Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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