Which Apps are threatened by iOS 5 | Hacker News Reader

Which Apps are threatened by iOS 5

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

62 pointsnanijoe72 comments

Marco had two arguments on Build & Analyze for why he wasn't overly concerned with Reading List.

First, he didn't expect RL to have defer-reading, readability, and sync. But, like everyone's saying, it does. Shit.

Second, the defer-reading market is theoretically huge. It's something everyone needs to do. A tiny percentage captured off that market is worth millions of dollars.

iP is currently the best synced defer-reading app around and probably will remain so even after Reading List is released.

But more importantly, how hard is it to come up with 2-3 killer features to further differentiate iP from Reading List for the tiny fraction of the market required to be successful?

I'm sure it's dismaying to see what he expected to be an afterthought feature showcased in the keynote, but I'm still with him on the dynamics of this market. Reading List is not going to be the final word in deferred reading.

For whatever it's worth, Marco is the one I feel bad for here. Most of these other applications were so clearly implicated by Apple's roadmap that it's hard for me to get too worked up about it. How do you not cheer for Apple taking steps to replace SMS?

The biggest problem for Marco is that adding articles to Instapaper on your iOS devices is difficult. Adding a bookmarklet on iOS takes 3 or more steps that were difficult even for a grizzled nerd like me. Reading List has absolutely no such friction on any Apple platform.

Did you know that you can also add articles on iOS by copying the URL and opening the Instapaper app? I didn't realize that there was a way to add a bookmarklet to mobile Safari, and I discovered the clipboard method by accident. Not that I use it often, but when I do, it's good enough.

I've accidentally activated that feature many times :-)

As an aside, I really wish Apple would make it easier to add bookmarklets to Safari on iOS. It'd be useful for more than just Instapaper.

I've never needed to add an article to Instapaper from my iOS device, but that's just me. I use Instapaper to sync things I want to read from my laptop to my multiple devices. At least in the near term, I doubt Reading List will do the things I want to do as well as Instapaper.

I wouldn't expect Reading List to take many Instapaper users away, and I think it will drive not-insignificant numbers from Reading List to Instapaper as people want an upgrade. Net gain for Instapaper, hopefully.

I'm the same way. The value prop of Instapaper for me is, "allows me not to read things I would otherwise feel compelled to waste time reading, while at my computer".

I add articles from my iPhone all the time, but rarely through Safari. The vast majority of my articles come from apps that have Instapaper built in, such as Twitter and Alien Blue. This is one advantage that Instapaper has, although I would assume that most apps will build in Reading List integration, as well.

The other big advantage that Instapaper has (which will keep me using it) is Kindle integration. I much prefer to read long articles on my Kindle over any other platform.

I like Marco's current perspective:

http://www.marco.org/2011/06/06/safari-reader-and-instapaper

"If Reading List gets widely adopted and millions of people start saving pages for later reading, a portion of those people will be interested in upgrading to a dedicated, deluxe app and service to serve their needs better. And they’ll quickly find Instapaper in the App Store."

Basically: Reading List validates the deferred-reading market.

The interesting thing here is the subtle shot that Apple is taking at Google with iOS. Readability like functionality removes advertisements. In the talk they said that safari represents 2/3rds of mobile web browsing. And that web browser is about to be equipped with technology that can turn those ads off.

I think down the road, there's going to be a couple different aspects to content on the web. Advertising based content that you get from google, and for-pay content that you'll get from Apple's News Stand and iBook store.

Where are those 2/3 numbers coming from? Amazon logs show a completely different story.

The problem here is that nobody big (Amazon, Google, e-Bay, Yahoo, etc) wants to reveal their traffic numbers because they don't want their competitors to have this information when deciding where to allocate dev resources. So Apple can be completely making this up and nobody will call them on it.

a source seems to be cited in Apple's slides here (ctrl+f for "2 / 3"): http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/06/wwdc-2011-liveblog-steve-...

They usually cite net applications or something:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

Wikimedia stats are interesting although I wouldn't read too much into them: http://stats.wikimedia.org/archive/squid_reports/2011-05/Squ...

Toss out the wiki apps and do something with "mozilla" (toss it or split among other webkit I guess) and iOS is up in the low-mid 60%'s. That's without making any adjustments for Opera which will be much lower if you are US only.

I have no great love for Apple, but the rhetoric around this is simply ridiculous. When a great app comes out, tech sites will say things like "why isn't this a feature of the OS?", but then when they become a feature then the OS vendor gets criticized for "stabbing" app developers.

For starters, Apple is known for taking an idea that has many 3rd party solutions, incorporating it into the OS, then presenting it as their own whizz-bang idea. (See Spotlight vs Butler/QuickSilver/LaunchBar)

nathanb: why is Apple being criticized for doing X?

pyre: Apple is doing X.

Your comment doesn't really address the question, which is, "Why criticize Apple for not implementing it, then criticize them later for implementing it like you asked them to?"

It does. It has less to do with Apple implementing it or not, and more to do with Apple's lack of acknowledgement of where their inspiration came from. At least in my mind.

It's sort of like the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.

Or the mindset where NBC will bother dedicating time in their nightly news to cover iCloud (stop looking at me that way, yes some people still watch the nightly news) and voila, the general public thinks apple invented the idea of the cloud. Great for Apple, annoying for us that think Jobs doesn't walk on water.

Is this like when that band you liked suddenly got popular so you didn't like them anymore?

Or is it more like when Roman from Party Down met that girl who was "really into Sci Fi" and she started talking about Lord of the Rings and then he berated her with the difference between Fantasy and Sci Fi?

Of course Steve doesn't walk on water. The engineers do. Seriously though, iCloud is a major undertaking and it's unclear whether it'll work as advertised. 200+M devices getting synced daily is quite a feat.

The first rule of not copyright infringement club is to not go around saying you were inspired by X. Start a billion dollar company then ask your lawyers if you don't believe me.

You can't copyright an idea.

Wait you started the copyright analogy. The bottom line is you can get sued over anything and saying "we're copying X" is a good way to get sued imho.

Compare some of the apps Apple just "killed" with Lala, Coverflow; the latter just seem like a win-win to me. Even if it's not technically the best deal for Apple the developer good will might just be worth it.

It looks almost as if they use the existence of startups as a guide for what products to build. Which is not that bad an idea tactically, considering that a successful startup is usually a sign of something that was missing in the world. But it could start to alienate hackers.

By this logic, iOS 6 will include Apple's version of Angry Birds.

Sarcasm aside, I get what you're trying to say, but I'm not so worried. It's not like Apple's going to just bundle in every successful business, they're clearly targeting specific gross functionality which benefits from unification.

As an end user, I'm very glad there will now be a unified place for to-dos which any app developer can hook into. Cloud storage for all my apps? Cool. A glorified bookmark feature in a web browser? Shocking.

Perhaps they might start to adopt a different model...instead of company=single product they might revert to a more traditional company=company with a range of offerings.

Even my local sandwich shop sells salads, chips and soda.

I disagree. No one can do what Apple can do for 'cloud services' so they are taking care of that.

Now if any developer wants to build 'such-and-such' feature, the cloud is ready to sync that data.

Another example: Rich Text Edit: Lots of apps can use that one! I really like what Apple is doing to take care of building services that we can all use, vs. keeping behind some walled garden where we have to either pay to use it or build it ourselves.

When twitter announced changes in their policies, you had said you will be concern about startups which are building on it.

Will you say you are now more concerned about startups (YC or not) which are building innovative apps for iOS?

This case seems different. The startups they're threatening aren't ones building stuff on IOS specifically.

It is more likely that startups are using gaps in the iOS product offering as a guide for what products to build. There are so many startups and so much interest in mobile that the intersection seems inevitable.

True of anything anywhere. Apple is not only your platform, but your competition.

Utility apps for Windows have been getting squashed by new versions of Windows for years and years.

- I used to run tools to move items around in my Task Bar. Now I can just do that in Windows 7.

- Or add-ons that told you the resolution of a photo without having to open it. Now you just roll your mouse over it.

- Red-Eye elimination and other basic photo functions showed up in Vista.

It's the way of the world. If you are a utility, you may become standard issue.

with such windows apps, you don't need to worry about Microsoft removing you from the only approved sales conduit.

No evidence whatsoever that Apple is going to do this with the affected app developers. And it seems like a pretty unlikely move.

why, they have removed apps for "duplicating iOS functionality" before.

Have they removed any, or simply not approved them in the first place? (Honest question.)

It would be pretty unexpected for them to be retroactively banned.

Apple removed Camera+ after it was in the app store. They removed them since they found a way to use the volume button as a shutter. Welcome iOS5.

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/08/apple-removes-camera-ipho...

The reason Apple gives is priceless:

Your application cannot be added to the App Store because it uses iPhone volume buttons in a non-standard way, potentially resulting in user confusion.

Of course, now it's standard. Say cheese.

That removal was not for duplicating existing functionality, as you correctly point out. So it's not really germane.

http://www.riverturn.com/blog/?p=455

Never that I know of when the functionality came first from the app then from iOS. This accusation is outlandish FUD-raking, not intelligent discussion.

That may be true, but what's the difference? If there's no reason to go looking for an app in the first place, it won't get found anyway.

For years Microsoft was/has been prevented from squeezing out 3rd party developers by the DoJ/Consent Decree. Why do you think Microsoft gives away an anti-virus product that you have to download and install separately? Because if they bundled it with Windows anti-virus vendors would lawyer up.

http://jcooney.net/post/2010/05/03/Why-doesnt-feature-X-exis...

If your app is useful and you don't have a patent don't be surprised if Apple copies it instead of buying you out.

Moral: Get a patent or get out of Apple's way.

EDIT: To the guys below that say patents don't matter because you can't beat Apple's deep pockets and patent portfolio in court: The patent does matter because after Apple buys you it can beat Google and Microsoft with it in court. Conversely, it doesn't want Google buying you doing the same.

Maybe the first time someone gave a reasonable reason why a startup may want to consider getting IP protection on HN.

With that said, is there anything stopping Apple from adding terms to their app store requiring you to license their technology to them, w/o limitation, for free? Given the strength of their app store, I could see them doing it if they needed to.

If you patent it, Apple will look at all the patents your app is infringing and do their app anyway. If you decide to sue them, they'll get back at you with all the patents you're infringing. Remember, patents are only useful for patent trolls (who don't sell software and therefor can't get sued) and for huge companies who have enough patents and money to retaliate.

Has that ever happened? I've seen small companies sue large ones -- but I must admit I've never seen a large company retaliate.

Relevant: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis...

EDIT: I should clarify it's relevant because of the Kodak case at the bottom. Kodak got away with suing Sun because it was so "small" in the software industry Sun couldn't use any of its own patents defensively to prevent the suit from going to court.

Conversely, Apple and Sun never got into a slug-fest because each side infringed on so many of the other's patents that neither side could get an advantage.

To get back to my original point, getting a patent will make you an acquisition target. Not because you can sue Apple when it copies you. But because Apple has the pockets to sue Google when it copies you.

Thanks for the edit. Sometimes context makes all the difference in the world. I deleted my other post that focused on the size of Sun.

And be ready to spend money to defend that patent.

Or better yet, rather than complaining that your market niche didn't exist, unchanged, in perpetuity, embrace competition and work to differentiate your product and make it better than Apple's offering.

Completely! People still believe in developing new things and not just trying to patent the market into a corner - right?

A lot of these arguments just don't seem very well thought out.

Apple's todo-list is going to kill Remember The Milk? Maybe, but there are hundreds of todo-list apps in the store already, all with subtly different semantics and presentation, none of which appears to have achieved dominance and killed all the others, even though many are free. Why should Apple's fare any differently?

And it's like that in every category. People predicted that Time Machine would kill SuperDuper. Well, it turns out that Time Machine is totally not a replacement for SuperDuper, and SuperDuper is very much alive, thank god. And Time Machine thrives as well, which is good, because the tools have different audiences and purposes.

Seems like any article like this one should include a link to that classic article about the guy who had a Starbucks open up next to his indie coffeeshop, and then a year later started looking around for locations near other Starbucks stores to open coffeeshops in. It would be a useful disclaimer, because sometimes the big player co-opts your niche, but sometimes it justs makes your niche more mainstream.

Completely agree - in fact, Remember The Milk is likely benefiting from the extra publicity the NYT and others are giving them today.

>Why should Apple's fare any differently?

Because it's bundled with the OS and will sit on the homescreen of every iOS device going forward?

Because, when my wife asked me to research a good to-do list for her the other day, it was because "Milk Sugar Eggs" wasn't on her phone's homescreen?

Instead of building those seperate solutions i really think Apple should build some general IPC/sharing model into the OS (like the intent system on android). It would enable so much more integration and open up all applications, i'd love that. I really miss that on my iPad, being able to just send the content i am viewing to random app/page X (articles to read it later, for example). Why rebuild read it later?

I guess the only reason is that this would open up the platform a bit more, this would be a horrible scenario: At breakfast i could read the web on my iPad, send interesting articles to "read it later", read those on my android in the train to work and the rest at work on my linux laptop..

The flip side of this is: "What apps are enabled by iOS 5?"

Just get them into the App Store quick before Apple adds them to iOS 5.x or 6.

It seems the author is missing the forest for the trees. It's not iOS 5 itself that is threatening apps, and not just apps. It's the entire Apple ecosystem which includes iOS 5, OS X Lion and iCloud versus everything else. With iCloud being free, and with iOS 5 being deeply integrated with Twitter, Apple is giving Google and FB the finger. No more indexable data through web crawlers.

It seems for most of these, the best way to compete will be to go multi-platform. That is something Apple won't be doing anytime soon.

Want a chat app that you can also use to talk to your Android-using friends? etc.

From the comments of the post:

> Hmmm, let's see, I paid my way to WWDC 2011 with my revenue from google ads on my website content - which are removed when using The Read feature in Safari. That content can also be mailed in full with no ads and no attributive link to friends.

This is actually also an interesting point. Could it be a sneaky way from Apple to push publishers to go Newsstand as their online ads are not working any longer?

Given the limitations of iCloud (only backs up purchased music, only syncs productivity docs created in iWork, etc.) I really can't see it killing my love of Dropbox.

I don't know if Boxcar is all that threatened. The notification wrangling it seemed to do seemed like an after-thought, so no doubt the new notifications will be better.

However, I use it and it has always seemed to me that its focus has been to create push notifications for services that otherwise wouldn't have them, such as email, twitter (before the official app added push), and others (they have an API).

"Apple clearly values their developers. They are a source of innovation and development. The company was proud to announce during the keynote that it had paid out more than $2.5 billion to developers."

Wait, what? They value developers by taking $1 billion of their revenue, and then eating their lunch?

I would worry more about the spotlight this brings on the functionality itself. The mainstreaming of deferred reading without ads is likely to inspire some kind of backlash from the content creators.

Most of these are moot for me because my laptop is a Mac and my desktop is Windows 7.

Chrome with sync set up, plus Dropbox, and I've covered basically everything on the list.

iOS is a mobile operating system.

It's not like this is new. Apple did the same in OS X. For instance, Spotlight replaced existing search software.

There's a little bit of a difference here in that Apple has set a precedent of removing applications in competition with features provided by the OS itself.

What apps has Apple ever removed because of a feature added to iOS after the app was originally approved for sale in the market?

I can't think of any examples.

So what refinements could Apple make, or what features could they add, without stepping on someone's toes?

Apple just pulled a Twitter!

It's a natural progression. Applications that add useful features to a platform get assimilated in the platform. The only news is it's happening rather more quickly than in the past. Apple is looking quite nimble.

Add another one to the list. Now that the native email client can sign and en/decrypt emails, there's no need for the enterprise email reader from Good http://www.good.com/iphone/

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