
Ten apps is all I need - sant0sk1
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2959-ten-apps-is-all-i-need
======
jdietrich
The iPhone had sold millions of units before the app store launched. A
significant proportion of iPhone and iPad users have downloaded less than a
handful of apps.

I'm very much of the opinion that apps were more effective as a viral
marketing strategy than as a truly attractive feature. People talk about apps,
people show their friends, but most of the non-geeks I know don't actually use
anything but the built in apps, a Twitter or Facebook app and Angry Birds. A
lot of people in the comments are generalising from their own experience and
that of their peers, which is just a classic geek mistake.

I think Apple have been clever in perpetrating the myth that the App Store
gives them an unassailable "ecosystem", but I think what really sold the
iPhone was the fact that it's core features were so damned _useable_. Their
rivals have been falling over each other to attract developers, when they
should probably have been working on making the core features work better.

Look at the stats on mobile data usage - until the iPhone came along, nobody
really bothered to use their smartphone's browser because the experience was
so unpleasant. At one point 99% of all mobile data was being used by Mobile
Safari. Android is catching up, but iPhone users still spend a
disproportionate amount of time using their phone's browser. That has nothing
to do with an "ecosystem".

~~~
jimbokun
"and Angry Birds"

I bet games is the big exception here. I bet many of the "non-geeks"
referenced by you and others in this thread have downloaded a few games to
their iPhone, and would be much less likely to switch to a competitor that
didn't have the same games or games that were just as good.

One more counter data point: at a party last Saturday in a room with a bunch
of non-geek college kids, fiddling with their iPhones, one of them
spontaneously asks "Hey, what's that app that can tell you the name of a song
if you hold it up to the microphone?" One of the other college kids quickly
confirmed that it was called Shazam.

~~~
timknauf
Don't underestimate the power games have to give a platform staying power. The
prevailing sentiment in past discussions here has often been that games are
interchangeable distractions, but there's a big portion of the public that is
incredible passionate about their favourites and thus the platform on which
they run. (We've been taken aback at the fan loyalty shown to some of our
games, and this is stuff that's barely even troubled the lower reaches of the
charts.)

~~~
frossie
Bingo. It is all very well to say "I and my business buddies only use 10
apps". Go have a look at a random teenager's iPhone and if they are not full
of game apps I will eat my hat.

And yes there are a lot if kids with iPhones out there, either as full phones
or without phone service. Where do you think all the previous generation
devices are going?

In a family the app-store represents significant lock-in, both in collective
$$ spent on apps and media, but also in the device hand me down chain. I bet
there is a lot of pressure against one of the parents switching to an N9 all
of a sudden.

Brand new smartphone users or company issues are (maybe) a different issue.

~~~
cageface
Games also tend to be the most portable and least "sticky" of all apps though.
Most games are written with cross-platform engines or toolkits. If an app is a
huge hit on iPhone you're likely to see it on Android not long after.

------
m0nastic
I feel like he's missing the point of an ecosystem.

It's fine that he only uses a few apps on his phone, and that most other
people probably do the same.

The problem is that those "few apps" that most other people use aren't the
same "few apps" that he uses.

~~~
dhh
I've heard that mentioned before, but that's not what I'm seeing. I don't use
10 random apps from the App Store. I use the 10 default apps that come with
the phone. Except for Twitter, I consider the 3rd party apps to be completely
expendable without materially affecting my enjoyment of the phone.

From other "just a few apps on a daily basis" users I've seen, they tend to
use the default apps as well. It's not a random cross section of the 200K apps
in the App Store.

~~~
achompas
_Except for Twitter..._

This is a variation of m0nitaly's point: I would say "except for Instapaper,
Reeder, and Twitter..." and Jasber would say "except for Rdio and
RunKeeper..."

Even if apps 1-10 are native, I'm hanging onto my iPhone for numbers 11 and
12. The native iOS experience is great, but those two or three non-native apps
make it sublime.

~~~
esrauch
I still think that is really only true of the "geek" crowd. I am pretty sure
none of my real life friends that weren't computer science majors have even
heard of Instapaper or Reeder or Rdio or RunKeeper. The majority of the
"number 11" apps that I use are mainly because either they don't have a
workable mobile site (HN) or the mobile website doesn't quite work well enough
(reddit, imdb, possibly facebook) but the latter category should be fixed just
from phones getting slightly better and certain mobile oriented technologies
coming out (like HTML5 offline support).

On a side note (not related to current enjoyment of phones) I really think
it's not too long until the only things that are necessarily apps use lower
hardware features (GPS, compass, camera, Shazam, game graphics), with even
some of those possibly moving into the browser (disclosing location to sites
already exists on desktop, Google just launched voice search on their desktop
search).

I also think its a bit disingenuous to put the Twitter app (not an alternate
third party Twitter app) in the same category as the others. Right now, a new
mobile device would probably have a Twitter app and maybe even a Facebook app
as a "native" app. When I got my phone Twitter and Facebook was already
installed on it, equally presented alongside all the "native" apps like
Googles, Maps, Music, Navigation, etc.

~~~
achompas
_I still think that is really only true of the "geek" crowd. I am pretty sure
none of my real life friends that weren't computer science majors have even
heard of Instapaper or Reeder or Rdio or RunKeeper._

I disagree. I have friends who love Tiny Wings, Angry Birds, Pandora, the DC
Next Bus app, SimpleNote, NPR and Fruit Ninja. Most of these are iOS-only, and
those that are not have abysmal Android versions.

As for Twitter being native: are we talking about the Twitter for iOS app?
Because the iOS app is indispensable relative to other options.

~~~
smackfu
True, non-geek people just have different apps. Not Instapaper, but Facebook.
The stuff that is in the top 10.

------
saturdaysaint
If "all you need is 10 apps", then the platform is relatively unimportant, and
it doesn't matter if you're just distributing someone else's software.

Personally, I'd add a few apps to his "must have" list - Kindle, Netflix,
Wunderlist, Rdio, Facebook, iTalk (Dropbox-enabled voice recorder), Dropbox,
Instacast (high quality podcast app), Downloads, The Economist, VNC software,
Audible, ComicZeal... Also, I expect a robust tablet ecosystem, strong
syncing/backup capabilities and good accessories. The N9 isn't looking too
attractive to me.

~~~
esrauch
I've found the Facebook Android app to be lacking compared to their mobile
site, maybe the iPhone app is better. As for Kindle, Netflix, VNC, and
ComicZeal I just could not fathom actually using a 3 inch screen for visual
media. I've used the Netflix app once or twice when I didn't have easy access
to a laptop, but those situations are exceedingly rare and the experience was
very lackluster. They also completely murdered my battery so I pretty much had
to have my phone plugged in if I planned on having any power to use my phone
in a few hours, so the application of it would be seriously limited.

It feels like you are confounding iPhone and iOS in general (you specifically
mentioned tablet ecosystem). The N9 is a phone and I cannot fathom why you
would care that the OS that your phone runs on has a robust tablet ecosystem.
I also feel like you have must have a very unusual lifestyle to consider
Kindle and Netflix apps on your phone at all imperative; do you have an
unusual commute or something?

~~~
bad_user
Meh, it got better -- what I like about my Android is that it can sync
Facebook contacts with my contacts list, giving me extra emails (or phone
numbers, but maybe that was an illusion) -- and most importantly, I have my
friends avatars in my contacts, without me bothering to go out of my way to
take their pictures.

So the Android/Facebook integration is useful for me.

I do tend to agree with DHH -- besides the browser, GMail and Maps, I only use
3 apps I got from the Marketplace, plus one that I built myself.

Other than that I don't bother, as my laptop is much better for everything
else and when going out I only feel the need to stay connected, otherwise I
would rather drink beer or play with my kid, rather than playing stupid games
that are no match for the games I used to play in the 90-ties, or watch movies
on a shitty screen.

It is useful for commuting to work though, but that doesn't help me as I'm 5
minutes away from my work-place and I also have the freedom to work from home
when I feel like doing it.

DHH said it better, but I had the same impression - people are overestimating
the importance of an App Store. It's useful to be sure, but the phone can
initially sell without it.

------
kkowalczyk
One can wonder if a platform becomes successful because of a rich ecosystem of
apps or if rich ecosystem of apps follows success of a platform, but the
undeniable fact of life is: every successful computing platform also has a
rich ecosystem of apps. Be it Windows, Mac OS, web, iphone, playstation or
Commodore 64.

So reality strongly hints that you cannot have successful computing platform
without a rich ecosystem of apps.

If you've read reviews of Android tablets, there was one thing that every
reviewer brought up: there are no tablet-specific appsh. Applying Ockham's
razor, is it because:

a) reviewers are part of world-wide anti-Android tablet conspiracy that
coordinates talking points in their reviews

b) we have a freak statistical event of reviewers being in sync in their out-
of-touchiness wrt. what is important for potential tablet buyers

c) people actually do care about having lots of apps to choose from

Do we really have tens of thousands gullible developers who write hundreds of
thousands of apps that nobody wants or buys, or maybe, just maybe, developers
are following the money and writing apps because people are actually buying
and using them?

~~~
windsurfer
Compare and contrast A and B. A has features X and Y. B only has feature X. B
is missing Y. Reviewer complains.

~~~
kkowalczyk
I give reviewers a little bit more credit than that and believe they are
capable of telling a difference between important and marginal.

~~~
smackfu
Reviewers have been pretty terrible forever. See: any review framework that
enforces a Pros & Cons list at the end.

------
robenkleene
It is worth pointing out that this is 37 Signals. Which means, just by
dogfood-ing, they get rid of many of the major 3rd party app categories.

Productivity software make up a lot of the most useful 3rd party apps, and 37
Signals makes web productivity software that cover the same territory.

It doesn't mean their point isn't still interesting, it's just good to
remember context.

------
kleiba
I don't have a Smartphone, but I can relate to the basic notion very much. I
mainly do desktop computing, and lots of it, but pretty much all I ever need
are four "apps": the shell, a browser, an email client, and Emacs. That's what
I use 95% of the time. Then a PDF viewer, OpenOffice.org, and every now and
then the Gimp or Inkscape. So basically, 10 apps is all I need, too.

But at the same time, if I scroll through synaptics there are many, many
packages that I have installed over the years. Most of them I probably used
only once or twice, unless they're libraries. But for those couple of times,
it was great having the "ecosystem" to get them with a simple click.

So I suppose it's always a mixture: the 10 apps you use 95% of the time should
rock. But the remaining 5% should be painless, too.

~~~
dave1010uk
FYI, as the N9 is based on Debian, most of the programs you mentioned should
run on it. I use OpenOffice.org and The Gimp occasionally on my phone if I
really _need_ to (the 3.5" screen is not ideal but it works).

~~~
kleiba
Cool! Is it possible to attach a screen, a mouse and a keyboard to a
Smartphone? That should be fun...

~~~
dave1010uk
Phones that support USB host (or USB on the go) could have a keyboard / mouse.
I've done that with my N900. I don't think the N9 supports USB host out of the
box but I bet some enterprising hackers will get it working. The N9 also has
TV out (but not HDMI).

You could, alternatively, connect the keyboard / mouse via USB. Nokia's N8 has
USB host and HDMI out but runs the Symbian platform. Here's a demo of the N8
connected to a TV & a keyboard / mouse:
[http://dailymobile.se/2010/10/07/nokia-n8-hdmi-bluetooth-
key...](http://dailymobile.se/2010/10/07/nokia-n8-hdmi-bluetooth-
keyboardmouse-win/)

~~~
kleiba
That sounds mighty cool, thanks for the info.

------
petekp
Mostly agree with David’s points. I have at least 30 apps on my iPhone. Of
those, I use 5-6 on a regular basis, half of which were developed by Apple and
came pre-installed.

The endless variety of the app store is impressive, but there’s so much cruft
in there it’s beginning to feel more like an app Walmart. A large fraction are
either redundant or slapped together to make a quick buck.

I’d trade the majority of my apps just to have more seamless interaction with
those aspects of this device I find most useful; the camera app in particular.
It’s perplexing that Apple has just now decided to allow us to use a volume
button as a shutter. I’ll forgive that on the basis of the brilliant decision
to add a camera shortcut on the lock screen — that is an example of the type
of improvements that really make a difference in the everyday utility of these
incredible pocket machines.

Whoever masters the art of making it easy for a five-fingered hand to
effortlessly soar through those fundamental functions it’s difficult to
imagine being without (phone, messaging, browser and camera in particular) is
who will ultimately earn my dollar. /raaant

~~~
ja27
On my phone (Android) I regularly use Touchdown (Exchange email), GMail,
Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Talk, PdaNet, Google Maps, GPS Status,
c:geo (geocaching), WeatherBug, Pomodroido, Wireless Tether and somewhat
regularly use Evernote, Dropbox, and NXT Remote (drives LEGO bots).

On my iPod Touch besides the built-in apps I pretty regularly use Facebook,
Twitter, Foursquare, Stanza (e-reader), YouVersion Bible, Evernote,
PomodoroLE, iTalk, Skype, NYTimes, ESPN ScoreCenter, Opera Mini, VLC, and two
of my company's own apps. I regularly play a few games: the Angry Birds line,
StarDunk, Trainyard, HarborMaster, LEGO Harry Potter, Dungeon Raid, Words With
Friends and Carcassonne. Every couple of weeks I use Yelp, Urban Spoon,
Geocaching, and Wolfram Alpha.

My phone is a bit crippled due to slow speed and lack of space or else I'd use
a more apps there. I pretty much grab every interesting iOS app that I see and
give it a try.

------
AndrewDucker
I don't _need_ apps.

But why would I switch from a phone that has apps for Spotify, real time
updates for local buses, Facebook and Twitter to one that doesn't?

~~~
dave1010uk
I know it's not really the point but the N9 has a Facebook / Twitter client
built in. There's a few Spotify clients already for Maemo (what the N9 is
based on) so I expect there to be at least one before the N9 launches.

------
hnsmurf
The problem is everyone has a different 10 apps they "need" and even if you
figure only 1% of apps fall into that category for someone, there's still a
lot of value in a platform of 200k apps.

------
switch
What monastic wrote:

 __ __ __* I feel like he's missing the point of an ecosystem. It's fine that
he only uses a few apps on his phone, and that most other people probably do
the same. The problem is that those "few apps" that most other people use
aren't the same "few apps" that he uses. __ __ __ __ __ __ __*

All the arguments against this are arguments made by people not willing to
step out of their own perspective.

1) The particular apps that are critical vary per person. 2) The number of
such critical apps vary per person. 3) The weight given to these apps when
valuing the iPhone varies per person.

Most importantly - in a system where iPhone is already as good or better (or
if you have religion of openness, a little worse) than nearly every other
phone - the apps become a huge advantage.

------
smackfu
He doesn't use his phones for games at all. I think that is a fairly common
use among those who buy apps.

------
EdgarZambrana
This is why Windows Phone is so much better than the competition. It
integrates all of the most commonly used features in a smartphone into a
simple, cohesive experience.

------
briggsbio
I'm taking a different read of this article, I guess. I view this not as a
"who cares what phone I use, since I rarely use the 3rd party apps." I take
this, and some other commenters do as well who have significant usage of some
3rd party apps (Netflix, Kindle, Instapaper, et al), as a challenge to build
better apps that provide more functionality. Every time I look down at that 4"
screen and think about all the things I can do with it, I still look at it and
think, "Good lord, there is SO MUCH MORE we haven't even seen yet!" And it
makes me want a whiteboard so I can start mapping out ideas.

There is still a huge amount of opportunity to create incredible apps. Social
Media apps have been done every which way from Sunday, content apps as well,
To-Do lists are certainly overdone, and basic note apps as well (though there
are some unique innovations that could be done on note apps IMO). But look at
those categories, compared to all the incredible things these devices can do?
There are still big wins to be made in mobile app development, both native and
browser-based.

------
ChrisLTD
DHH is probably right that most people only use a fraction of apps, and that
should mean any phone could succeed versus the iPhone or Android phones.
However, I doubt people are rational enough to realize this when they go out
to buy their new smartphone.

Even though I only use ~10 apps on my iPhone and iPad, I'd be wary of buying
into another platform that didn't offer the same breadth of choice.

------
hnsmurf
Also the notion of using only a few apps doesn't apply to games, which is one
of the killer features of smart phones. They are largely meant to be
disposable, and you assume you'll be playing new ones periodically. I might
keep 7 or 8 utility apps that I frequently use, but I've got a constantly
rotating selection of about 1 or 2 games I'll play, and I'm not even much of a
gamer.

~~~
MaxGabriel
John Gruber ran a series of posts about this for awhile, about how iOS had
significantly better 3rd party game selection, and especially from larger
brands

------
nasmorn
I think the compass is great. If you get out into the world sometimes and
arent a gazzillionaire you can't use Google Maps even if you happen to have a
signal. On my trip to Argentina for example a GB of roaming data was 15000
USD. In words fifteen thousand dollars. And if you didn't download an offline
map back home, GPS is not going to help you much.

------
jsz0
As many people have said the challenge is everyone's _10 apps_ are a bit
different and that's why you need a big software catalog. This is especially
true of games. You can only play Angry Birds so many times. There are hundreds
of other really great iOS games out there. The author says he can live without
playing Civilization but when the price tag for the phone and service is
basically the same that's a tough sell. We also cannot underestimate the
simple joy of consumption people get from buying/sampling different apps. A
device that lacks this experience is always going to feel limited even if you
spend 95% of your time in the same 10 apps it does provide.

------
mailarchis
It is interesting. I guess yesterday an article which compared the % of users
using addons on firefox vs those on chrome. Firefox had the higher number. But
its probably more of an indicator that chrome is reaching out to mainstream
user base.

I don't think that the mobile platform domination will be decided by how many
apps the platform has in the app store. Will it be dominated by the best
platform that nails the core use cases best like iPhone as mentioned in above
article ? Well maybe, it will.

But then it just might happen that the one with highest distribution channels
will win the race.

~~~
dhh
The whole point of this is that there need be no race. If all you need to
compete is to do the core set of 10 apps better than the other guy, it's
completely doable. If you need a 200K app ecosystem, it's not.

OS X is a great example of this as well. I switched because it did the basics
better than Windows back in the early 2000s. Back when it had virtually no
apps and Windows had all of them.

~~~
cageface
Laptops are different for me because they're big enough and powerful enough to
do non-trivial work. I use my phone for checking email and bus-stop web
surfing but I have a Macbook instead of something running Ubuntu because I
_need_ Photoshop and Ableton Live.

------
pclark
The "few apps" he needs vary wildly person to person. Here are mine:

TweetBot, WakeMate, SimpleNote, Spotify, Meebo.

Additionally gaming is a primary category for platform growth, if you do not
have a vast amount of good games you are stuffed.

------
Steko
Let's look at his 10 apps or more specifically what he didn't list. Would your
phone/tablet experience be degraded without the following:

RSS

Skype

iBooks/Kindle

Netflix/Hulu

Pandora/radio

Video Calling

all games

Mine would be and there are many more that I use less but value highly.
Barcode scanners, Fandango, White Noise, flight trackers, turn by turn, Word
Lens, a whole suite of reference materials that work offline.

A browser can replace some of them, somewhat. Chrome's promise is to replace
nearly all of them completely but that's not here yet and is really just
moving the goalposts.

Today I may not _need_ all of these apps but I love that I have them.

~~~
smackfu
...and the main problem with that list is that 3 or 4 of them are proprietary
platforms. So if Netflix or Amazon doesn't decide to support your platform,
tough luck. You will never have access to your movies or books.

------
tsycho
Reminds of that other saying about most users using only 10% of features in
Microsoft Excel......it's just that every one uses a different 10% of features
(or apps in this case) :)

------
tptacek
I used to think I was this way about the iPhone too, but if I look at what
apps I use constantly, it's more than 2: PCalc, Rdio, Remote, Instagram, RTM,
Screens.

~~~
spicyj
Curious – what do you use Screens for?

~~~
tptacek
Controlling the Mac Mini under my TV.

~~~
spicyj
I see, for the keyboard mostly? I always thought using a mouse over VNC on an
iPhone seemed awkward.

~~~
tptacek
It mostly drives Rdio.

------
kenjackson
This is the exact argument I make to others about why the app long tail is
less important than you think. In fact I made the argument here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2664559>

You nail the basics as listed above, and have a basic app ecosystem and you're
fine. Much like how the web neutralized the desktop OS advantage -- we'll see
it happen even faster in mobile.

~~~
alex_c
That is basically what Apple did with the iPhone. There were lots of apps for
the other mobile platforms at the time, but the iPhone was simply in a
different class.

The problem is that today, you have to come up with something _that much
better_ than the iPhone. If a Nokia phone and an iPhone are of comparable
quality (which I think has yet to happen), but the iPhone also offers you
access to a huge variety of apps, then why would you get the Nokia? It needs
to be significantly better in some way.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I needs to be significantly better to gain mind share, not to market share.

------
KeyBoardG
I agree mostly with these 10 apps. Its why I hung onto my BlackBerry for so
long. My jump to WP7 was mostly for the screen resolution and browser.

------
delackner
I'm not sure what the name is for this, but this is the same incorrect
reasoning that lead to the idea that the russians could compete against
capitalism with a planned economy. Just make the ten tractors and chicken
plucking machines that everyone needs!

The only way the next really amazing app comes along that EVERYONE wants is
for a seething ocean of developers churn through ideas fighting for users.

------
hernan7
Maybe there is a niche for a not-so-smart phone: like a dumb phone, but with a
usable web browser. I could live with a phone like that.

~~~
revorad
I totally agree. A good cheap tablet (weblet?) like that would also be very
useful to me.

~~~
icebraining
That was the N800, a few years ago.

~~~
revorad
That's quite small (4 inches?). My ideal size would be that of the Kindle,
like the HTC Flyer, but not as stupidly expensive.

------
papertowel
I don't agree with the premise. If Apple had nailed the basics, why there are
still many popular apps for camera, weather, clocks, photos and maps?

I also take issue with the fact that just because someone uses a few apps 95%
of the time, they don't need other apps. Some apps are really valuable only in
some circumstances like when you want to know how to go to an obscure place.

------
antidaily
To be sure, most people just want facebook, pandora and most especially angry
birds. But can I get every episode of Top Chef or the latest Golf Digest on
the N9 (or even Android)? I think access to content within iTunes is more
compelling than the 200k apps. And it seems to be what Apple is betting on.

------
mey
Andorid's biggest failing to me is the lack of a coherent killer e-mail,
calendar and integrated IM experience. Out of the box you have a carrier
crippled experience or the google locked in experience. Even Win7 get's that
right. Conversely you will pry my Incredible 2 from my cold dead hands.

------
dasil003
I'm not sure I agree that the app ecosystem doesn't matter, but one thing is
for sure, there are way too many app stores being launched and most of them
suck.

Certainly it would make sense to focus on the core user experience first
instead of some half-baked attempt to confront to out do Apple's whole
platform.

------
rogerbraun
But it's the same for non-mobile platforms. I only use 10 applications on my
computer, too, and I try to avoid platforms that don't have these. Of course,
one might argue that everyone needs the same apps on a smartphone (telephony,
messaging, notes...) but why not use a regular phone, then?

------
tobylane
Variety is also good. Just because you know you love these ten apps doesn't
mean you want to be confined to them. I have 350 apps on my ipod, I only use
five weekly, but if I had to stay entertained for a few days I'd play all 100+
games. I'd still prefer my Kindle.

------
rtc
The reason that 200,000 apps is huge is not because all 200,000 benefit a
single user; rather it's because 200,000 apps enables millions of people to
write this exact same post, but substitute Echofon and Bloomberg (his 2 daily
use apps) with App X and App Y.

------
thestoicjester
This reminds me very much of Navin R. Johnson. Not only just in phrasing, but
also the attitude that he'll be "just fine" with his few apps.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VbI5zcB8Ac>

------
icebraining
Nevertheless, the support for Alien Dalvik[1] might help.

[1]: [http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-n9-android-app-support-
promis...](http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-n9-android-app-support-promised-
with-alien-dalvik-22160809/)

------
cpg
What? It's a bit strident for the sake of it. "Fuck the platform" then ...
"they nailed the basics" ... that's essentially the platform too, I say.

------
atacrawl
The platform as a whole matters a lot less than the exclusivity of its best
apps.

------
buro9
The problem is, which 10 varies from person to person.

------
scrrr
I suspect that in a few years there'll only be two (native) apps: Making
phonecalls + webbrowser. (yes the webbrowser will also play mp3s and talk to
the camera to take pictures)

~~~
sheriff
Why couldn't the web browser also make phone calls?

------
zem
but everyone needs a different ten!

------
georgieporgie
I liked my Palm IIIx (1999) better than my Android. That's not to say it _was_
better, just that its simple, snappy, tightly integrated set of base apps
helped me be more productive. My Android, which comes with nothing very
useful, makes me unproductive.

PDAs were great time savers whereas 'smart' phones are great ways to get ads
in front of people. :-)

~~~
technomancy
What amazes me is that from what I can tell no modern mobile platform allows
you to sync contact info as seamlessly as IRDA did in '99. I had a Palm V, but
I could point the thing at my friends' Nokias and get their numbers in
seconds.

The closest thing I've seen is Bump, which is cool but nowhere near as
immediate. Plus it's a 3rd-party install.

~~~
georgieporgie
For what it's worth, in Japan it's 100% standard to exchange virtual contact
info via IR. Every time I witnessed a meeting of new acquaintances, people
would automatically begin to form circles and exchange contact info. It's so
cheap and effective, it really does make you wonder why it's so rare on
American phones.

The only electronic contact exchange I've ever witnessed in the US was between
Googlers using 2D barcodes. I've never seen anyone use IR or Bluetooth.

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Cherian_Abraham
N9 is fucked, not just because of the lack of third party devs developing for
the MeeGo platform.

As per Engadget, Nokia plans to have N9 on sale on Sept 23, right after the
iPhone5 launch and several Android, WebOS and Mango phones that will be
released between now and then.

Sounds like bringing Knife to a Gunfight? The processor underneath the N9 is
already dated and they think releasing end of third quarter was a sound idea?
WTF?

~~~
KeyBoardG
Not to mention the Meego team has a limited time left at Nokia. From what I've
read Meego will run Android apps via the Dalvic JVM. If that were the case I
would rather run the leaner Meego than Android.

