The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog takes a look at "crap apps" -- those pieces of junk on the App Store that do one thing and do it pointlessly, whether that thing be farting or belching or making the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard (yes, really) or what have you. And they come up with a very intriguing, albeit obvious, reason that the App Store seems so filled with completely terrible and silly apps. Why? Because they sell.

Yes, even "legitimate" iPhone developers -- those people working hard to create an innovative touchscreen interface, or bring some crucial functionality to the iPhone -- are finding that of all the apps they release, the crudest and most stupid are the ones that sell. They profile a guy whose serious movie apps aren't selling, but whose cobbled-together-in-five-minutes gimmick apps are making a mint. In short, the reason our App Store is full of way more fart apps than apps like Twitterific 2.0 is because people are paying for the fart ones. The message we're sending with our wallets is that if you want to make a million dollars on the App Store, don't toil away to polish your groundbreaking award-winning puzzle game. Just give us a gag we can show to our friends.

Is it right? I'd say no, but then again, even I have been pulled in to a gimmick app or two: I bought Cat Piano (in my defense, I've gotten enough entertainment out of it to find an easter egg: shake your iPhone while playing). But next time your finger is poised over the "Get App" button on that 99-cent belching app that you just know the friend you're seeing later will get a total kick out of, think to yourself: is that two-second gag worth an App Store full of crappy apps?

John Gruber has penned an interesting observation of how Microsoft might very well have missed the mark from the get-go when they made the strange decision to take on the iPod and iTunes. Since the player's initial wiz-bang sales period is essentially over (as in: it more or less set a decent sales barometer, at least for now), John wrangles some interesting statistics from Amazon's charts on exactly where the Zune stands in comparison to Apple's players (including year-old models), as well as its ranking in the overall electronics category. To spoil the surprise: the Zune isn't doing so well. We've looked at Amazon's charts before, but as of this writing, a record player is beating out the best selling Zune on the electronics list, while iPods - specifically the small, flash-based nano and shuffle - dominate most of the top 10 spots.

John then uses this data and good ol' fashioned people watching to conclude that Microsoft shouldn't have taken what could be their only swing at the plate in producing a hard drive-based iPod; they should have cranked out a flash memory model to go head-on with the nano - inarguably the home run slugger in Apple's lineup. While I tend to agree with John, I also see a problem with going down this road: Microsoft would likely have had even less room to maneuver, and even fewer things to market ('Beam your tunes') and invent lame, dead-end lingo for - they actually refer to sharing your music wirelessly as 'squirting'. Who wants to bet how excited Steve Ballmer's kids are to 'squirt' at school?

Sure, when you look at what you're up against in the DAP market, Apple's iPod nano and SanDisk's respectable 2GB Sansa player (expandable via an SD slot, and at #11 on Amazon as of this writing) are the top dogs to beat - but what could they have offered? I highly doubt they could have fit their DRM-crippled and arguably worthless (though admittedly buzz-worthy) Wi-Fi sharing feature into a nano-sized player, even if they made it slightly larger and uglier like the Zune is to its 30GB iPod rival. A 'Zune nano' with nothing unique to offer would dry up on its own in a market already dominated by Apple, SanDisk and Creative, and Microsoft's exclusive, 3rd party bitch-slap of a music store would have even less of a leg to stand on.

In summary: I think John's right - Microsoft made a bad move in copying the 30GB hard drive-based iPod, but it was the only move they had. In this light, it kinda makes you wonder why they bothered in the first place.

For a while now, it's been an unspoken assumption that, with the introduction of a video service (that really hasn't gone anywhere), Google might try to step on Apple's toes and take on the iTMS. However, at the NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) conference this year Chris Sacca, head of Google's business development, confirmed exactly the opposite; that the company is not going to take on the 800 pound gorilla that is the iTMS.

Chris then went on to make a call for the existing stores to come together, create a unified format, shake hands and sing kumbaya. A move that other notable folks, such as Cory Doctorow, have been calling for, while others respond with reality-checking prowess.

Ultimately, it's probably a good thing Google isn't trying to move in on the digital music turf. It seems that some of their service offerings, such as Google Video, still need a bit of polish if they're really going to make a splash.

[via Engadget]