPhone is replaced by something better.
It makes sense. I've worked with all of the other smartphone platforms, and in no case have there been compelling apps that hold me to the platform. With the iPhone, I've tried thousands of apps, kept about a hundred, and those hundred apps let me work and play the way I want to. iPhone developers have also made sure that the apps are simple to use, too.
Perhaps the Android or some other smartphone platform will eventually evolve to the point that there is a critical mass of compelling apps that provides the same magical combination of power, ease-of-use, and fun, but until that time the iPhone will reign supreme. That's even despite Microsoft CEO and iPhone hater Steve Ballmer's recent assertion about the iPhone, "That's why they've got 75,000 applications -- they're all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone."
Obviously Mr. Ballmer hasn't used an iPhone, or he'd realize that the iPhone is much more than Web apps. That might also give Ballmer a clue why Windows phones aren't even on the radar for most smartphone buyers today.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Light Speed said 1:16PM on 10-26-2009
a breakdown of the apps:
85,000 = a few thousand fart apps, a few thousand flashlights (white screen, zomg uses google wave technology to make it white), tens of thousands of horrid games, and tens of thousands of apps that are either a shittier version of a website or a direct link to a website, hardely considered an "app"
apple fanboys make me laugh.
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Max Howell said 1:41PM on 10-26-2009
Agreed there is a lot of crap.
Still no other platform yet competes with the level of quality that there is. Nobody who uses an iPhone is yet going to switch. That's the point here.
Like seriously, I used the fart app on Android, it was weak, I'd be embarrassed to use it in public.
Alex said 1:41PM on 10-26-2009
I agree with you about the garbage apps. However, I detest Apple but I love my iPhone. No other phone has the versatility combined with the ease of use combined with functional apps that I want. At this point it isn't the iPhone that is the real problem - it is AT&T and the lack of truly competitive phones.
duke said 1:42PM on 10-26-2009
Then there are the jaw dropping games, like Real Racing or Sandstorm. Or the can't put down games, like Rolando and Backbreaker Football. Or the top tier games like Metal Gear Solid, Madden, NBA Live, Doom, Assasin's Creed, Sim City, The Sims, Rock Band, and Need for Speed.
Then there are the apps that shine: Autodesk's Sketchbook Mobile, Photogene, Red Laser, iStat, Remote, Distant suns AR, Docs to Go, Google Earth, Facebook, Touchpad, Shazam, Slacker, Pandora, Dropbox, eBay, Skype, AIM, Yelp AR, Layar AR, MyWeather Mobile, What the Font, Band, Pizza Hut, NASA, Cardstar, Canon iEPP, Guitar Tuner, Classics, Things, Flixter Movies, Mint.com, Adobe Photoshop.com, Tweetie 2, iDisk, Color Expert.
As an artist and student on the go, I couldn't live without half these apps anymore. They help me get so much more done than I was ever able to do on any other mobile platform. There really is just about an app for everything.
People who complain about the variety in the app store make me laugh because it reminds me of the old Windows vs Mac arguement: Windows is better because it has more apps and Mac doesn't have as many developers. Well now I have more apps than I could ever use and to me, that is what makes the iPhone great: the variety. The tables have turned!
Jansperus said 1:45PM on 10-26-2009
Robert Scoble is an Apple fanboy? Or is fanboy, according to your intellect, somebody who acknowledges that something is good and doesn't allow their petty jealousy to blind them? For example, I don't care much for Google the company but I have to admit that they make some pretty damn good products. OMG I ARE A GOOGLE FANBOI!
nothingreal said 1:52PM on 10-26-2009
the entire concept of a 'fanboy' is ridiculous.
The weird compulsion people have of aligning themselves with one group or another over something as trivial as a mobile phone, OS, game console etc.. is ridiculous, and shows how easily people can be herded like mindless drones.
I've got an iPhone 3GS and it's excellent.. I've no interest in the 60K+ apps that are time wasters, but a few of the apps for the phone are really quite good. I also love the Sense UI devices and can't wait to try the new Droid out.
Apple made a great phone 3 years ago and while the platform is definitely showing its age it really did force RIMM, Google and Palm to shift their design philosophy and their product strategies.. now they're releasing phones that are just as good - perhaps better in many ways than the iPhone and I'm fine with that.
It's good for the whole industry including Apple. I'm sure the 4th-gen iPhone will be great and hopefully released from the clutches of the real villain here; AT&T which has been a thorn in the side of most US iPhone users since day 1.
Dan Woods said 3:27AM on 10-27-2009
@nothingreal
I hope you are right and other manufacturers are stepping up to the plate.
Microsoft's Pink is dead and Windows Mobile is still 4 or 5 years behind (1 or 2 years before they approach) iPhone OS 1.x.
Nokia have thrown in the towel with their new Litigation Suite.
Android is still too fractured and inconsistent due to the liberal licencing.
Palm Prē is too little, too late; and Palm doesn't have the financial backing to boost the performance of their little device to support real native apps, or provide proper syncing software. (Seriously… WebApps on a phone are so 2007).
Apple is a hardware company and the only device on the market which can even touch the processing power of the iPhone 3GS is the PSP Go, and that isn't even a phone! Every other device on the market is built underpowered and cheap, including the DS. A smartphone has to be a portable computer, but not forced to run desktop computer-type software.
aredcircle said 6:26PM on 10-26-2009
Agreed. The only apps I'd really rather not live without are the ones that interface with services everyone uses...Twitter, Facebook, etc. These all exist in one form or another on other platforms, the only possible exceptions being VNC and SSH clients. A better phone or an equivalent phone on a better network could easily win my heart, apps or no apps. The App Store is neat, but it's almost 100% novelty. 85,000 apps means nothing when about 84,000 of them are basically useless.
Todd Sieling said 12:14PM on 10-27-2009
While you're laughing, though, you miss the point: people can change the capabilities of the device over the air for just a few dollars, on a whim. Not by taking it home to sync, not by spending hours wondering why the app won't run on their unique hardware/software combination (still waiting for that revolution, Android), and not by spending a bunch of cash.
But you were laughing, so please, go on.
russ said 1:20PM on 10-26-2009
I can't wait to get rid of my iPhone in January when my contract is up. I'm going to be *running* to Android.
I want a Mail app that works with Gmail. MobileMail is a joke. I want a Google Voice app. I don't want to have to open up an app to tweet. I don't want to get 5 notifications and only be able to see what the most recent one is.
January will mark two years with the first gen iPhone for me. It's a tired, tired platform. The 1st party apps are a joke. Having to close Pandora or MLB At Bat to check an email I just got -- because I get no notification of who it was from or what it was about -- is a joke. Playing a game, getting a notification that I got an SMS and having to close the game to respond is A JOKE.
I don't care how many apps there are, the platform they are running on devalues them so far that I can't wait to get away.
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Quinn Taylor said 2:08PM on 10-26-2009
"I want a Mail app that works with Gmail."
Heh, blaming it on Google is easy, but misguided. I suggest lobbying Google to have a decent implementation of IMAP for Gmail, then. I tried their IMAP, and it's pitiful. Obviously not a priority for them. I got rid of my Gmail account since it was doing me no good with (any) native email clients across multiple Macs. I despise webmail...
Sparks said 2:22PM on 10-26-2009
As someone who keeps both an iPhone and an Android phone in her bag (I do mobile development, which is why I have about 6 different mobile phones on my desk), I honestly find both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses.
My Android phone is a great deal more flexible. I can install Google Voice and optionally have the app literally just take over the dialer and SMS, so that everything on the phone which dials or sends SMS does so through my GV number. I can run things in the background, which leads to some killer apps; Locale is amazing, and should be a selling point for Android.
(Locale, for those unfamiliar with the program, watches your GPS location and then fires off actions based on where you are. For instance, my phone can silence itself when I enter a movie theater, or play an alert and pop up something like 'Don't forget to pick up a baguette to make garlic bread for dinner tonight!' when I walk past the grocery store. If Apple had Locale functionality on the iPhone, I guarantee you this app would've merited one of those television ads.)
Conversely, however, my Android phone is a lot more complicated and more of a hassle. Programs will start running in the background and suck up battery life and CPU, with no way to shut them down without using third party apps; this, to me, harkens back to the bad old days of Windows Mobile. If I leave both my iPhone and my Android phone running in my bag all day on the same settings they use when docked on my desk, without actually *using* either of them by the end of the day my Android will either be dead or close to, while the iPhone will probably still have about 40% power. To keep my Android phone working consistently all day long, I need to carefully watch what apps are running in the background, kill them, make sure I turn off WiFi when I'm not near a hotspot (though 1.6 fixes this to some extent, the Android's WiFi search mode seems incredibly power-hungry to me), and so on.
Worse still, if too much is running, the Android can get really slow. Some of this is due to the G1's lackluster hardware, but still. If I haven't gone and shut down the various apps that have restarted themselves in the background, sometimes starting the dialer or answering the phone can take ~10 seconds to get a response. That may not seem long, but can be infuriating nonetheless when I just want to make a *phone call* on my *phone* -- somehow, a 10 second delay to get into the browser or Facebook or whatever seems much less psychologically aggravating than a 10 second delay before I can even *dial* a number.
So in the end, while I carry two phones, I find that the Android phone gets used for specialized situations (I need to do that call over Google Voice because I'm calling internationally) and Locale reminders, while the iPhone... well, the thing just /works/, so that stays my primary phone.
Despite the usability issues I have with Android, the platform is still better than most of the other options. The Windows Mobile device, after all, just lives on the desk and never travels with me anymore!
samanjj said 3:45PM on 10-26-2009
What are you talking about in reference to using gmail? I use gmail on my iPhone and not only do I have every email I sent and received but also complete syncing between my MacBook pro and iPhone. As soon as I read the email on the iPhone it syncs with google mail just like it should. Also when I enable push for gmail I get emails regularly through the day. (but it's power and bandwidth hungry so I turned that off).
Scott said 2:30PM on 10-27-2009
Not sure what the problems are with Gmail's implementation of IMAP. I find it easily trumps the other well known brands that DON'T EVEN OFFER IMAP or make you pay a yearly fee to use it!
I've had zero issues with their IMAP on my phone or Thunderbird client. I've been a gmail user since the beta invite days.
loup407 said 1:26PM on 10-26-2009
I agree it's apparent Ballmer is ignoring the concept of "Know your enemy". Over the years I worked my way through most flavors of Treos, Win Mobile and Blackberry and while they all worked, in their own way, none deliver like the iPhone. Despite AT&T's best efforts the iPhone lets me work from my phone like no other device. Sure, it's not perfect, but its far less imperfect from any other device I've used. Competitors seem to try to compete by technical specs or other metrics meaningless to most consumers; and will continue to fail as long as they do so. Sure, I'd prefer that my cell service is provided by a company that is competent and consumer-centric; not sure that'll happen soon. In the meantime, it'll take a lot more than a pretty OS to pry my iPhone out of my hands.
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samanjj said 4:47PM on 10-26-2009
To level 5: Windows mobile and symbian os are not one device or generations of a group of devices so those figures are not the same as the mac reference you made. Also symbian os has been around for a very long time but is still not taken seriously by developers or business. I also think it's a good logic that if you have a handful of key mobile apps that are unique to your mobile you are less likely to switch.
Le Big Mac said 1:22PM on 10-26-2009
Why wouldn't the app developers port their apps to other platforms? Sure, it might take some work but if it's a hit on iPhone it could be a hit on something else . ..
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Curly Eric said 1:25PM on 10-26-2009
85k is a little bit of an overstatement, but even a few dozen apps quickly add up to an investment in the platform for many. There are also the fact that iPhones are now the defacto "mobile web". If a site is going to design a mobile version they will probably target the iPhone.
For me it's also a question of long term viability. I know that I will be able to continue to get quality, up-to-date, applications for the life of my iPhone. This is one of the same reasons Apple dominated in the paid music business. 100% of their DRM ( and non-DRM ) music was forward and backwards compatible. You can play a newly purchased DRM track on the oldest iPod and the oldest track purchased still works on the latest hardware. While other DRM schemes came and went leaving the media high and dry, iTunes not only kept on working but kept compatibility as key.
The iPhone continues that tradition with API support. How many handset manufacturers can claim 100% free upgrades to handsets that are more than 2 years old and counting.
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Level 5 said 1:39PM on 10-26-2009
Every Windows Mobile device I've had from HTC in the past 5 years has had a free upgrades for the OS and core (even licensed) apps. The Blackberry Storm just had a major OS upgrade go live today as well. Does this answer your question?
Curly Eric said 1:43PM on 10-26-2009
Who cares about windows mobile. The sooner they die off the better. Especially since, for the longest time, WM and BB were basically the only smartphones Verizon offered.