Apple fears the killer app | Hacker News Reader

Apple fears the killer app

whydoeseverythingsuck.com

131 pointsbrianmwang86 comments

This seems a well argued point; but when you break it down not so much,.

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.

The thing is that Jobs does have a vision for the iOS platform, and I don't think that is: They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or crappy apps. In fact as far as I can make out that is exactly what they don't want.

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.

To claim the reverse is kind of going against years of Apple branding (clean, classy, slick).

I would rephrase the argument as "Apple wants thousands of good or decent apps, but none so great so as to pull the platform into its own orbit."

This rings true especially in light of Jobs' statements about being able to innovate without being beholden to 3rd party vendors.

As to OP's statements about not building a company on iOS apps, this is once again better stated as not building a company on a single iOS app. If you have a bunch of good apps (games or not) then this is much more sustainable, as they pose less of a "threat" to the platform.

Let's examine killer apps that actually were a threat to a platform.

Microsoft Office - At one time, Apple would've been very unhappy if Microsoft took this away from the Mac. MS Office is very dominant in its niche, almost a monopoly.

Adobe Photoshop - Photoshop is a defacto standard. There were other image manipulation programs, but only one considered suitable for professional use. There are times when Adobe could've really hurt Apple by giving the Mac release short shrift.

Metrowerks - At one point, the only way to write code for the Mac.

All of Apple's recent actions are consistent with the intent to prevent another monopoly on their turf. They do not want someone else to exclusively control a killer app on their new platform, because when this happened in the past, they were at someone else's mercy.

Office on the Mac, lways (to me) felt like a kludge. It did not work like other Mac apps, it did not look like other Mac apps, and yet it did not work quite like it did on Windows either.

There was Internet Explorer for the Mac also, it was even a bigger kludge than Office.

I guess Apple thought they needed Office and IE at the time, but surely not because it was great software. In retrospect, I wonder if it really made any difference at all.

I guess Apple thought they needed Office and IE at the time, but surely not because it was great software. In retrospect, I wonder if it really made any difference at all.

They always have and always will need Office as long as it is the dominant tool used in professional environments. Apple does not need it to be any good, but it needs it to be there. It is one of the big separators between OSX and any other non-Windows OS, Apple needs it as on their list of offerings in order to be able to pitch itself more easily.

Not everybody is savvy enough to know of possible Office alternatives (especially not the Apples "lifestyle crowd" audience), so not having the option of using Office would be very easy marketing against OSX, especially considering that their main campaign until recently has been "Get a Mac".

As much as many people don't like the thought of it, Office is, and will for a very long time be, the prime application used in businesses worldwide.

Excellent point.

You could also refined it to "Apple wants thousands of good or decent apps, but none so great so as to pull the platform into its own orbit and removing great-but-threatening apps is going to have to have priority over getting the good or decent apps"

I disagree. Jobs wants to avoid overtly disgusting apps, like porn, but the App Store is littered with horrible user experiences.

The OP makes a valid point, which is that Apple does fear that the mobile space ends up being driven by a handful of third-party apps, rather than by the device/OS (and the AppStore is part of the OS).

So let me be clear. What is a killer app? A killer app is something that drives you to buy a device. The web browser is a killer app. Office was a killer app. Today there is no killer app IN the Apple App Store. The App Store is the killer app. And Apple controls it.

What Apple doesn't want is for Adobe or MS or Google or StartupX to create the killer app on the iPhone as they could diminish the importance of the iOS platform (since presumably this app will also shortly become available on other platforms).

He doesn't actually care about porn; it's just an easily defensible position upon which to base controls over a wide variety of apps that harbor even the most tangential possibility to be used to view any pornographic content.

Of course there are some low-quality apps on the App Store, but what do people seriously expect Apple to do? Start rejecting Apps because some reviewer doesn't like it? That is the mother of all 'uncertainty' scenarios that undermine developer confidence (much more serious than the smaller risk that your App is blocked for breaching some obscure/vague part of the licence).

The only thing Apple can realistically do to affect the general quality levels is make broad decisions like no porn, no Flash, no technology X, Y, or Z.

It's less absurd than rejecting apps because of the language they were "originally written in," less absurd than rejecting minor updates to an app you've already approved — less absurd than most of Apple's rejections, actually, because at least then Apple's rationale would make sense without assuming Apple is simply evil.

What? How is rejecting apps/updates for technical infractions (cross-compiled code) absurd? Undesirable for the developer perhaps, but nothing compared to the worry that someone's general opinion of your individual app could kill the whole project. The rationale is also pretty much irrelevant if the rule is already published (eg. no cross-compiled code) - you don't need to second-guess it, you just need to follow it

If you sketch out pseudocode on a napkin or use an algorithm you learned about in Python, you are technically using something that wasn't originally written in Objective-C and are back to hoping the App Store reviewers exercise the rules with sanity. Compilation is just transforming data from a less useful form into a more useful one. That's why it's absurd.

But why pretend that this would actually happen? Compilation is transforming programming language into machine code; writing in this case is the act of typing out your program in programming language. 'Originally written in Obj-C' means the code was formed by you in Objective-C before being transformed by a compiler. It is now machine-code, it was 'originally,' ie. before compilation, Obj-C.

They care not a jot whether your adopting code from a Python project. Technically it's not the same program then anyway. Everyone knows this! C'mon

Yes, Apple could have a cleaner process. Here's an example:

1) First submit application spec. The spec must get approved. That way you know the basic idea is fine. 2) Have a clear set of requirements -- largely automatable. MS does this for logo requirements and for the consoles. Devs can test against this even before submitting. This would be things like battery consumption, CPU utilization, stress, etc... 3) Apple has discretion to block apps for extenuating circumstances -- this should be rare, like an App not implementing the spec at all.

This would lead to even greater quality, decreased uncertainty, and increased transparency.

Your kidding right? No company in their right mind is going to submit an application spec for their app to Apple before they have a releasable app. You don't give your unique product/idea away to someone with a vested interest in perhaps beating you to the punch with it. If Apple wasn't in the Mobile Apps business it might fly but they are in that business and giving them an application spec really wouldn't be wise.

No, I'm not kidding. This is largely what goes on with consoles today anyways.

But in any case, this is Apple's appstore, you have to go through them anyways. If Apple wants to steal your idea, what is to stop them from stealing it after you've written it and submit it.

In fact, its even worse the way it is today, because they can hold on to your app for months before approving/denying it. And then they can reject it, and then the next day release their application, which they built from reverse-engineering your application.

At least with the spec, you describe the user scenario, but they'd still have to figure out how to implement it.

But lets be clear, in any case where Apple owns the key to app store entry you're vulnerable to them stealing your ideas or even implementation.

Ideas are worthless. It's execution that counts. Examples of "ideas" that were won by the best execution include:

Google (search)

Facebook (social network)

Microsoft Word (word processing)

Photoshop (image manipulation)

iPod (mp3 players)

iPhone (smartphones)

Each of these "ideas" had competitors in the market before them, and each managed to blow the competition away by better execution. This is the reasoning behind VCs not signing NDAs, and entrepreneurs accepting this.

A spec is more than an Idea though It's the plan for your execution. Otherwise it's useless for Apple.

You're assuming that Apple's traditional branding has anything to do with Apple's actions nowadays. Apple branding has been about being an iconoclast, identifying with '60s rock and drug counterculture, embracing openness and freedom — remember Steve Jobs talking about how Bill Gates should drop acid like him? remember the Apple pirate flag? — and now Apple rejects pin-up girl apps from the App Store, even with a 17+ rating, and tells people that if they're that kind of deviant, they can take their counterculture-tarnished hands over to Android.

I agree. I also think Apple is treating the iOS ecosystem like a video game console rather than a computer. If people looked at the console wars between MS, Sony, and Nintendo and compared their developer agreements to Apple's, they probably wouldn't get so bent out of shape over things.

I know Microsoft has literally spent $millions on AAA titles just to get XBox360 exclusive releases. Somehow we don't get bent out of shape so much just because Halo is Xbox only. I don't see pundits wanting to burn Microsoft at the stake because they bought Bungie.

Yet for some reason, when Apple does something similar, they must be evil.

This is not true. The concern people had with Apple is that they were attempting to block content based on how it was originally made, across the board.

No one cares if Apple gets exclusive deals. Good for them is they do. The concern is that Apple tells developers, "if you wrote this game originally in Java then you can't submit it to the app store." Or if your team uses in-house code generators with a DSL then you can't submit it, even if the DSL generates provably the most optimized Obj-C code possible.

Neither MS, nor Sony, nor Nintendo ever made such claims.

I wish I could upvote this more than once. Everybody who makes the "video games" analogy totally ignores this.

I remember one video game company talking about the cool Lisp dialect they'd invented for their games that they said was really integral to the project's success.

I also think Apple is treating the iOS ecosystem like a video game console rather than a computer.

Exactly.

If people looked at the console wars between MS, Sony, and Nintendo and compared their developer agreements to Apple's, they probably wouldn't get so bent out of shape over things.

Consoles aren't attempting to replace general purpose PCs, while all indications are that mobile computing devices are going to replace desktops and laptops for most of the population. If almost all of those devices are closed, the cost in freedom and innovation will be enormous.

As it happens, I do think it is evil that MS limits who can develop what for XBox. I actually see the fact that the console market has evolved that way as a warning to us how easily it can happen. However consoles simply don't matter very much. Phones are far more important than game consoles and that's the primary reason why there is so much more outcry about it for iOS.

> Apple is treating the iOS ecosystem like a video game console rather than a computer

Can you explain why, then, they have an entire series of ads based around the theme of "there's an app for that"? I can't think of anything more direct they could do to tout it as a "general purpose" computing platform. I think Apple fans keep trying to have it both ways here.

> As it happens, I do think it is evil that MS limits who can develop what for XBox.

Although they restrict who can develop games destined for brick and mortar stores, Microsoft has provided XNA as a way of developing for their platform that is not altogether unreasonable in terms or expense.

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.

To claim the reverse is kind of going against years of Apple branding (clean, classy, slick).

I think the OP's point was that Apple probably wants those few "really really classy apps" to be Apple's, not 3rd party. It makes sense, too.

It makes sense, too.

I'm not sure it entirely does. In a "perfect" world, maybe. But Apples is a platform (hardware/OS) company and not really a software company (in the same way).

Jobs seems to much prefer the idea of a smaller number of really really classy apps.

Agreed. A killer app would cause many more people to want to buy the iPad. It would transform the iPad from a want to a need.

From the post:

But as platforms mature, Killer apps from third party companies pose more risk.

Is this really thought out? Does the Killer App transform the hardware into a commodity device for running the app? Is there some fundamental law saying Photoshop had to rule over all image editing? I don't think so. It's not Killer Apps that are dangerous. It's 3rd party monopolies on vital parts of the ecosystem! If Photoshop had better competition so it did not become a de-facto standard Adobe would not have been a threat. If Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office hadn't totally dominated their market niches, then those applications wouldn't have been a threat to Mac and OS X either. The Metroworks IDE has already been mentioned on this site as well.

I don't think Apple wants to eliminate killer apps or good apps. I do think that they want to ensure there is viable competition. It's not a killer app on their turf that Apple fears. It's someone else's monopoly!

No, you missed the key, which is that if a company makes a killer iPad app, porting it to Android and whatever variant of Windows CE Microsoft finally decides is worth putting on tablets will be trivial, and the iPad will just be a fashionable tablet, with this hypothetical killer app something you can get on any device, fashion statement or commodity.

There's a piece missing from your logic. Exactly what does Apple have to fear? That they won't become the Dell of tablets? I don't think they're afraid of becoming the maker of the fashion statement tablet -- that's where the high margins are! A killer app (with healthy competition) that benefits all tablets helps them. A killer app that's a monopoly can hurt them, because the killer app can disappear from their platform.

They don't want a third-party app to become a key part of the iOS experience because then when it is ported some of the Apple sheen would likely rub off on Windows/Android.

If there's a killer app on their platform, then Apple can't change their platform in a way that breaks the app. Consider the hoops Microsoft has had to go through with Windows and IE to avoid breaking important third-party products. Since the whole point of Apple products is high-end, uncompromising design, letting killer apps get the upper hand would quickly make iOS stagnate and lose relevance. Once that's happened, the only way to get ahead again is something like the MacOS-to-OS X upheaval, which wasn't particularly pretty.

What is it with people speculating over what Jobs/Apple wants?

The truth of the matter is nobody has a clue, and yet many people pretend otherwise.

Well I'd argue he has been quite clear over the years as to his values and his aims.

Even if we, perhaps, can't say with absolute certainty his thoughts, I suspect there is plenty enough evidence to show that:

They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or crappy apps.

Isn't one of them :)

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.

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&N reader.

> "my guess is most people are mostly looking at the core functionality of the device."

Once a device has an exclusive killer app, people start to treat that app as part of the device's core functionality.

Apple views apps as an accessory. Would it trouble them to see consumers begin to treat a third party app as a core system component? The author seems to think so. (He has no evidence, though.)

What's keeping Skype/Truphone from becoming the primary outbound call mechanism on the iPhone?

Off the top of my head...

Technically:

You can't intercept calls from the dialer on the iPhone. You can build a look-alike replacement which is pretty good, but you will never be able to do things like intercept tel:// URIs.

Call quality/security/battery life trade offs are harder because you don't have access to a lot of the hardware acceleration features.

Cellular networks are designed to prioritize (GSM) voice over data, especially for latency, ensuring that GSM voice is better quality.

911 requirements (especially for 'primary' voice services) are very strict, expensive and really hard to do well without access to carrier-level information and deep handset hardware control.

Non-technically:

If it became a competitive necessity carriers could drop prices like a rock. The marginal cost for AT&T to route a call is much lower than it is for VoIP carriers due to volume. They can adjust their pricing structure (e.g. by raising monthly fees) to compensate.

Someone else derives a lot of profit from the platform you are trying to undercut, and they have control over approvals for that platform.

Apple eliminating them if that happens?

I mean by usage, not executing code. The consequences already occurred: AT&T charging Skype for 3G calls.

the truth is users don't really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a small number that are really meaningful.

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.

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.

Those are two different arguments.

It is true that a small number of apps matter to any given person. That was his point.

But a larger number of apps gives coverage to a greater segment of the populations. This is why Windows still locks people in even though we all use very few programs and we all know it sucks.

For example, I only really use about 6 big programs - browser, Word, Excel, Eclipse, a media player, and SolidWorks. There can be a million other programs in the Windows world, and aside from a few utilities, I'm not using them.

But switch to Mac OS X? I can't. Not completely anyway, because I need SolidWorks. I can't do my job without it. I used Ubuntu almost exclusively for a while, but I could never get rid of that pesky Windows install because I need it for Solidworks.

So at that point, why the pay the premium for a Mac if I'm going to be using crappy Windows on it anyway?

It is not quite the same in the mobile world. There are few big programs (exceptions: browser, primary phone functions like dialer, contacts, email etc), and most of the time they are used by everyone. So # of apps really is a long tail thing. I might want a ski trail map app, or a golf app. Those are small apps that can be on any platform, they're not make it or break kind of apps. We have yet to see a big killer platform specific app.

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.

That's an easy one ... they can reject your application (it says so in the SDK agreement).

See Google Voice for such an example. Or ask any iPhone developer that's been playing this game for a while ... you would be a fool to drop an app in the App Store with lots of functionality, the more there is to use in your app, the more likely it is to get rejected. That's why people are doing incremental upgrades ... at least if a new version gets rejected, your lost investment isn't that much.

And the more frequently you drive in your car the more likely you are to have a fatal accident. The more frequently you fly in an airplane the more likely you are to die in a plane crash.

Many people drive in their cars every single day without dying in an accident, and many people fly nearly every single day for business without ever dying in a fiery accident.

No one hears about the companies doing extremely innovative stuff on the iOS platform because they're not complaining. Look at TapTapTap and the apps they've built and how imaginative and beautiful they are. They've made millions of dollars with just a handful of people working on their apps. Take a look at Smule and the Ocarina app they made that lets you blow into the microphone and play your iPhone like a flute. Really innovative and killer apps that are in the App Store, now, available to purchase.

You can build incredible, mind-blowing, futuristic apps for iOS without getting close to any of the provisions in the Terms and Conditions. The article's main premise is that "killer apps" go beyond what Apple allows you to do with iOS but that's bullshit, anyone can build a killer app with what Apple gives you.

If you read the article, you would notice that it is reaction to changes in the app store terms, changes which entail "we can reject your app for any reason whatsoever".

You know, I thought maybe you were right, and I somehow misinterpreted, but no:

"But those creative few that want to do something interesting with a UI, or want to use hardware in a new way, or who want to use a more advanced code execution technique are at grave risk."

It seems the authors driving point is the specific clauses regarding hardware, interpreted code, and the conformance to the Apple design guidelines are somehow inhibiting killer apps. This is on its face absurd. Sure, it may inhibit some types of killer apps (like Google Voice), but the stark majority of potential killer apps for mobile certainly can exist within the current guidelines.

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.

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?

The programming language directive was targeted directly at Flash, because Flash itself is a potential killer app. They thought they killed it by just not supporting it in the browser, but then Adobe managed to find a way to resurrect it. So they had to kill it again, this time with a stake through the heart.

>>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.<<

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".

So if going by commercial success is the yardstick, then the App Store is ahead by at least 1825 times.

His point stands: he's not talking about the total amount of money everyone has made, but the total amount of money any single company has made.

And my point is: there are media reports of individuals and small companies that have made a decent amount of money on the App Store, but there is no simply equivalence that I'm aware of on Android.

If these entities are considered "small potatoes" then the situation is even worse on Android. Glass houses, and all that.

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.

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'm not expert here, but I believe the answer is: depends on how many extensions Apple decides to make.

I imagine that there will continue to be a significant feature deficit for quite some time, particularly with regard to lower-level stuff like the camera and accelerometer/gyroscope.

Here's a great article on the native code vs web app question: http://bit.ly/bwPn6J

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.

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 on the iphone. If we assume that someone somewhere is gonna drop an app-bomb, forcing them to other platforms might not be the best idea.

In a parallel universe, when Microsoft released Windows 3.1 they also introduced a certification program requiring that they approve all applications. When NCSA developed Mosaic, Microsoft recognized the long-term danger to the Windows platform that it represented, and rejected it on the grounds of security/privacy/instability/resource consumption/whatever. It was available only on Mac and Unix platforms, and never became mainstream.

This gave Microsoft time to develop their own hypertext platform, one that was deliberately tied to Windows. With great fanfare they released it a few years later, and it was widely adopted. Of course, only Windows machines could serve the documents that it used, and they worked best on Windows clients. The inevitable result was an entrenched Microsoft monopoly and technological stagnation, but hardly anyone complained because to most people the very concept of an alternate OS or browser was meaningless.

If this seems absurd, consider South Korea where IE's monopoly is guaranteed by law: http://www.mobinode.com/2009/01/16/activex-regulations-in-so...

To make this parallel universe scenario's Windows 3.1 analogous to "real"-universe c.2010's iOS, you'd need to make parallel-Windows 3.1 have about a quarter of the market rather than having a monopoly on it.

I tried to look for why 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?

That is easy to guess. If a 3rd part builds a killer app for a smart phone, running on the iPhone, they can very easily port it to Android.

So the killer app becomes a killer app for the smart phone, but not for the iPhone.

People say this like it's a foregone conclusion. But it's only so if you believe that secretly, Apple believes that the iPhone and iPhone experience is outright inferior to Android.

I don't think even Android fans could say it's that cut and dry for the general population.

What's more, it's not even clear Apple wants the majority share in their market. We assume they do, but if they manage to capture the bulk of the smartphone market then a lot of things they do will start to come under stricter regulation by the FTC. As long as they are a healthy, profitable, but not dominant player they're clear to make a ton of money and edge out all competition.

Sometimes I think people profoundly misjudge Apple's business plan.

Because it's a strategic risk for a hardware maker to be dependent on an outside company's software application to move hardware units. Reason being that the other company could take the killer app to another platform and quit supporting your platform altogether - and then your sales go down the tubes.

> Because it's a strategic risk for a hardware maker to be dependent on an outside company's software application to move hardware units.

They're moving a ton of units without a killer app. A killer app could only increase sales.

I thought that was very clear.

"If that killer app vendor decides to support Android more effectively than they support Apple, or if for some reason they decided to drop the iPhone, that one vendor could have a devastating effect on Apple's position in the marketplace"

Right. But this could have happened at any point once Android became a legitimate competing platform, and that's where the argument loses steam for me.

Except that it could happen now. It's basically nonsense. Almost every popular (non-gaming) app that is not directly from Apple has a dual on Android, and the sky hasn't fallen for either platform yet.

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 doesn't 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.

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 Google Voice's non approval and the quality vs quantity discussion makes me very skeptical about this article.

killer apps on the iphone

* maps = google

* audio = pandora

both were launch apps, both made the iphone plausible, both, were not designed by apple.

Those are good apps. They are not paradigm shifting apps. When he is pointing to killer apps of the past, they literally changed the game in a way nobody saw coming before their launch.

Paradigm-shifting app for iPhone: Ocarina by Smule. Didn't break any rules and is easily the most innovative mobile application ever developed.

the google maps experience was designed by apple. pinch+zoom, gps mapping, etc.

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.

Ok, then help me to understand. First is how does Apple keep developers from producing the killer app? Does this imply, that the Killer App™ cannot be produced with Objective-C and without built-in interpreters? If it can, what is the evidence, that Apple did reject such an app, and for what stated reasons? (No, google voice is not a killer app).

Next, Jobs did state three reasons why app can be rejected. App does not be great, they just have to work and don't use private APIs.

Now, if majority of apps in App Store is crap, how does this compare to apps in Android Market which does not have those draconian rules. Are they generally higher quality than apps for iOS?

Then it makes even less sense: how does not allowing the Killer App™ help Apple? They sell boatloads of devices without such an app and would sell even more with it. If someone comes with the brilliant idea author talks about, how does Android having that app available and iOS not help Apple in any way? Where is the sense in this claim?

And finally: there will be no killer app for smartphone. Ever. On any platform. When almost no one owns a computer and you make Visicalc and it sells 700 000 that's an killer app. However there are almost 100 000 000 users of iDevices. They already have the killer apps which could appeal to such an wide audience: mail programs, web browsers.

You can have a killer app for the platform which is smaller than niche your app fits in. There is no niche several hundred millions people wide.

Although I can see some sense in the claim that iOS 4 is an killer app for iDevices.

The issues of language interpretation are only indirectly related to the core argument here. I think the core argument is that Apple is staying fuzzy in the rules so they can strangle any budding "killer app" in its teenage years, when the trajectory has become clear but it is not yet "THE REASON TO OWN AN iPHONE!".

Apple is afraid of becoming a client to the killer app owner. Microsoft was afraid of the some thing, which is the root reason behind "DOS isn't done until Lotus doesn't run."

You can't prove there won't be a killer app. Network effects mean something could come from the blue. It doesn't even have to be new, just something that already existed but is incrementally better enough to harness the network effects.

Apple is afraid of becoming a client to the killer app owner. Microsoft was afraid of the some thing, which is the root reason behind "DOS isn't done until Lotus doesn't run."

Surely Microsoft wasn't afraid of DOS having a killer app — they wanted to allow Excel an uneven playing field against 1-2-3.

And why is that? Because they didn't want 1-2-3 to be "the" reason to own a DOS computer, leaving them constrained to support 1-2-3 at the expense of their own loftier ambitions. Such as dominating the office automation market. Your objection is merely a smaller part of the whole picture.

If somebody else owned Office, Microsoft would have to dance to their tune.

One could argue that this is hardly a bad thing in the abstract; what company has total independence? I think some of what you're seeing here is the way that the attitude of the leadership filters down the chain and affects the company profoundly. "An abstract company" may be happy to carve out a niche somewhere and be part of a large ecosystem, but Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison need to be the winners in control.

An interesting point, well stated. I've always just considered the direct competition between Excel and 1-2-3, but platform control via app control certainly could have factored in too.

> Does this imply, that the Killer App™ cannot be produced with Objective-C and without built-in interpreters?

The requirement for natively written code for the iPhone seems to mainly serve to prevent easy porting to other smartphones.

And Apple can reject apps for any reason they choose.

This is not the point. The Blog entry is way off.

Steve very clearly wants to create the best platform possible and does not want any thing holding him back.

(rumor) I have heard that Steve requires final say on circuit boards because he wants to make sure the traces are beautiful.

Other companies behave this way too, and Verizon at 1st did not have android phones because they did not meet their quality expectation.

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.

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.

3rd, I think they are trying to keep a community together, and communities have languages.

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.

"I have heard that Steve requires final say on circuit boards because he wants to make sure the traces are beautiful."

This may have been true in the Apple I and Apple II days, but he's mellowed out a lot since then. This kind of extravagance caused a lot of problems for him (it crippled the Mac from developing much since Steve didn't like hard drives or fans, it affected the NeXT cube for the same reasons, and he had the entire NeXT factory repainted multiple times because he didn't like the particular shade of grey they chose).

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