What's the big deal about the iPhone App Store?
Alex Kidman has been playing around with App Store applications since they went live ten days ago. Here's his initial thoughts.
Yep, it's another iPhone 3G-centric article, so if you're sick of them, I'd suggest you click away to some other portion of PC Authority. Well, if I'm going to be technical, it's an iPhone 3G and iPod Touch-centric article, but then again, this is my Apple Blog, so what else would I be talking about?
In any case, pretty much every detracting comment I've read on the iPhone points out where it's feature deficient, and how many other phones outpace it. I'll let those commenters in on a little secret here: I don't entirely disagree with you.
Quite why Apple omitted A2DP support from the iPhone 3G, or why they're not allowing third parties to develop better GPS navigation utilities remains a mystery to me. For my purposes, I can live without MMS (especially when I have email) and video calling, but tastes do vary.
At the same time, I can't help but think that many of the commentators miss one of the key selling points of the iPhone, which isn't the feature set, but the simplicity of the interface. Put simply, the iPhone is really simple to use, and while there's no shortage of phones out there that have the same feature set, very few make it easy and intuitive to actually use those features.
Still, if you're a user of a non-iPhone, I still reckon the iPhone is good news for you. Why? Well, there's the obvious pressure on other mobile manufacturers to make phones that are a lot easier to use, for a start.
I'm not talking about drool-proof models, but more things that have similar (probably not too similar, given Apple has a small army of patent lawyers hidden in cages, so I'm told) easy to use interfaces that actually encourage users to utilise those features, instead of ignoring them because they're hidden behind a wacky mess of icons, text and web terminology.
But where the iPhone 3G really changes the mobile game is with the App store, Apple's take on bolt-on software for its smartphone. I've been playing around with App Store applications since they went live ten days ago. Sure, smartphone applications are, in themselves, nothing particularly new. But here's why the iPhone changes things:
* A centralised location for Applications: There's thousands of Windows Smartphone apps out there. Now, quickly, find and name five. It's not easy to do, and even if you do have the time to search out applications, it's rather hard to assess them against each other, or feel assured that they're not going to cause interesting system effects. Certainly, the App store is all part and parcel of Apple's push to control the entire computing lifecycle, but in this case, for consumers, it's a big convenience plus.
* A brand new gaming platform: Apple sold something like a million iPhone 3G units in the first weekend of launch, and while it's not going to be expecting to continue that absolute sales graph, there's little doubt that it's a popular platform. And what might the most popular application for this popular platform be?
That'd be Sega's Super Monkey Ball, a game that takes nice advantage of the iPhone 3G's large screen and accelerometer. Certainly, Nintendo's not going to be entirely quaking in its boots -- the DS will still remain the choice du jour for more serious gaming -- but, via the App store, the iPhone 3G reinvigorates mobile phone gaming away from the turgid and lackluster "Press 2 to climb up the ladder" fare we've seen for far too long
* Cheaper applications: Yeah, I know, "Apple" and "Cheap" don't usually go together all that kindly, something that some wit or another will no doubt point out in the comments field below. Knock yourself out. Still, there's a decent range of free applications, and even amongst the paid ones, the average price of an application hovers below the $10 mark. Even the more complex games typically sell for $12.99, which is cheap for most portable games.
There are more expensive applications, but if the market says the starting price is $1.19 for a paid application, and most play in the $1-$10 space, most vendors are likely to price in that space, rather than cost themselves out of the market.
It's also worth noting that the same App store goodness is available to owners of the iPod Touch, although the $12.99 asking price for the compatibility upgrade stings a bit. Yes, I know Apple's defense on this one, in that it's complying with some daft bit of US accounting legislation. But I don't care, and neither should any other consumer.
Now, it's not impossible for a vendor to match those kinds of propositions. Technically, some of the same stuff can be done with a Slim PSP (as long as you count Skype as the mobile phone part of the platform) and Sony's PSN Store, and I'd be stunned if Sony Ericsson wasn't thinking along those lines right now, along with Nokia -- whose recent music store is a very obvious first step in this direction -- Samsung, LG and RIM.
And frankly, I hope they do. Big corporations spending up big on new improvements might not be initially great for their profit and loss sheets, and in a competitive environment, there are always losers, but this kind of competition nearly always benefits consumers.
Apple's probably thinking more of themselves with the App store -- well, to be technical, Apple's probably running around dancing in the kinds of big piles of money that flogging a million handsets very quickly entails -- but I reckon the effects will be far more widespread than just one simple 3G handset.
Other Blog Entries written by Alex Kidman:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comments: 1
|
bbjai
Aug 4, 2008 12:32 PM
|
I've been thinking a long while about the iPhone. The app store, the games and all these applications. They are all good and all and I think they make buying a phone worthwhile. But really will these applications work in a smaller form factor?
If you step away from all the craze and hype of the iphone you'll find that most people don't actually use a 3G phone with Wifi, email, or application programs. The people buying these type of stuff exist in the business plane and the tech geeks.
Will people buy a bigger phone just to run apps? The apps themselves, will they work on a smaller touch screen or small screen? I can't imagine playing Super Monkey Ball on a 2 incher to be honest. If these things are going to run mainstream past music/photos they are going to need to appeal to the mass market. The one that needs a phone for calling in a small form.
The iphone and its apps as it stands is too big, too bulky for the average consumer. If only they could get these apps on a smaller phone! |