When did we stop caring about killer apps, and start caring about the number of apps?

It’s Thursday and that means I’m watching Cranky Geeks, a video podcast with one of my favorite technology pundits, John C. Dvorak. Joining him, on practically every show, is Sebastian Rupley, Editor in Chief of the GigaOM Network. He says in episode 197, and I quote:

“We got one [the Google Phone] at GigaOM yesterday. I held it. It’s a very nice phone, it’s very thin, it says Google on the back, and it looks very slick and everything, but we’ve decided already that it’s not going to be an iPhone killer. No way.”

When asked by Dvork why, Sebastian went on to say: “Because there aren’t a large number of apps on there.”

If you’re not uttering the word fail, repeatedly, in your mind, then I don’t know what to tell you. Knocking a phone, hell knocking a platform, simply because one has X number of apps while the number has 2X or 3X is simply being ignorant. The killer app for Macs, in the early days, was desktop publishing. The killer app for the personal computer was spreadsheets. The killer app for the internet was email. What’s the killer app for mobile phones? For some it may be GPS, for others it’s internet access anywhere at anytime, soon it will be mobile payments, but either way, it’s a handful of use cases.

100,000 vs. 20,000 vs. 100 vs. 1, the winner = give anyone a web browser, an alarm clock, and Google Maps and they’ll be happy.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

Darnell

Stefan
I think you missing the point. Number do matter when you consider the ecosystem of most Apps Stores. Sebastian knows that without a balance of “apps/devices sold” you can’t kill the iPhone platform. We all know that the Android ecosystem just will not make enough purchases to “fertilize” there platform. Hence, number do matter.
John

Most apps are junk anyways. I agree these app stores are overrated. Phones should be judged by what you walk out the door with when you buy it.
nondual

what else should it be about other than the number of high-quality and/or unique apps and games? it’s certainly not the HW or the OS alone that makes the difference anymore. the iphone is still where it’s happening with regard to app quality, innovation, and yes, the sheer number of [existing, and new] apps. also, it has by far the best SDK of all platforms. fragmentation is a huge problem for android (as it is for symbian).
Robb

This is a good take and I couldn’t agree more.

If you follow Rupley’s logic, no one could ever compete with Apple simply because no one will have the library of Apps that Apple does when they launch.

The ability to run compelling applications and the ease of which developers can port their existing apps, as well as create new ones, is much more important.
bstring

I’ve had an iPod Touch for a year and have a pretty good feel for the App Store, but even with only 16,000 android apps, I feel a greater sense of choice and freedom with the Android Market than with the App Store… not to mention cost savings with Google Voice and Navigation. iPhones (on AT&T) are much more expensive to own (50-100% more per month).

I’ll hold my Droid, with its 152 installed apps, up to any iPhone. 3D games don’t do much for me. How about spoken voice translation on the fly (99 cent app)? Does the iPhone have that? How about speech to text in any text field (with the same 99 cent app)? Then there are the apps that need to run in the background, e.g. location sharing, instant messaging, etc..
Jody

Funny. When Apple Mac is competing against Windows it is always, “don’t worry about the quantity of the software, just care about the quality”. But when it comes to iPhone over the others it is “we have 100,000 apps, but don’t worry that 50% are flashlight apps and twitter clients”.