Zis Mac

Alan Zisman on the Mac

Mobile App Stores: The Solution Is the Problem

- 2010.08.10 - Tip Jar

Follow Alan Zisman on Twitter.

Popularity:

Short link: http://bit.ly/cTfX3C

Much of the reason for the continuing excitement about smartphones and tablets is due to the availability of free and inexpensive apps, small programs that let users customize their gadgets, adding games; travel, restaurant and movie guides; and even business tools.

Apple's App Store is the biggest source of apps. It lists more than 200,000 for the company's iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. Google's Android Market is coming up fast, with some 70,000 apps for that growing smartphone platform.

A lack of apps - and a failure to get developers involved - helped doom Palm's otherwise promising WebOS platform,* leading to the company's purchase by HP.

While still in the lead in sales, the relative lack of apps for RIM's BlackBerry phones is a sign of that platform's stagnation.

Microsoft, with its Windows Phone 7 platform still unreleased, has promised a free phone to every Microsoft employee - perhaps to encourage the company's developers to build apps for it in their spare time.

I count 55 apps installed on my iPad.

The Problem with Apps

Still, there's a problem with apps.

With so many apps, if you're a developer, how do you let people know about your product? And if you're a person with a smartphone or tablet, how do you find the best apps to match your needs and desires?

Vancouverite Tim Bray is best-known as a creator of XML (extensible markup language) for standardizing data so that it can be shared between computers. He's worked with Digital Equipment, Sun Microsystems, Vancouver startup Antarctica Systems, and more. Currently, he's a "developer advocate" focusing on Android at Google.

Despite the Google job title, in his blog, he recently suggested that neither Android Market nor Apple's App Store (nor any one else) is doing a good job of helping users sort through the thousands of available apps.

Bray recognizes that it's not an easy task. He compares the onslaught of new apps coming to the stores to "a firehose", calling it "mind-boggling, overwhelming, terrifying" - but notes that as sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon once suggested (in another context), almost everything is crap.

He contrasts these app stores to online retailer Amazon.com. Expanding beyond books to sell music, video, garden tools, and more, Amazon stocks far more items than any of the app stores. Bray notes, however, that Amazon helps potential customers with detailed and expert reviews.

Amazon has an advantage, he recognizes, in that customers are often looking for brand names or products by specific artists or performers. High profile brands are almost completely missing from the app stores.

While both Apple's and Google's stores let users rate apps, the ratings tend to be less helpful than Amazon's. Too often, they're very high or very low without apparent reason. And Bray points out that there's a "first-mover advantage" to the first reasonably competent app in any particular category, making it hard for later competitors - even with better designed apps - to gain attention, reviews, or market share.

Apple's App Store has some advantages over its Google equivalent; users can browse Apple's listings on their Mac or Windows PC, while Android users have only slower (and perhaps expensive) browsing on the small screens of their phones. Further, each App Store entry gets its own web page, making them Google-searchable, unlike Android Market apps.

While Apple has taken some heat for controlling what gets listed in its store, that offers at least a minimal level of quality control compared with Google's more unsupervised market.

Two Resources

Bray recommends the Appsfire website, which promises to help users "discover and share the greatest apps," while a blog reader suggested MIMVI, a search engine for mobile apps, content, and products.

Bray suggests that these sites more reflect the extent of the problem than offer a solution.

The app phenomenon is still young. Apple's App Store opened in mid-2008. While Bray notes "it's a mess," he's hopeful a solution will arise. In the meantime, be aware that having tens of thousands (Android) or hundreds of thousands (Apple) of apps is less of an advantage if there's no easy way to find the handful that you really want.

* See Tim Nash's Palm Prē: Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Part 1 and Part 2, as well as Palm Prē: Cutting Off Business Customers for more on Palm's failure with the Prē and WebOS.

First published in Business in Vancouver, August 10 - 16, 2010, issue #1085.

Join us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Alan Zisman is Mac-using teacher and technology writer based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Many of his articles are available on his website, www.zisman.ca. If you find Alan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Outbound Laptop and Notebook, introduced 1989.09. The best known among the early Mac clones.
February 11 in LEM history: 98: Disposable modems - 00: Setting up a Mac web server - Small network backup solutions - 02: Flea market Mac Plus - I love this Quadra! - 03: Jaguar revisited - Beige G3 upgrades - 05: The key to Apple's success - Which iPod is best for you? - 08: Could a wireless dock be in the MacBook Air's future? - 2 of Apple's best notebooks ever
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Custom Search

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Introductory Price of $59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!! Or buy direct from Strider Software.

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker and Mac Casino applications in minutes.

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The Apple Store
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
GainSaver
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay