Core iOS apps being replaced, one at a time | Hacker News Reader

Core iOS apps being replaced, one at a time

bijansabet.com

43 pointsilldave49 comments

Are you certain this isn't just you?

I've heard of exactly one of the dozen-odd apps you listed, and that one only because it's been on the frontpage of HN so often. I don't have a copy of it though.

I think that people who customize their iPhones to this level just assume that it's normal to do so. Among people I know who have them, there's a sharp divide between the small percent who have seven pages of apps and most people I know who have maybe 3 or 4 apps installed.

What he said.

The vast, vast majority of 'regular' iPhone users have never, and will never hear of the apps described in this post. For them, the default apps are just fine.

That's not to disparage the choice, just to recognise that regular users don't care about this kind of thing one bit.

That would imply the App Store is completely useless and not a huge factor for the continuous success of iOS devices. I think you can see how wrong you are.

The thing is, not everyone will customize all apps, but everyone will customize at least one app, be it a better todo list, a better IM, a better picture-taking app, or a better recipe database. Which is why the appstore is so popular.

EDIT: clearly the "regular users" I know are different from everybody else. The North of England must be a hive of phone-geeks living in some sort of bubble.

That's not what I've implied at all.

Everyone will customise their experience of the device, by adding what they like from the store.

My point is that, more often than not, these users won't replace core apps like Mail or Calendar - these apps work just fine for most people and there's no incentive to change.

There is no incentive... until there is. The default camera app doesn't zoom. The default music player won't create playlists (edit -- sorry, it does; what I meant is that there is no queuing to the now-playing like in old iPods). The default todo app won't do cloud sync (well, it does now, but it wasn't the case before). And so on -- as soon as your usage of a particular app increases over a certain threshold, you'll encounter a corner case and head for the appstore to get a better app. So a photographer will have five picture-related apps and never touch the default one, while using the default mail client; a lifehacker will have fifteen hyper-specialized ToDo apps and never touch the default one, while using the default camera app.

The default camera does zoom. Just 'pinch to zoom' and it shows a slider as well.

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but you can zoom in the default camera app with the pinching gesture. And the only todo app for the iPhone has had iCloud support from day one, since it was first released with iOS5.

You cannot zoom when recording video, afaik.

Also, iCloud was announced in June 2011; plenty of todo apps had cloud sync well before that, when Apple simply didn't provide the service.

The default music player does allow you to create playlists.

Or they'll add Angry Birds, which doesn't replace anything. I'd wager that's the far more common scenario.

100% agree.

My case: ToDo: Wunderlist, now (Apple's) Reminders

Chat: Kik, now (Apple's) Messages

Photo editing (iPad): Snapseed, now iPhoto

Video chat: Skype, now FaceTime

The remainder of apps I use the native ones, given the iCloud integration with iPhone and iPad (Calendar, Address Book, etc.) Final note, I use Sparrow as my Mac client, but now way I would use it on the iPhone given the lack of push notification, that is simply a step backwards.

Bijan is not straight in this type of posts, where he is an investor, wants to be an investor and/or wants to give a hand to other fellow VCs. Anytime a VC says something about a company you just need to figure out his/her motives and incentives.

I have about a hundred installed apps, but I use the default email, browser, notes, calendar, camera and dialer.

The question is; would I still do that if third party apps had a chance to interact better?

Stuff like opening files in another app just barely works. I can open an emailed PDF Dropbox, but Once it is saved in the right folder and uploaded (what I probably wanted), there is no way to transfer control back to the original app.

This should work more like the email/sms dialog that can be called from any app, and transfers control back to the app when it is done.

You can replace the built-in apps with different ones but this can go only go so far as to change the icons you tap on dashboard. The lack of unified way for apps to interact with each other is seriously crippling the platform's capabilities.

As I use both an iPad and Android phone on daily basis, I'm find this especially lacking in tablet setting. An app wants to open a web page in standalone browser? They will always do that in Safari. Sending an email? Only through the default app. About the only 3rd party application that I can consistently use from more than one place is probably Read It Later (called Pocket now) - and that's only because apps' developers took time specifically to integrate with it.

And that's basically how it works on iOS now: for application X to interact with Y, it must specifically account for Y. Any similar replacement app Y' or Y'' will not be supported unless handled separately. It's easy to see how this model doesn't scale to diversity.

Perhaps Apple can borrow something from Microsoft. Contracts seem like the perfect way to add cross-app communication in a restrictive App Store-only environment.

The really crippling constraint on iOS is the keyboard. After using Swype on Android for a while it is excruciatingly slow and tedious pecking out text one letter at a time on an iPhone.

I'm using an iPhone these days because that's the platform I develop for and I don't really miss the flexibility of the Android intents much generally but the chilling effect Apple's control can have on innovation is really glaringly obvious in the keyboard.

I think you're missing Xion's point and taking the opportunity to complain about a pet peeve you have with the platform.

Personally, I couldn't agree more with what he's saying. Users of other platforms (like Android) have had the ability for apps to interoperate (with intents, for example) since the very beginning, and IOS is dramatically behind in this regard.

My point is that, having used both, I don't miss the interoperability that Android offers via intents. It sounds good on paper but in practice it just gave me meaningless choices. But the ability to upgrade the keyboard was huge.

Just like for you upgrading the keyboard was huge, for me upgrading the browser was huge.

The fact that the platform encourages this sort of thing is key.

I can't say that these are my big pain points. Intents are elegant, but apps are a comfortable model. Just as everyone has been conditioned by the modern web to "open webpage X to do action X", you "open app X to do action X". The workflow isn't as elegant, but in blurring the line between the app and the document I'd argue that they've done most users a favor. You'd be amazed at how few people are aware of the "open with" dialogue in Windows.

More than intents and access, I think apps need more memory and the ability to do some background processing. I keep going back to Safari because the fine third party alternatives seem to fall out of memory much more easily.

My biggest pain point with iOS is waiting for web enabled apps to load data. I'd like to see the top 5 pictures on my Instagram feed and the top 10 or so Facebook updates the instant I click the app icon. I'd like Dropbox and Kindle to refresh my document list whenever it changes. I'd like cloud-enabled notes apps to sync/update before I open the app. Of course, this requires some management (user controls,bandwidth limits, battery level, etc.), but nothing Apple can't handle.

It's going to be interesting in the long term how the battle between consistency and flexibility/innovation plays out.

In general people seem to be happier using the software that they know everyone else is using even if they hate it (case in point, pretty much every version of Windows).

On the other hand when a "killer app" comes along that is a big enough step forward to make everybody pay attention, this is more likely to happen on the most "open" platform.

Apple has done well so far because a significant enough of these "killer apps" have been developed by them in house.

Take web browsers for instance, even though HN will argue the merits of various browsers endlessly from an end user point of view they are usually all so similar as to make no difference.

However with iphone you are essentially locked to safari (or other browsers which are essentially safari skins).

What would happen if a third party developed a completely new browser that revolutionized mobile browsing?

If that were not available on iPhone due to apple's policies then what would happen to their market share?

If that were not available on iPhone due to apple's policies then what would happen to their market share?

Then they'd allow it (if they couldn't co-opt it).

Apple's interest in Safari and restrictions on the App Store / customizability extend only to allowing them to make hardware that many people want to buy. There's never going to come a day that something so great that everybody has to have it and that runs afoul of the App Store policies comes along and Apple decides to ride a sinking ship of App Store protectionism into meaninglessness. Policies will adapt as they need to in order to continue selling their platform.

That's what is interesting though, will it mean that over time Apple will eventually have to start dropping their various restrictions one by one. Or does it mean as you suggested that they will just try and co-opt all the good stuff that everybody else is doing into their own software/devices which could lead to them spending large amounts of manpower essentially running on a treadmill.

History doesn't show them to have had to drop many restrictions; I don't see why that would suddenly change. I've always thought that it's hard to come up with a killer app that would run afoul of the guidelines that's not outside what Apple's trying to make their devices good at. I think the record bears this out. I don't think that's because Apple is co-opting so much stuff, it's because their guidelines allow what the overwhelming majority of useful apps need in order to be useful to the overwhelming majority of people. (Because most people want devices that are good at what Apple tries to make their devices good at.)

It's easy to come up with an idea for something cool that requires access to capabilities that aren't permissible in the App Store (constantly running in the background, access to execute downloaded/arbitrary code) and it'd be a horrible shame for there not to exist devices that can do those things out-of-the-box, but the fact that they've so far been forced to bend very few of the rules implies that there's proportionately very little demand for such things.

That's some pretty twisted logic there. By that logic, if Microsoft had banned other browsers from appearing on Windows then because no other browser ever shipped for Windows that would be proof there was no demand for other browsers? Really, that's your logic?

The fact that useful alternatives with possibly better interfaces and/or better features (not just more but better) is something we'll never know if there is a demand for because Apple bans them before we get a chance to know.

Maybe a Hypercard for iOS would take off but apps that make apps are banned. Maybe an Amazon music store or a Google Play music store or a beatport music store would take off but apps that sell music are banned. Maybe a browser that is faster, or more secure or provided more features would take off but we'll never know because they're banned.

We really only have 2 data points. Windows and OSX. As far as I know on both OSes the browser provided by the OS provider is used by fewer users than other browsers. I don't know what the numbers are on OSX but even if Safari has the highest percentage (doubtful) if Firefox+Chrome+Others have a higher percentage than Safari that would still mean more people are picking something other than Apple's offering.

My point was not that there's no demand whatsoever nor that no disallowed apps might ever take off if they were to be allowed, but simply that Apple doesn't feel significant pressure from their customers to reduce their restrictions and I don't see that changing.

I use all the default iOS and Mac apps (except for Safari - I prefer Chrome).

I've found that Apple eventually incorporates the best features of these alternative apps into their core apps anyhow.

This is exactly the design of Android that makes so many people dislike it. the Intents API does literally everything that you mention. It is effectively somewhat annoying in certain situations, but I think it's probably going to win.

edit: typo

In what ways is it annoying? (I don't have day-to-day usage experience with an Android device.)

it's a little too agressive. for example, i set it so firefox automatically handles all web links, and that means it is impossible to use the stock browser anymore. opening the browser and loading the homepage triggers an intent to load a webpage, so android opens firefox and loads the homepage there.

also, it can get a little annoying to constantly be asked what app you want to use to do things, but this annoyance goes as you click the "don't ask me again" checkbox for more and more intents.

My own usage barely strays from the default apps that Apple includes. If anything, I'd argue that Apple has done a great job with updating and keeping those relevant to what I need from my phone.

Well that's an easy fix: If you're clamoring for this kind of customization freedom, go get yourself an Android device.

This is what ultimately led me to replace my iPhone4 with a Galaxy Nexus last week. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Not alone, but in a small minority of consumers.

How easy would it be for apple to allow apps to register themselves with the ability to open certain files/handle certain situations and then present that in the system menu for those who want to tinker with that?

    default web browser    >
    default music          >
    etc.

That already exists:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/FileMa...

That's not what he meant. All mailto: links will open in the mail app. All http:// links will open in Safari. You want to take a picture from your twitter app? You want to share to twitter from the camera app? You have to use Apple's implementation, you can't push it through your favorite twitter app.

But it's sort of what you meant. I see "Open in Dropbox" and "Open in Camera+" quite frequently. Here's more on how that works: http://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2012/01/tip-missing-apps-i...

The URL style technique is supported as well, you can send data to another app by using it's URL scheme.

It's not a perfect implementation (you can't change the defaults like mail://), but I believe that's intentional.

Looks like this is a run-time version of what I posted. Thanks

There is a difference between how easy it is and if Apple wants to allow it. The percentage of people who want to do this on a widely adopted consumer platform like iOS is small. I doubt Apple will ever allow this, it wouldn't significantly increase sales vs. support complexity/platform simplicity. Considering Apple is extracting the majority of the dollars from the smartphone market already I doubt they're too worried about losing the tweakers to Android.

Its been said but I would like to point out that this type of customization is trivial on android. The ability to customize many parts of my phone is one of the reasons enjoy using the platform. I have recently seen online communities springing up with non-coders showing off their individualized android phones.

Hmm... some of the apps mentioned have costs, some require logins, some don't integrate well with other apps, some don't exactly rock the design department. While each of them has something to love, I don't know how much real scale this "replacement" process is. B/c to get some of these great features, I have to give up confidence that it's "Apple vetted and integrated". For a techie, it's a relief to have a non-apple capability, but I wonder about the average consumer, who likes the "free, integrated, no accounts/logins required, apple-ly cute" aspects of default apps.

If anything, I expect to see things go the other way: Apple will replace google maps with it's own maps, and any other app that we really love a lot will have an Apple analog: integrated deeply but controlled by them. Siri was but the first step, I fear.

Actually, I do not think so. Apple would have nothing to gain from integrating own Apps further and/or producing more of them.

However, they have something to gain if the mail app is not good enough for powerusers and all of them buy Sparrow instead. That saves them a whole lot of developer/maintenance time and gets them 30% of every e.g. Sparrow sold. While that may not be Apples main incentive, it is definitely something I think.

The only default app I have "replaced" is the calculator app. I use calctimate. http://www.skypaw.com/apps/calctimate/ However, that app isn't important and never is triggered to launch by other apps (like mail or safari). Plus, I only use it maybe once a month.

Also, you can set default clients if you jailbreak. However, I just think everything is so much smoother and faster when you use the default apps Apple provides.

I use soulver instead of calculator. It's sweet.

I use m48 - mirrors native look and evaluate in rpn.

Digits is my tool of choice, great design and function.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/digits-calculator-for-ipad/id...

The default apps work fine for me... I use "notes" and sync it with my google account using the default mail app. The only 3rd party app I use a lot is "WhatsApp" - and that's just to text some friends around the globe.

I then have a few games and some useful server monitoring apps... as well as some comics. 3-4 pages of 3rd party apps maybe? But none of them replace the defaults for me...

I wouldn't count on it any time soon. Currently those apps are going to be the ones you get because the iPad /iPhone is still somewhat of a specialty device. I don't think we'll see it iOS 6 but possibly in later versions of the operating system. As the platform becomes even more mature and people begin to use it more as a primary device I can see Apple letting you swap out default apps.

You missed Groups replacing Contacts :)

http://groups.qbix.com

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