GanjSmokr:Wow, the rush of people to this thread tells me exactly how much people care. Even the fanbois don't really give a damn about this.
I think most reasonable people know that of those 100,000, there are a handful that are at least mildly useful. And of those, only some are reasonably priced.
The rest is a glut of garbage. And sometimes expensive garbage. Take for example the app Wobble. You load any picture you want in it, and place spheres over parts of the photo to distort that area based on the motion of the phone. Translation: Boobie jiggling app. And you get to pay $5 for this privileged.
I started a company that sells iPhone apps not too long ago, there's still money to be made for moderately decent and amusing apps -- though we're still getting started and not quite at the "omg quit my job it's easy street" level Shameless Plug (new window)
farkeruk:Grither: So the new droid phone with 10,000 apps isn't really at a disadvantage because of the number of apps available...
Just about any decent app you can think of for the iPhone has an equivalent on Android.
I'll attest to that during my run with the G1. Big name apps either go cross platform or have an equivalent. The new Google Maps on the Android 2.0 platform is especially nice. Free turn by turn navigation vs. the $100 or so apps for the iphone.
error 303:Sooo... still blocking that GoogleVoice app? Awesome. This is just one of the many reasons I'll not be renewing my AT&T contract next year.
google voice is awesome, I am going to drop my text message plan completely and just use that. The rest of the program is quite nice (using it on a Blackberry)
MightyPez:error 303: Sooo... still blocking that GoogleVoice app? Awesome. This is just one of the many reasons I'll not be renewing my AT&T contract next year.
That's the reason I shamelessly jailbroke my iPhone. It's not as nice as Google's ap, But GV for iPhone works decently.
I got my GV invite and added GV for iPhone the day before they killed it - certainly good enough, but has enough rough edges that an official app would be very welcome.
Treygreen13:How many of the 99,999 apps are literally identical clones of the same thing? I think there are at least 2,000 "Light" apps.
I dunno, how many FTP or SSH clients are there for Linux? Just because someone makes one doesn't mean that no one ever has to make another one. Competition breeds innovation.
Android may have 10,000 apps, but it doesn't yet have the competition among apps to produce a number of really good ones. Just because you have a Twitter app doesn't mean it's as good as Tweetie. Any old tower defense game isn't as good as FieldRunners. The iPhone app store takes a lot of heat for the innumerable light apps and iFart apps, but there are some incredibly well-done and useful apps in the store, too.
Hender:Treygreen13: How many of the 99,999 apps are literally identical clones of the same thing? I think there are at least 2,000 "Light" apps.
I dunno, how many FTP or SSH clients are there for Linux? Just because someone makes one doesn't mean that no one ever has to make another one. Competition breeds innovation.
Android may have 10,000 apps, but it doesn't yet have the competition among apps to produce a number of really good ones. Just because you have a Twitter app doesn't mean it's as good as Tweetie. Any old tower defense game isn't as good as FieldRunners. The iPhone app store takes a lot of heat for the innumerable light apps and iFart apps, but there are some incredibly well-done and useful apps in the store, too.
Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then. Having a large number of apps that fulfill the same function over and over and over and over doesn't warrant praise, at least from me.
I suppose for your analogy, somebody would have to have posted an article saying, "Finally, there are 10,000 FTP clients for Linux". Of course, nobody does that because nobody gives a damn.
Hender:Tweetie, Fieldrunners, USAA insurance/banking, PDXBus, NPR News, Beer Signal and GDSwarm all have Android versions?
There's Twidroid as a twitter client. Fieldrunners? Doubt it. USAA? Looks like it PDXNet? Portland Transit or TriMet Android App NPR News? Apparantly under development using the API. But don't quote me on that. Beer Signal? Well, Google Maps + Google Chat + Latitude gets close GD Swarm? No
You got ShopSavvy? Documents To Go? 3rd Party tethering? What I mean is that apps with quite broad coverage are generally covered. It is weak on games, but this should get better when Flash arrives...
And yet it's been nearly three months since Trillian for iPhone was submitted, and they have yet to hear back from Apple. All their requests for information just get form letters in return.
Treygreen13:Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then.
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
farkeruk:You got ShopSavvy? Documents To Go? 3rd Party tethering?
There's an app selling well right now called RedLaser that does barcode scanning and price comparisons. Is that what ShopSavvy does?
There is a native Documents to Go app for the iPhone.
Tethering seems to be limited entirely by AT&T. I don't care anyway--I have a gen 1 that would be pointless to tether.
VonAether:And yet it's been nearly three months since Trillian for iPhone was submitted, and they have yet to hear back from Apple. All their requests for information just get form letters in return.
I think everyone agrees that Apple's app store approval process is still in need of some work.
Hender:Treygreen13: Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then.
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
Treygreen13:Hender: Treygreen13: Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then.
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
Do you feel the same way about video games, movies, and news articles?
Just wondering where you draw the line of too many.
The_Six_Fingered_Man:Treygreen13: Hender: Treygreen13: Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then.
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
Do you feel the same way about video games, movies, and news articles?
Just wondering where you draw the line of too many.
I don't come here to find out what news articles are "good", I come here for the headlines. Nobody markets Fark by saying "We have 60,000 submissions a day!" or "Fark just crossed the 1 billionth headline submission mark".
Part of the problem of the "outside site" issue for iPhone apps is that when I look at the app store, there are a thousand user reviews of the most popular apps, and the first 185 are "this is good my sister likes it lol".
DarkJohnson
2009-11-04 01:20:19 PM
iPhone app gold rush, officially ends.
GanjSmokr
2009-11-04 03:49:12 PM
Handsome B. Wonderful
2009-11-04 03:51:48 PM
Grither
2009-11-04 03:55:30 PM
So the new droid phone with 10,000 apps isn't really at a disadvantage because of the number of apps available...
MightyPez
2009-11-04 03:57:50 PM
I think most reasonable people know that of those 100,000, there are a handful that are at least mildly useful. And of those, only some are reasonably priced.
The rest is a glut of garbage. And sometimes expensive garbage. Take for example the app Wobble. You load any picture you want in it, and place spheres over parts of the photo to distort that area based on the motion of the phone. Translation: Boobie jiggling app. And you get to pay $5 for this privileged.
farkeruk
2009-11-04 03:58:00 PM
Just about any decent app you can think of for the iPhone has an equivalent on Android.
mikem004
2009-11-04 03:58:11 PM
tweekster
2009-11-04 04:00:07 PM
I would call the smaller app base a benefit. Less crap to weed through. With 10K apps the useful stuff will be covered.
MightyPez
2009-11-04 04:00:10 PM
Just about any decent app you can think of for the iPhone has an equivalent on Android.
I'll attest to that during my run with the G1. Big name apps either go cross platform or have an equivalent. The new Google Maps on the Android 2.0 platform is especially nice. Free turn by turn navigation vs. the $100 or so apps for the iphone.
Hender
2009-11-04 04:00:26 PM
Just about any decent app you can think of for the iPhone has an equivalent on Android.
Tweetie, Fieldrunners, USAA insurance/banking, PDXBus, NPR News, Beer Signal and GDSwarm all have Android versions?
error 303
2009-11-04 04:01:13 PM
crazyntacoma
2009-11-04 04:01:43 PM
MightyPez
2009-11-04 04:02:18 PM
That's the reason I shamelessly jailbroke my iPhone. It's not as nice as Google's ap, But GV for iPhone works decently.
tweekster
2009-11-04 04:02:24 PM
google voice is awesome, I am going to drop my text message plan completely and just use that. The rest of the program is quite nice (using it on a Blackberry)
ThatGuyGreg
2009-11-04 04:13:25 PM
That's the reason I shamelessly jailbroke my iPhone. It's not as nice as Google's ap, But GV for iPhone works decently.
I got my GV invite and added GV for iPhone the day before they killed it - certainly good enough, but has enough rough edges that an official app would be very welcome.
NuclearPenguins
2009-11-04 04:18:17 PM
Treygreen13
2009-11-04 04:26:35 PM
Hender
2009-11-04 04:31:57 PM
I dunno, how many FTP or SSH clients are there for Linux? Just because someone makes one doesn't mean that no one ever has to make another one. Competition breeds innovation.
Android may have 10,000 apps, but it doesn't yet have the competition among apps to produce a number of really good ones. Just because you have a Twitter app doesn't mean it's as good as Tweetie. Any old tower defense game isn't as good as FieldRunners. The iPhone app store takes a lot of heat for the innumerable light apps and iFart apps, but there are some incredibly well-done and useful apps in the store, too.
Treygreen13
2009-11-04 04:41:54 PM
I dunno, how many FTP or SSH clients are there for Linux? Just because someone makes one doesn't mean that no one ever has to make another one. Competition breeds innovation.
Android may have 10,000 apps, but it doesn't yet have the competition among apps to produce a number of really good ones. Just because you have a Twitter app doesn't mean it's as good as Tweetie. Any old tower defense game isn't as good as FieldRunners. The iPhone app store takes a lot of heat for the innumerable light apps and iFart apps, but there are some incredibly well-done and useful apps in the store, too.
Then we should have a story about how many great apps there are, then. Having a large number of apps that fulfill the same function over and over and over and over doesn't warrant praise, at least from me.
I suppose for your analogy, somebody would have to have posted an article saying, "Finally, there are 10,000 FTP clients for Linux". Of course, nobody does that because nobody gives a damn.
farkeruk
2009-11-04 04:42:05 PM
There's Twidroid as a twitter client.
Fieldrunners? Doubt it.
USAA? Looks like it
PDXNet? Portland Transit or TriMet Android App
NPR News? Apparantly under development using the API. But don't quote me on that.
Beer Signal? Well, Google Maps + Google Chat + Latitude gets close
GD Swarm? No
You got ShopSavvy? Documents To Go? 3rd Party tethering? What I mean is that apps with quite broad coverage are generally covered. It is weak on games, but this should get better when Flash arrives...
VonAether
2009-11-04 04:43:27 PM
Hender
2009-11-04 04:52:46 PM
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
farkeruk: You got ShopSavvy? Documents To Go? 3rd Party tethering?
There's an app selling well right now called RedLaser that does barcode scanning and price comparisons. Is that what ShopSavvy does?
There is a native Documents to Go app for the iPhone.
Tethering seems to be limited entirely by AT&T. I don't care anyway--I have a gen 1 that would be pointless to tether.
VonAether: And yet it's been nearly three months since Trillian for iPhone was submitted, and they have yet to hear back from Apple. All their requests for information just get form letters in return.
I think everyone agrees that Apple's app store approval process is still in need of some work.
Treygreen13
2009-11-04 05:00:22 PM
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
The_Six_Fingered_Man
2009-11-04 05:04:12 PM
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
Do you feel the same way about video games, movies, and news articles?
Just wondering where you draw the line of too many.
Treygreen13
2009-11-04 05:10:57 PM
Apple highlights them with their ads. :)
But seriously, there are app review sites and subsites of places like Ars Technica, Engadget and Gizmodo that review good apps all the time. The fact that there are now 100,000 apps just means to me that I've seen or used perhaps 0.0001% of them.
Apple's trumpeting of 100,000 apps is just to trumpet how many developers they have coding for their platform. I think that's a pretty good metric to use in some situations.
If the ones they showcase on their ads are the good ones, then you have about 25 good apps, and 99,975 wastes of data.
Well, I'm not impressed with the sheer volume, and if I have to go to an outside source to figure out which ones are good, then there are way, way too many.
Having 100,000 apps is just too many for there to be approved for a platform, especially considering so many reported problems getting legitimate apps approved.
Do you feel the same way about video games, movies, and news articles?
Just wondering where you draw the line of too many.
I don't come here to find out what news articles are "good", I come here for the headlines. Nobody markets Fark by saying "We have 60,000 submissions a day!" or "Fark just crossed the 1 billionth headline submission mark".
Part of the problem of the "outside site" issue for iPhone apps is that when I look at the app store, there are a thousand user reviews of the most popular apps, and the first 185 are "this is good my sister likes it lol".