

Apple fears the killer app - brianmwang
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2010/06/apple-fears-killer-app.html

======
ErrantX
This seems a well argued point; but when you break it down not so much,.

First off I think it does something of a disservice to Jobs - because if the
theory is true I don't think it fits in with the vision he has.

The thing is that Jobs _does_ have a vision for the iOS platform, and I don't
think that is: _They want hundreds of thousands of decent or even mediocre or
crappy apps._ In fact as far as I can make out that is exactly what they don't
want.

Jobs seems to much prefer the idea of a smaller number of really really classy
apps. And that seems (to me anyway) to be reflected in their changes to the
developer terms.

To claim the reverse is kind of going against years of Apple branding (clean,
classy, slick).

~~~
illumin8
I agree. I also think Apple is treating the iOS ecosystem like a video game
console rather than a computer. If people looked at the console wars between
MS, Sony, and Nintendo and compared their developer agreements to Apple's,
they probably wouldn't get so bent out of shape over things.

I know Microsoft has literally spent $millions on AAA titles just to get
XBox360 exclusive releases. Somehow we don't get bent out of shape so much
just because Halo is Xbox only. I don't see pundits wanting to burn Microsoft
at the stake because they bought Bungie.

Yet for some reason, when Apple does something similar, they must be evil.

~~~
kenjackson
This is not true. The concern people had with Apple is that they were
attempting to block content based on how it was originally made, across the
board.

No one cares if Apple gets exclusive deals. Good for them is they do. The
concern is that Apple tells developers, "if you wrote this game originally in
Java then you can't submit it to the app store." Or if your team uses in-house
code generators with a DSL then you can't submit it, even if the DSL generates
provably the most optimized Obj-C code possible.

Neither MS, nor Sony, nor Nintendo ever made such claims.

~~~
chc
I wish I could upvote this more than once. Everybody who makes the "video
games" analogy totally ignores this.

I remember one video game company talking about the cool Lisp dialect they'd
invented for their games that they said was really integral to the project's
success.

------
jsz0
I think the killer app in mobile are the devices themselves. They're all being
sold as a package: web, e-mail, music, video, store, camera, etc. The apps are
very important too but my guess is most people are mostly looking at the core
functionality of the device. You don't really have to sell people with third
party apps anymore though a lack of apps can still be a liability just because
it weakens the package. It's not like the old days where hardware was somewhat
useless to the average person without killer apps. SmartPhones come packed
with a ton of functionality before you ever install a third party app.

To that extent I agree with the author of this article. Apple views third
party apps as an accessory. They are going to do everything possible to
protect what they think really matters: stability, reliability, good end user
experience, easy OS upgrades, easy syncing/backup with iTunes, etc. I don't
think there's much evidence to suggest Apple wants to play the Microsoft role
and attempt to dominate the applications as well. After more than 3 years
Apple has released very few paid applications for iOS and they haven't really
undercut third party app makers by integrating a lot of additional features
into the OS that would be better served as third party apps. They don't even
bundle iBooks on their devices so it exists (more or less) on a level playing
field with Kindle and the B&N reader.

~~~
lotharbot
> _"my guess is most people are mostly looking at the core functionality of
> the device."_

Once a device has an exclusive killer app, people start to treat that app as
part of the device's core functionality.

Apple views apps as an accessory. Would it trouble them to see consumers begin
to treat a third party app as a core system component? The author seems to
think so. (He has no evidence, though.)

~~~
stcredzero
What's keeping Skype/Truphone from becoming the primary outbound call
mechanism on the iPhone?

~~~
joe_the_user
Apple eliminating them if that happens?

~~~
stcredzero
I mean by usage, not executing code. The consequences already occurred: AT&T
charging Skype for 3G calls.

------
yardie
_the truth is users don't really want hundreds of apps, they want one or a
small number that are really meaningful._

Funny hearing this from a pundit. For Mac users it was the same argument they
were trying to use for years, but the Windows market used its superior numbers
to bury Apple and even Linux. You could even say you have a choice of which
crappy app you want to use today.

I can guarantee one thing. By, intentionally, excluding Flash they have sealed
it's fate. As a developer none of my clients are saying, "I'd like 38% of the
mobile market not know I exist". All of them know Flash. All of them have
asked for a Flash and Flashless site. Most would rather not pay double for the
same thing.

~~~
krschultz
Those are two different arguments.

It is true that a small number of apps matter to any given person. That was
his point.

But a larger number of apps gives coverage to a greater segment of the
populations. This is why Windows still locks people in even though we all use
very few programs and we all know it sucks.

For example, I only really use about 6 big programs - browser, Word, Excel,
Eclipse, a media player, and SolidWorks. There can be a million other programs
in the Windows world, and aside from a few utilities, I'm not using them.

But switch to Mac OS X? I can't. Not completely anyway, because I _need_
SolidWorks. I can't do my job without it. I used Ubuntu almost exclusively for
a while, but I could never get rid of that pesky Windows install because I
need it for Solidworks.

So at that point, why the pay the premium for a Mac if I'm going to be using
crappy Windows on it anyway?

It is not quite the same in the mobile world. There are few big programs
(exceptions: browser, primary phone functions like dialer, contacts, email
etc), and most of the time they are used by everyone. So # of apps really is a
long tail thing. I might want a ski trail map app, or a golf app. Those are
small apps that can be on any platform, they're not make it or break kind of
apps. We have yet to see a big killer platform specific app.

------
gfodor
Building a killer app generally has nothing to do with using the hardware, a
custom programming language, or any other fancy thing that gets engineers
excited. Building a killer app usually means that you identified a common
problem and solved it for users in a novel and useful way. I fail to see how
any of the admittedly draconian policies in the SDK prevent you from building
the next killer app for mobile.

~~~
bad_user
That's an easy one ... they can reject your application (it says so in the SDK
agreement).

See Google Voice for such an example. Or ask any iPhone developer that's been
playing this game for a while ... you would be a fool to drop an app in the
App Store with lots of functionality, the more there is to use in your app,
the more likely it is to get rejected. That's why people are doing incremental
upgrades ... at least if a new version gets rejected, your lost investment
isn't that much.

~~~
flyosity
And the more frequently you drive in your car the more likely you are to have
a fatal accident. The more frequently you fly in an airplane the more likely
you are to die in a plane crash.

Many people drive in their cars every single day without dying in an accident,
and many people fly nearly every single day for business without ever dying in
a fiery accident.

No one hears about the companies doing extremely innovative stuff on the iOS
platform because they're not complaining. Look at TapTapTap and the apps
they've built and how imaginative and beautiful they are. They've made
millions of dollars with just a handful of people working on their apps. Take
a look at Smule and the Ocarina app they made that lets you blow into the
microphone and play your iPhone like a flute. Really innovative and killer
apps that are in the App Store, now, available to purchase.

You can build incredible, mind-blowing, futuristic apps for iOS without
getting close to any of the provisions in the Terms and Conditions. The
article's main premise is that "killer apps" go beyond what Apple allows you
to do with iOS but that's bullshit, anyone can build a killer app with what
Apple gives you.

------
protomyth
I think it can be said a lot more simply: Apple doesn't want a cross-platform
killer app that doesn't have a native interface.

example: no Adobe CS that ignores almost all Apple tech and implements sloppy
custom interface widgets

------
johnl87
I don't think what language you use to code an app really makes a difference
in how killer your app is. Also this makes no sense because I'm pretty sure
apple developers use objective-c, c and c++ to code their apps (look at their
job descriptions.) They're pretty powerful languages. I'm pretty sure the
operating system you're running was written with c. All the music you listen
to was produced with an app written in c and c++. How is this going to prevent
awesome apps from being created?

~~~
zmmmmm
The programming language directive was targeted directly at Flash, because
Flash itself is a potential killer app. They thought they killed it by just
not supporting it in the browser, but then Adobe managed to find a way to
resurrect it. So they had to kill it again, this time with a stake through the
heart.

------
brisance
>>The greatest support for my thesis is that there are not yet any third party
companies that have made a huge amount of money on the iPhone.<<

That's his "greatest support" for his thesis? Apple claims to have paid out
US$1 billion to developers so far, what about Android Marketplace? During
Steve Jobs's WWDC keynote speech, he quoted Theo Gray: "I earned more on sales
of The Elements for iPad in the first day than from the past 5 years of Google
ads on periodictable.com".

So if going by commercial success is the yardstick, then the App Store is
ahead by at least 1825 times.

~~~
adriand
His point stands: he's not talking about the total amount of money everyone
has made, but the total amount of money any single company has made.

~~~
brisance
And my point is: there are media reports of individuals and small companies
that have made a decent amount of money on the App Store, but there is no
simply equivalence that I'm aware of on Android.

If these entities are considered "small potatoes" then the situation is even
worse on Android. Glass houses, and all that.

------
fjabre
As long as they continue to improve mobile safari I'll be happy. Performance
on it still doesn't match its desktop counterpart but it's definitely getting
there.

Only issue of course is little or no access to the hardware. On a desktop
you'd have flash to fill in that gap currently. Is it plausible that with
HTML5 we'll be able to write native-like apps on an iOS device in a year or
two? I don't know. Anyone?

~~~
Magneus
I'm not expert here, but I believe the answer is: depends on how many
extensions Apple decides to make.

I imagine that there will continue to be a significant feature deficit for
quite some time, particularly with regard to lower-level stuff like the camera
and accelerometer/gyroscope.

Here's a great article on the native code vs web app question:
<http://bit.ly/bwPn6J>

------
dhimes
I don't know what Apple is thinking, but it seems more likely they want as
many and as diverse a field of apps as they can get. If some small company
comes up with a "killer app," they can buy it and make it part of their brand.
This would be a strategy by which they effectively out-source the dev risks of
killer apps.

I don't know if that is what Apple is thinking, but that is what I would do.

------
guelo
This argument makes no sense. Mobile "killer apps" already exist, I'd say they
are Maps, Facebook, YouTube, email and Exchange support. The iPhone has all of
these, just like every other smartphone. Apple is under some threat from these
apps in that Google or Facebook or Microsoft could pull them, but Apple hasn't
avoided them.

------
stavrianos
It's a cool idea, but I'm skeptical. This strategy does nothing to prevent the
creation of a killer app. All it does is prevent the creation of a killer app
_on the iphone_. If we assume that someone somewhere is gonna drop an app-
bomb, forcing them to other platforms might not be the best idea.

~~~
orangecat
In a parallel universe, when Microsoft released Windows 3.1 they also
introduced a certification program requiring that they approve all
applications. When NCSA developed Mosaic, Microsoft recognized the long-term
danger to the Windows platform that it represented, and rejected it on the
grounds of security/privacy/instability/resource consumption/whatever. It was
available only on Mac and Unix platforms, and never became mainstream.

This gave Microsoft time to develop their own hypertext platform, one that was
deliberately tied to Windows. With great fanfare they released it a few years
later, and it was widely adopted. Of course, only Windows machines could serve
the documents that it used, and they worked best on Windows clients. The
inevitable result was an entrenched Microsoft monopoly and technological
stagnation, but hardly anyone complained because to most people the very
concept of an alternate OS or browser was meaningless.

If this seems absurd, consider South Korea where IE's monopoly is guaranteed
by law: [http://www.mobinode.com/2009/01/16/activex-regulations-in-
so...](http://www.mobinode.com/2009/01/16/activex-regulations-in-south-korea-
revisited/)

~~~
glhaynes
To make this parallel universe scenario's Windows 3.1 analogous to
"real"-universe c.2010's iOS, you'd need to make parallel-Windows 3.1 have
about a quarter of the market rather than having a monopoly on it.

------
KirinDave
I tried to look for _why_ Apple would be afraid of a Killer App on its
platform in this blog post. I couldn't find a justification for why this might
be the case. Did I miss it, or does the article just leave us to assume that
"shame" is a compelling reason for it?

~~~
kristiandupont
I thought that was very clear.

"If that killer app vendor decides to support Android more effectively than
they support Apple, or if for some reason they decided to drop the iPhone,
that one vendor could have a devastating effect on Apple's position in the
marketplace"

~~~
jmm
Right. But this could have happened at any point once Android became a
legitimate competing platform, and that's where the argument loses steam for
me.

------
bandushrew
This is a pretty badly thought out, and badly composed article. The worst case
for apple is that someone builds a 'killer app' that compels people to
purchase the device, but it then _doesn't_ get released to the iPhone, but the
Android instead.

------
extension
I find this theory really hard to discount and of all the dissent against the
app store, it is the most damning to me.

The other things - delays, rejections, draconian rules - those were just
risks. I can live with risk. I don't think I can live with a glass ceiling.

------
JoeAltmaier
Maybe its just money. Of the 15000 apps, only a handful make money. Apple
could just sell those, preinstalled, and be done. Apple may just think there's
not much blood left in that turnip, so who cares about new apps.

------
hoggle
Pushing all my red buttons like using the term "Lifestyle Business",
mentioning _Google_ Voice's non approval and the quality vs quantity
discussion makes me very skeptical about this article.

------
jdavid
killer apps on the iphone

* maps = google

* audio = pandora

both were launch apps, both made the iphone plausible, both, were not designed
by apple.

~~~
krschultz
Those are good apps. They are not paradigm shifting apps. When he is pointing
to killer apps of the past, they literally changed the game in a way nobody
saw coming before their launch.

~~~
flyosity
Paradigm-shifting app for iPhone: Ocarina by Smule. Didn't break any rules and
is easily the most innovative mobile application ever developed.

------
drivebyacct
If it's a killer app, it will be regardless of its acceptance onto the iOS
platform. The notion that Apple is hegemonic enough to restrict the level of
innovation on mobile platforms is silly.

------
rimantas
Everything does suck because someone submits articles what make no sense
whatsoever.

~~~
rimantas
Ok, then help me to understand. First is how does Apple keep developers from
producing the killer app? Does this imply, that the Killer App™ cannot be
produced with Objective-C and without built-in interpreters? If it can, what
is the evidence, that Apple did reject such an app, and for what stated
reasons? (No, google voice is not a killer app).

Next, Jobs did state three reasons why app can be rejected. App does not be
great, they just have to work and don't use private APIs.

Now, if majority of apps in App Store is crap, how does this compare to apps
in Android Market which does not have those draconian rules. Are they
generally higher quality than apps for iOS?

Then it makes even less sense: how does not allowing the Killer App™ help
Apple? They sell boatloads of devices without such an app and would sell even
more with it. If someone comes with the brilliant idea author talks about, how
does Android having that app available and iOS not help Apple in any way?
Where is the sense in this claim?

And finally: there will be no killer app for smartphone. Ever. On any
platform. When almost no one owns a computer and you make Visicalc and it
sells 700 000 that's an killer app. However there are almost 100 000 000 users
of iDevices. They already have the killer apps which could appeal to such an
wide audience: mail programs, web browsers.

You can have a killer app for the platform which is smaller than niche your
app fits in. There is no niche several hundred millions people wide.

Although I can see some sense in the claim that iOS 4 is an killer app for
iDevices.

~~~
jerf
The issues of language interpretation are only indirectly related to the core
argument here. I think the core argument is that Apple is staying fuzzy in the
rules so they can _strangle_ any budding "killer app" in its teenage years,
when the trajectory has become clear but it is not yet "THE REASON TO OWN AN
iPHONE!".

Apple is afraid of becoming a client to the killer app owner. Microsoft was
afraid of the some thing, which is the root reason behind "DOS isn't done
until Lotus doesn't run."

You can't prove there won't be a killer app. Network effects mean something
could come from the blue. It doesn't even have to be new, just something that
already existed but is incrementally better enough to harness the network
effects.

~~~
glhaynes
_Apple is afraid of becoming a client to the killer app owner. Microsoft was
afraid of the some thing, which is the root reason behind "DOS isn't done
until Lotus doesn't run."_

Surely Microsoft wasn't afraid of DOS having a killer app — they wanted to
allow Excel an uneven playing field against 1-2-3.

~~~
jerf
And why is that? Because they didn't want 1-2-3 to be "the" reason to own a
DOS computer, leaving them constrained to support 1-2-3 at the expense of
their own loftier ambitions. Such as dominating the office automation market.
Your objection is merely a smaller part of the whole picture.

If somebody else owned Office, Microsoft would have to dance to their tune.

One could argue that this is hardly a bad thing in the abstract; what company
has total independence? I think some of what you're seeing here is the way
that the attitude of the leadership filters down the chain and affects the
company profoundly. "An abstract company" may be happy to carve out a niche
somewhere and be part of a large ecosystem, but Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and
Larry Ellison need to be _the winners in control_.

~~~
glhaynes
An interesting point, well stated. I've always just considered the direct
competition between Excel and 1-2-3, but platform control via app control
certainly could have factored in too.

------
jdavid
This is not the point. The Blog entry is way off.

Steve very clearly wants to create the best platform possible and does not
want any thing holding him back.

(rumor) I have heard that Steve requires final say on circuit boards because
he wants to make sure the traces are beautiful.

Other companies behave this way too, and Verizon at 1st did not have android
phones because they did not meet their quality expectation.

There are many reasons to have a review process, even if you don't actually
review all of the apps. Having such a process requires these independent
companies to maybe, just maybe work just a bit harder before they submit it
for review. On other phones like android and webos, it's easy to provide
patches and they might treat it more like a website where you can always fix
it later.

Secondly, Apple is trying to stay ahead in a very competitive market place.
With the Evo4 coming out at Google I/O do you think think iPhone4, was a leak
or not? Knowing that the iPhone4 had a front facing camera kinda stole the
wind from the Evo4 showing that off at Google IO.

3rd, I think they are trying to keep a community together, and communities
have languages.

If there is one thing to say about all of this, is that Apple could have been
much more diplomatic about all of this and created a PR engine from the start
about this process. But, then again, it could just be the typical silicon
valley approach, ship it, launch it and fix what's broken. Apple just may not
have expected this much back lash on 3.3.1.

~~~
philwelch
"I have heard that Steve requires final say on circuit boards because he wants
to make sure the traces are beautiful."

This may have been true in the Apple I and Apple II days, but he's mellowed
out a lot since then. This kind of extravagance caused a lot of problems for
him (it crippled the Mac from developing much since Steve didn't like hard
drives or fans, it affected the NeXT cube for the same reasons, and he had the
entire NeXT factory repainted multiple times because he didn't like the
particular shade of grey they chose).

