
Where Are the Android Killer Apps? - lotusleaf1987
http://daringfireball.net/2010/11/where_are_the_android_killer_apps
======
cheald
Gruber seems to make the assertion that a platform only has worth based on its
exclusive "killer apps". He goes wrong there and never really recovers.
Android's strength is not its suite apps, it's its flexibility. It runs on an
enormous range of hardware, and doesn't require that you buy into a single
vendor's toolchain to use it. The core philosophical difference between the
two platforms is "Steve Jobs decides what's best for me" versus "I decide
what's best for me".

So what are the killer apps? How about things like Launcher Pro, Swype,
SwiftKey, and AppBrain? Why don't we talk about Chrome To Phone or the FM
Radio listener (via Cyanogen)? Those are all things that just don't - and
can't - exist on the iPhone, but the glory of them is that I get to choose
them. I can pick my own homescreen app and tweak the heck out of it. I can
pick an input method that I want (SwiftKey has made my iPhone-using friends
turn green with envy on more than occassion). I can install new apps without
ever having to tether to my computer with iTunes. I can send a map or recipe
from my computer to my phone and take my work with me seamlessly. These are
all "killer features", but they aren't "apps" in the Apple sense of the word -
they're features, extensions of the platform, which let me use my device as
best I see fit.

If everything Apple does is exactly what you want, Android probably doesn't
have any "killer features" worth talking about, but as soon as you want to do
something that diverges from the Cupertino Grand Unified Vision, Android
starts to become a lot more attractive. Given Gruber's leanings, it's little
wonder that he's not enamored with Android. Doesn't mean that's the case for
everyone - and the market bears that out quite well.

~~~
callahad
But you have to admit, there's a cultural divide between Android and iOS.
Android is extremely well suited for working, passing data seamlessly between
applications, etc. It makes it easy to get things done in the same way you
might interact with a desktop computer.

iOS, however, takes a different tack, focusing on self-contained, bite-sized
apps. You hop into something, use it, then leave. And when you're in that app,
it completely owns the experience. In that world, things like intents, task
killers, and filesystem browsers just don't make sense. Which almost by
definition precludes things like Chrome-to-Phone or Swype.

In that way, I see Android and iOS relating very similarly to Windows and OS
X. "Beautiful" simply isn't part of the Windows application lexicon, and yet,
it's used frequently in reviews of OS X software, along with terms like
"polished," "lovely," "stunning," and "gorgeous."

What allows OS X to have beautiful apps? What's preventing Windows from having
beautiful applications? And are those same factors at work in Android and iOS?

~~~
5teev
I don't understand how Android allows you to pass data between applications
while iOS does not. I'm under the impression that I can use copy/paste and
custom protocols to pass information between applications on my iPhone. Am I
missing something?

If there's any cultural divide Gruber alludes to, it's that iPhone users tend
not to know a whole lot about how the phone works deep inside, and whether by
necessity or curiosity, Android users do.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
You say "iPhone users tend not to know a whole lot about how the phone works
deep inside, and whether by necessity or curiosity, Android users do."

I don't think that is true. Most Android users have no idea how their phone
works inside. They are not techies, they are just smartphone users. Most
people have no idea what a computer does inside. Don't think that all Android
users are techies because many on HN are.

~~~
5teev
I don't mean hardcore, nuts and bolts stuff, just that they're more involved
with managing how the operating system behaves. And I'm not saying this, I was
inferring from Gruber, who notes how many task managers, etc., are the most
popular apps.

~~~
Locke1689
That's the worst kind of user, though. The "power user" is almost the bane of
my existence as they do not truly understand anything yet think they
understand everything.

These are the same morons that dig into the Windows registry for "super speed
optimizations" and end up blowing their installation to hell.

------
ddlatham
So he is asking, where are the apps that are available for Android, but not
iPhone that meet the following criteria

1\. Not made by Google or built-in

2\. Popular and well made (no long tail)

3\. Don't take advantage of things Android can do but iPhone can't (home
screens, notifications, deep integration, background services, etc.)

Suppose you had such an app, or were developing one. While Android has passed
iOS in new phones sold, it's still catching up on existing userbase. Why
wouldn't you have an iPhone version too, since by definition your app already
would run fine there?

~~~
ericb
In terms of deep integration, anyone know if an Android app can access the
phone's text messages? I don't think an iPhone can, right?

~~~
mgcross
SwiftKey (on Android) scans previous text and email messages, if I'm not
mistaken.

The result is usually convenient, but it can be disconcerting - I had a friend
borrow my phone to text someone and as he was composing his message, he
continued to select the most suggested word until he'd completed an entire
email I'd sent a week earlier verbatim...

------
mechanical_fish
My suspicion is that the "killer app" is an artifact of the super-balkanized
era of computing, the era when every vendor's machines ran a different bespoke
operating system. That was true in the mainframe era, and it was true _in
spades_ in the early PC era, when the IBM PC and the Mac and the Apple II and
the Amiga and the C64 and several dozen vendor-specific flavors of Unix all
coexisted, all with different OSes and radically different hardware.

Just from the evidence, it seems clear that porting software is still hard,
but nowhere near as hard as it used to be. There's been some convergence in
hardware and operating systems. The rate of turnover in these things has
slowed way down. But perhaps the biggest reason is that our hardware and the
abstractions built on top of it are now so powerful that large classes of apps
-- the ones that don't push the limits of the hardware -- have become trivial
to port. The term "killer app" was invented around the time of Visicalc;
Visicalc was written in highly tuned assembly language so that it would fit in
20K of RAM (no, that is not a typo!):

<http://www.frankston.com/public/?name=ImplementingVisiCalc>

Nowadays you can implement Visicalc in Javascript and run it on any platform
with a customer base larger than five, while routinely creating temporary
variables that are ten times the size of Visicalc's entire codebase.

So the modern strategy is to test your software on one platform, and then if
it takes off port it to the others. So why don't more people start on Android
and port to iOS, rather than vice versa? Maybe it's the vaunted fragmentation
problem, but I'd guess that it's mostly because iOS is where the money is.
There's an app distribution model and a store. That makes it easier to iterate
there. Release the app on iOS and see if it floats or sinks. Then spend your
Android-porting energy -- figuring out an ad-based model, testing on many
different devices, marketing to all those Android users who don't know what
"Android" means -- on the winners.

There are other potential sources of killer-app lock-in. Hardware is one.
People who want hardware keyboards can't choose iOS. But that market doesn't
seem to have enough size for its killer apps to make news -- particularly
because only a subset of Android phones have keyboards, and those keyboards
are all different.

There's one very obvious Android killer app: Verizon. Not exclusive for much
longer, though, if the rumor mill is accurate.

------
lukeschlather
The entire article reads a bit like the scene in _The Life of Brian_ where the
Jewish rebels enumerate all the things the Romans have done for them, and then
say "but aside from that, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

I get where Gruber's coming from, and there seems to be a legitimate point in
here about the difference between consoles and ordinary computers. But I'm not
really seeing anything listed under the iPhone-exclusive category that is
worthwhile. It's clear that it's going to be a profit center for Apple, and
it's clear that some people enjoy it, but Gruber's assertion that it's
intrinsically better doesn't have a lot of weight to it.

~~~
dejb
> there seems to be a legitimate point in here about the difference between
> consoles and ordinary computers

I still can't for the life of me understand why any self respecting geek would
cheer on the 'console' model as the future of mobile computing. Sure, as a
developer you have to make practical decisions about which platform to develop
for. But as the platform you chose to use yourself? It's like saying that
you've decided to use xBox as your main environment instead of
Windows/OSX/Linux.

~~~
Locke1689
It's specialized computation -- not that difficult to understand. The iPhone
certainly isn't my development environment, either.

~~~
dejb
> It's specialized computation

No it's not. The whole purpose of having an app store is to make it more
general purpose. Why should anything be 'off limits' just because the device
is small? Why is this not obvious to you?

> The iPhone certainly isn't my development environment, either.

.. and it never will be. But you added the word 'development', not me. I
prefer to decide how I can use my computation devices and when they do not
allow this then they should be regarded as toys.

~~~
Locke1689
You said main environment. I am a developer. The development environment is my
main environment. I don't play video games, I rarely go on Facebook -- my
computer is for reading and writing code and things having to do with code.

~~~
dejb
> You said main environment. I am a developer.

So did you actually think that I was making a point about you specifically?
That brings egotism to new levels.

The point I was making was an analogy (hence the use of the word 'like'). It
was that just as a console platform is a toy-like version of a desktop one, so
is the iOS platform a toy-like version of a proper mobile platform.

You seem to be arguing that mobile computing isn't important enough to warrant
the same sort of open ecosystem that exists in the desktop world, that because
you can't personally envisage ever developing on any mobile system that a toy
like platform is the best way. This strikes me as extremely short sited for 2
reasons. Firstly it shows zero consideration of how others might want to
utilise their mobile devices now. And secondly it shows no thought as to how
mobile devices may evolve in the future. There are many possible technological
breakthroughs that could have you using your mobile device as a primary
development environment in the future.

------
runjake
Here's a list to start off with:

 _Any_ home screen widget, because you can.

ConnectBot

PDAnet (no shady jailbreak needed)

Barcode Scanner

My Tracks

Swype

Google Navigation

Google Voice (better than the new iPhone version)

Layar

Scripting Layer 4 Android

Google Speech To Text (Voice Search)

Slide Screen

Chrome To Phone

Dropbox (whoah, not limited by a weird file sandbox!?)

Whatever system software that allows you to mount an Android device as USB
storage

~~~
Estragon
Yeah, Scripting Layer 4 Android is what I came over here to say. Why does he
distinguish google-developed apps from 3rd party apps? In terms of the
"killer-app" criterion, it makes no difference.

~~~
callahad
It's pretty crazy that Android has a less restricted development model, yet
only first party applications seem to have anything approaching design parity
with the bulk of third party iOS applications.

------
PostOnce
Being able to point my phone at a sign written in a foreign language and
having it translated into English instantly is not only a killer app for me,
it blows my mind that we've gone from no cellphones 20 years ago to this.

I can also point it at the sky and know which star I'm looking at, or at the
cover a book, not the barcode, and have it tell me the lowest price
nationally. It can tell me exactly where on Earth I am, for free.

I have SL4A on my phone also, so not only can I call anyone anywhere on earth
at any time, I can solve ridiculously complex problems in a few moments that
would've taken people years to do by hand less than a century ago.

It takes pictures of people, has a compass, an entire encyclopedia and set of
maps without being connected to any cell or wifi network, and can tell me
exchange rates, how far it is to the nearest Chinese restaurant and theater,
and play complex, interactive, three dimensional games.

I don't know what other people consider a killer app, but I just can't get
over the fact that I'm living in the future right now. This is so crazy. I
can't believe all this crap fits in my pocket. It feels like between this and
a multitool, I can accomplish pretty much anything.

The device itself is the killer app for me. I'm glad we as a species have made
these ridiculous advances possible. 20 years ago, phones didn't have screens
on them. If you had caller ID, you were pretty much on the cutting edge.

~~~
brown9-2
_Being able to point my phone at a sign written in a foreign language and
having it translated into English instantly is not only a killer app for me,
it blows my mind that we've gone from no cellphones 20 years ago to this._

For those of us that don't use Android - which app is this?

~~~
georgemcbay
I would assume he is talking about Google Goggles, which IIRC is also
available as an iPhone app these days.

Despite the availability of that particular app on iOS, the immediate
availability of any Google mobile app on Android (without having to wait for
the long delays that plagued Google Voice, etc) and the integration of them
all is the killer Android app for me. Having things like Android Car Mode and
Voice Search out of the box and having them all work together is really nice,
and while you can get similar functionality out of iOS by piecing many apps
together, it isn't quite the same seamless experience.

YMMV depending upon how much you consume Google services. Android certainly
suffers on the games front and is a second class citizen for other types of
utility apps from non-Google vendors.

------
unoti
I, too have been amazed at the crappy quality of available games for Android.
It's why I quit my wonderful job at Linden Lab, makers of Second Life, and
started working full time on Android games. You can see my work in progress on
my RPG here in a couple of videos here <http://tango11.com/?cat=6>.

I'm not really sure why there aren't better games out there yet. Certainly one
problem I've had with Android that I suspect would be better with iOS is the
limited amount of memory that I have to work with on Android. Android doesn't
give you all the available memory to work with, so it's an adventure to make a
2d game (bitmaps with a transparency layer get big fast). This might explain
part of the delay on better games.

I think better games are coming, but I can't really explain why they're not
already here.

~~~
mgcross
I'm envious of iPhone games, but primarily due to the aesthetics of the games
rather than gameplay. Developers (and designers) are still chasing iOS money.
I think Android will get there. I'm hoping Unity3D will result in more cross-
platform game development.

------
Tichy
Funny, my impression is that all the useful apps tend to be on Android. For
example, I use Google Talk a lot, as it saves costs for sending SMS. I keep
begging my iPhone 4 friend to use it, but he never even comments. I am not
sure if it is not available on iPhone (multitasking problem?), or if he just
doesn't care enough. Alternatively Twitter DMs are free, too.

What am I missing out on by staying on Android (except eye candy)? Fireball
says he could go on forever, but doesn't mention anything besides games.

~~~
cletus
I used to use Google Talk a lot. On the desktop it's handy. On my Android
phone (HTC Desire) it seemed to work well.

Since getting an iPhone 4 however I've pretty much stopped using it entirely.
I simply cannot find a good app for it. The ones I have found seem to sign out
after 4 hours (making them useless) or just don't seem to work reliably (eg
I'd get home and find a message on my desktop that hadn't made it to my
phone). So I had to give it up.

Your intended use case was the same as mine: lime SMS. But the fact that it
works (or seems to at least) on Android doesn't make it a killer app for
Android. It simply is a nail in the coffin for Google Talk.

Messaging is something that needs to be ubiquitous. IM had this problem (eg
some people were on MSN, others on AIM). It's why SMS is such a success.
Google Talk is already limited to those who use gmail. Further limiting it to
those with Android handsets makes it much less useful.

~~~
Legion
Meebo. It is the only IM app on the iPhone that I've found that is worth
anything.

Part of the reason why it works so well is that it does not maintain an active
connection on the _phone_. Most IM apps fail as soon as the phone loses its
connection for even a moment.

Meebo keeps you as logged in on their servers, and then sends push
notifications to your phone when you receive messages. The result is that you
don't go "offline" when you experience any phone connection hiccups.

Try it if you haven't. I use Google Talk and Yahoo IM on my iPhone all the
time.

------
shib71
There is a killer app for me: Tasker (<http://tasker.dinglisch.net/>).

Being able to set up different configurations of my phone based on where I am,
what time it is, what apps I'm running is very useful.

~~~
smhinsey
Have you used Locale? I've used it for awhile and haven't seen Tasker before.

~~~
shib71
I haven't, thanks for pointing it out. A superficial look suggests that Locale
is simpler and more polished, while Tasker has a wider range of options.

~~~
smhinsey
Yeah, that seems like a fair assessment. One big win Locale has (unique at
least as far as I can tell) is that it has a plugin API, so you'll find it can
integrate with a few other apps.

Using Locale has made a huge difference to me. My set up is that I have two
major modes, plugged in and unplugged. When I'm in plugged in mode, it turns
on bluetooth and wifi, connects to my bluetooth speakerphone, and sends
notifications to Android Notifier which I have running on most of my PCs. This
allows me to have my ringer off and get an IM-style Growl notification when
someone calls or texts, which is awesome for work. The unplugged mode is
basically a typical cellphone configuration.

~~~
dtwwtd
Tasker has been built such that it allows similar plugins and also claims
compatibility with Locale plugins.

I've tried Tasker and PhoneWeaver but not Locale as of yet. I couldn't live
without this functionality anymore.

~~~
smhinsey
I'll have to check to see if there are any interesting plugins that might work
with Locale.

This type of app has been one of my favorite things about Android. I can't
imagine doing without it either.

------
Garbage
"If quantity of app titles were all that mattered, we’d all be using Windows,
not Mac OS X, right?"

Err... Wait, are we _all_ using Mac OS X?

~~~
Tichy
Also, where are the killer games for OS X?

~~~
elblanco
They used to have them, most of them were made by Adobe.

------
mcantelon
It's not that hard to unsterstand. iPhone had a lead on the Android and a lot
of people invested heavily in iPhone. Now that Android has caught up in terms
of marketshare it will take awhile for these people to catch up on their
Android investment. As Android outpaces iPhone in the market, the app
situation may end up reversed.

~~~
dreyfiz
Did you see this part at the end, and if so, does that affect your judgement?

> A final thought, regarding Android’s relative weakness as a software
> platform. iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for
> Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims,
> Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these
> games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-old platform.

~~~
mcantelon
Microsoft has a lot of weight in the game market. Not surprising that they
convinced some people to get onboard. I doubt very much that, as Gruber seems
to be implying, there is something intrinsically flawed about the Android
platform that is a barrier to game development.

EDIT: Unity will likely make a big difference to the Android appsphere:
<http://unity3d.com/unity/coming-soon/android>

~~~
alxp
They "convinced" developers to get on board in large part because they let
devs use the same tools they've been using to create the original games on
Windows with. If I had an existing PC game it's a no brainer to target WP7.
Android is a much tougher sell.

~~~
dreyfiz
They also paid for a lot of these ports. Many iPhone devs have mentioned
Microsoft approaching them with money and help to get them to port to phone7.

------
lusis
I'd rather ask a different question.

Who the hell cares? Seriously. Why is all this attention being paid to Android
by various Apple-centric/Apple-leaning outlets?

I'm not trying to be combative. If iOS is the superior platform then why keep
drawing attention to something that, in your opinion, is inferior?

Technically speaking Android and iOS are fairly even in features. Android has
some things that iOS doesn't and iOS has some things that Android doesn't.
It's pretty much a wash. What it boils down to is what people want to use.

I use android because I honestly prefer the interface and interactions over
iOS, it ties better into my Google-centric workflow and I'm a geek. Apple
isn't losing a sale to me because I don't like what they have to offer.

All the arguments over which is better are entirely over subjective aspects.
iPhone/iOS looks prettier. Android has better notification handling. These are
all fairly end-user perspectives.

~~~
YooLi
Did you read the post? He doesn't phrase it at all as an iOS is better than
Android argument. He's saying it's interesting that as large as Android is,
why there isn't any good 3rd party apps exclusively for it. There are no "I
must get an Android phone so I can run this" apps.

~~~
gazrogers
"I must get an Android phone so I can run this" apps, such as Swype (since the
discussion only includes iOS and Android), are excluded from the argument by
Gruber.

~~~
YooLi
Of course, that's an edge case. That's not a critical mass app. You aren't
going to go to the mall and hear a someone talking about swype for android.

~~~
georgemcbay
I actually have heard random people I do not know discussing Swype in public.
It is actually a fairly big deal for hardcore texters (read: people ages 12-22
who use cellphones).

------
Kylekramer
The problem I have with this article is the premise that if an app either
started or is just also on iOS, somehow that invalidates its presence on
Android. The iPhone had a huge lead in time and customer base. Any mobile app
developer who calls themselves a mobile app developer is at least going to
think about an iPhone app. Of course nearly every Android app is going to have
an iOS equivalent. Saying an app needs to be exclusive is a weird statement
that is designed to slag Android. Same thing for not counting Google apps/apps
that do things iOS can't do. The real question I have is "What thing do you
want to do on your phone that Android can't?"

Also, citing a crap TechCrunch article as fact because it was written by the
guy behind a site named AndroidApps? You are better than that, Gruber.

~~~
throwaway111222
He's not better than that. You have to remember, he caters to an Apple
audience. Because of this, when he is critical of Apple, his tone is soft and
non-threatening so as to not offend his audience. When he is critical of his
competitors, he often takes a hard, holier-than-thou tone in his posts to
enforce his audience's affinity for Apple. In other words, his blog is highly
polarizing by design.

This isn't a bad thing, every product needs their evangelists, but we must not
confuse evangelism with journalism (not saying you did that, but I mean in
general).

------
ZeroGravitas
.Interesting shift from _unappealing or irrelevant to iOS users_ to _the only
ones Android has are ones that Apple doesn't want._

It seems he thinks those are the same thing. Why would an alternative home
screen or keyboard stop being a killer app or appealing to iOS users because
Apple doesn't want or allow it?

------
bitsm
As I read it, what Gruber's exploring is the idea that it's the app store
("app console") that matters now, not the OS.

Every week seems to bring another article about how Android is kicking ass in
market penetration, but who really benefits outside of the carriers who get a
free OS for their phones? The Android market is so fragmented that these
market stats are meaningless.

Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple has been incredibly successful with iOS. They have
lots of apps, lots of paying customers, generating lots of money for
developers and Apple. That's something worth emulating on Android. The more
money going to Android developers, the better for the platform.

The Android Market is far behind and that needs to be fixed. You can't even
get to it without an Android phone. And where are the "Get it in the Android
Market" buttons? Google's branding guidelines state that you can't use the
Android logo to promote your app. How does that even make sense?

Google's dropped the ball on Android Market, big time.

~~~
arron61
This is all getting fixed probably really soon. Android developers have been
getting constant emails about upcoming Market changes.

~~~
201studio
The updates to the market were outlined in the emails that were sent out. They
included sorely needed elements such as version update notes and more
promotional information such as app promo text and graphics. Really though,
these seem like changes that should have been implemented a long time ago. I'm
waiting for the update where they follow through on the promises of the 2010
google IO.

------
generalk
Gruber's whole premise is flawed. Android doesn't _need_ killer apps.

iOS has to have "killer apps" because that's how Apple locks folks into their
system. If you can get the iOS experience somewhere else, there's no reason to
pay the Apple premium. Thankfully for Apple their UX is amazingly polished,
and attracts a lot of third-party developers who also care highly about
polish.

Android, on the other hand, is a portal to Google's cloud offerings. First
thing you do is create or utilize your Google account. Then you check your
Gmail and your Google Voice. Maybe get some navigations from Google Maps, or a
recommendation from Google Places.

And of course, since you have a smartphone, you might as well buy some apps. A
lot of common apps that exist for iOS also exist for Android (Kindle Reader
and Angry Birds come to mind), and Google gets their cut of the sale.

------
syllogism
The real question for me is, why are the Google apps closed source? The
easiest way for Google to increase the quality of Android apps is to make
development easy by providing great examples of how to do it right. Why can't
we look at the code behind the gmail app or the maps app --- they'd all be
great tutorials.

------
dadro
1\. Buy an Android phone on verizon and use for 1 year. 2\. Cancel contract
and get an Android phone on T-mobile. 3\. Sync contacts/emails and never skip
a beat.

You get a standardized platform that transcends mobile carriers.

------
marze
Ok, now that's funny...

"The first app in the list that’s exclusive to Android is #6, Lookout — an
anti-virus app."

~~~
trjordan
Sure, that's one thing it does. But it also lets you track your phone from the
web (even if it's off -- it'll email you when it wakes up), and it'll let you
force the phone play a loud sound so you can locate it (and potentially the
person who took it).

It's an interesting app, and I really like the idea of being able to locate my
phone if I lose it by forcing it to wake up and email me. Dismissing it as
just an anti-virus app is willfully ignoring how useful this app is (and that
it could only be built on Android).

------
mitemitreski
Gruber lives from the blood of iPhone users

------
elblanco
Android _is_ the killer app.

~~~
jwhitlark
With the Intent system, this is quite literally true. Android is much more in
line with the unix "small, sharp tools" philosophy, while iOS apps seem like
they would fall victim to Zawinski's Law. AFAIK, in iOS you interact with
yourself or the OS, while on Android, you can interact with anyone who
registers an intent.

~~~
rahoulb
The thing is that this has always been Apple's design decision - the OS marks
very clear distinctions between applications (as described here in another
Gruber piece about the OSX - and MacOS - window manager
[http://daringfireball.net/2003/05/the_problems_with_clickthr...](http://daringfireball.net/2003/05/the_problems_with_clickthrough))

The difference being the Mac allowed you to follow the same unix style
philosophy through pervasive scripting, which you can't do on iOS.

EDIT: typos

------
satoimo
Isn't the difference here that Google sees Android, long term, as a web
console rather that a (native) app console? The browser is the killer app.

------
darklajid
I would like to suggest to the author that he should give "SpecTrek" (not
affiliated, just a user) a try. I cannot comment on iOS apps (don't own a
device, don't care much), but this game should've been the one that leads the
android top 10 game list. And I guess it's unique to android as well.

Killer app? Nope. Interesting and a good example for something "different"?
Yep.

------
PostOnce
I mentioned SL4A somewhere else, but I think it deserves its own comment.

<http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/>

Python/Lua/Ruby/Perl/etc interpreters and scripts in your pocket. Imagine the
potential.

[Obviously not a Killer App for the general public, but maybe for the HN
crowd...]

------
callahad
I can't help but feel that iOS would have crushed Android in the United States
precisely because of its superior software catalog and attention to design, if
only it had been available outside of AT&T's walls.

~~~
orangecat
Perhaps. But a large part of the iPhone's "attention to design" is lack of
carrier-mandated crapware, which is why it's not available on Verizon.
Similarly, the average quality of Android phones would go up substantially if
the carriers would stop crippling them, but that's the price Google had to pay
to get the carriers to support them at all.

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evanchen
Is there an exclusive app to OSX that doesn't exist on Windows? If you make it
for Android or OSX, it will eventually be done on Windows/iOS because of the
larger user base (more profits).

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ergo98
I have no disagreement with Gruber here -- he is generally on the mark.

However I think it is a short-sighted perspective. The products that are in
the market today often had many months to years of incubation end evolution
time on them. A mere four months ago, iOS was still overwhelmingly where it
was at, and on sites of the people making the apps -- like HN -- it had the
dominant mindspace.

That has profoundly changed. On my Android I've noticed the pace of iterations
of the top tier apps is reaching an incredible pace, as obviously what was an
afterthought is starting to get equal billing to their iOS product.

Gruber is unquestionably right today. In three months, or six months, I think
the equation will have dramatically changed.

Though it will never be about "killer apps" (where exclusivity is the
definition). That antiquated notion has no place in modern computing. Note
that Google makes all of their "killer apps" available on iOS as well, which
is exactly how it should be. In an ideal every top tier app exists on multiple
platforms.

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gcb
anyone who praises the google apps like this article does must be nuts.

They are the least consistent ones in terms of UI. just like office in
microsoft windows.

compare gmail, maps, navigator, translate...

and they hardly work out of the main use case. e.g. the car home will not do
anything if the phone is not in an expensive car-dock (your calls will not go
automaticaly to the speaker for example). navigator will only show routes via
major streets (thankfully now there's now ONE route option --to rule out
highways)

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bradfordw
Shouldn't this read, what are the Android "Force Kill"(er) apps?

