Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

I just found an interesting article analyzing why there's so much apps on application stores of concurrent phones (iPhone and Android), mostly by having hundreds or thousands of app when for the same thing we only need one app (one app for all RSS feeds, one app to read all e-books, ...).

Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth

After reading this article, I think I couldn't agree more. The problem is most of people dumbly look at how many app there is when comparing smartphones, but this number does not reflect how powerfull a platform/smartphone is.

How can Nokia/Maemo(Meego) adapt his communication strategy to break this apps myth and show the weakness of iPhone/Android compared to Maemo/Meego ?

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

By making meego feature complete out of the box,
the more it can do out of the box in its factory state the less reliance there is on 200k of garbage apps.
they need good social networking, media player, Email, maps, photo browser and very good video/photo editing software. these things need to be there from the moment you open the box and need to be done well, average app set will not cut like with some of the ones on n900

EDIT: on the other hand nokias future strategy with apps seems to be in the mold of adroid/iphone but on a far bigger scale with there multiplatform Qt SDK, so its no good trying to show the weakness of competitors when the future for themselves is the same, its all money driven of course not quality driven

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

I think the average user does not know enough to judge and therefore they rely on parameters as apps number which is definetely missleading.

Probably what NvyUs says is correct but still not enough.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

You are talking about installing external app for navigation, mms, use of internal hardware not implemented in OS (like radio receiver, for example), and such things?
Yeah, how can they compare to Maemo...

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Oh so true... maybe they should focus on telling it like it is... Like with the e-book reader or RSS feeds... "One app. to read them all" type of thing :-P
gPodder, FBReader and CbrPager are amongst my favorite apps.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Nokia is already working to remedy the issue... by creating an RSS app wizard :rolleyes:

Unfortunately, that's probably necessary. But if we're to take the advertising requirement seriously without compromising quality and putting individual books in the app manager, I can think of a few things for Nokia to do:

-Include the full set of Unix utilities with MeeGo and count them as individual apps. (This isn't even bs, just something that wouldn't normally be done.)

-Port KDE and count all desktop apps, instead of just the ones that are light enough. The heavy ones might still be useful to someone, just like the 2000 RSS apps...

-Add KIO Slave support to the file dialogs, but count every protocol as an individual app. (This is a feature I would really like anyway.)

-Create widgets for streams of every possible data type and count them as individual apps.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

This is true on all platforms... there's always going to be some redundancy - in the case of the iTunes Music Store, the redundancy is incredible.

Even on the N810 or N900, I could use: Evince, Kchmviewer, PDF Reader, FBReader, or other apps to read PDF files. Or for weather, there's OMWeather and Foreca. Browsers... Opera, Fennec, Mindfield, Arora, Midori, Tear.

You get my point. Each and every one of these stores inflate their numbers by just counting the heads, not by counting where they overlap. If there's an app that does what you need, then use it. Cool part... if there's an app you need on Maemo/MeeGo, develop it.

I'll just use what suits my needs no matter the platform. The rest of those numbers mean nothing to me.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

The problem is, this sort of calculation will be present in any app stores. It's not an intentionally inflated numbers for marketing purpose.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

What the hundreds of thousands of apps DO show is a thriving third party application ecosystem.

Having 10, 20, or 100 apps that do the same thing gives the user multiple choices - perhaps one does it better, or is cheaper, or faster, or uses less battery, or whatever.

So on the one hand, indeed in order to accomplish function X you only need one application (or even a part of a full featured application) to accomplish task Y, if you have a choice of several apps you (as a user) feel empowered by choice. You (as a developer) can dog-pile onto whatever the hot "function" is this week and try to make money. You (as a device manufacture) can proudly point to your app store/market place/software catalog and say "this is a thriving platform with lots of choices for users, and lots of ways for developers to make money."

And like it or not, that's the world we live in.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Looking at apple's AppStore, IMHO the worst offenders are those 'single app with individually packaged content', for example: stand alone ebooks. Some of them DO introduce extra functionalities per book, but a majority of them can and should be sold as a book engine with the ebooks separated.

One explanation of this phenomenon: by packaging the books individually, the seller doesn't have to setup their own ebook store/module distirbution system. Apple addressed this need by introducing the ability to sell 'in-app modules/content' from the last OS/appstore update.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

IMHO the main problem is not to have hundred of apps doing the same thing : this is unavoidable and it gives choice to the user (sometimes a bit too much, but I prefer to have too much choice than not enough).

The point is the number of apps is artificially high because every e-book and RSS feed is counted as an app, and many websites have an app which is no more than an HTML page adapted to the poor resolution of the phone.

AppStore's succes has proven that a good marketing strategy has turned a weakness (poor web browser experience) and a non-sense (one app per RSS/book) into a fake superiority (most people believe it).

We need to find a way to communicate about these facts in order to bust these myths Apple has insidiously implanted in people's mind.

We could of course try to play the same game as Apple and create thousand of useless apps (apps that are just a shorcut to "evince /path/author-title.pdf" for example), but I don't think it would lead to success. Only Apple has this strange power to generate enthousiasm with stupid/useless things, many times I've thought that if any other company has done the same thing, everybody would have laughed at them). The only way to fight them is to break their marketing strategy so that people realize how crappy are all these appstores.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

I believe in the open-source strategy. Everyone can add to a project or make a fork. Thus no need to start from scratch. To many apps will make the choice noisy. How will you be able to know what app are the better for you? I remembered that problem while i was using windows. It could take hours to find the right program. One thing why the Ubuntu/Maemo/Debian way is so superior to anything els.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Thing is for me, a lot of i-phone apps I have seen, are just marketed to sound amazing. my mate has an app that lists real ale pubs on screen, based on gps position, you could do the same on N900 by checking your gps on ovi and then getting the info from the CAMRA website. other ones like work out who owes what on a resteraunt bill, I would use a calculator!!! Most of these apps are style over substance from what I have seen... thats why I went for N900 over i-phone. Just wish we had more made for platform games like angry birds... thats where n900 lacks, but we have emus etc...

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

app count, the megapixels of app stores...

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHZzb42s3y4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx7v815bYUw

these two videos are very very telling.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

i loved the apple advert (in the uk at least) that demonstrated an app that let you unlock your car doors, flash the lights and toot the horn, all from the iphone! they didn't mention it only worked on specific cars from a specific short-term car hire company.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Recently I've watched an documentary about apps called "Planet of the Apps A Handheld Revolution" I cant post the link here but I'm sure you can find it by Googling

If anyone watched it, share what you think about it :)

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

IMO, very soon the large number of apps for Apple's devices will become a deterrent for developers. For example, imagine the following situation: Android phones gradually take over in popularity (signs of this are already here), however there are still fewer apps for Android. A developer can reach at least as many potential customers if coding for Android, however the new app will have to compete with many more pre-existing apps at the Apple store, and will be likely to be lost in the crowd. So it would make more sense to code for Android first (or exclusively).

What I expect will happen eventually is that, as soon as certain core functionalities are provided by a few hundred apps, any additional fluff will not matter. People will get tired of it, and app stores will lose their current appeal, remaining a useful necessity but without the fierce competition we witness today.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Interesting premise-- and one that supports the ultimate triumph of an open source approach.

Methinks Nokia is wise to be patient in this space.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Herein lies the main difference between the swath of users out there and most of the users of this forum.

They like having a gadget, they may splurge out for the latest and greatest in handheld technology, but they don't necessarily enjoy spending their whole day tinkering with it. For them, all this is just a means to an end; they value a quick-and-simple tool to quickly get a list of answers for their questions much more than a robust tool that can do so much more (but they may have to spend more time to tinker on).
They have other things to spend their time and effort on.

I'd imagine with an open and uncensored apps market, this kind of apps will only grow in quantity and there's little anyone can do about it.

Well ok, maybe not:

CAMRA usecase: this can be handled by html5's geolocation support in the future. Otherwise, I think it's a fair piece of app to shorten the 3-4 steps you need to do through your browser and Ovi to a 1 click app. Especially when you're real thirsty :D

Tips calculator: Yeah I gotta agree with you on this. This is just a reflection of our society, especially its poor academic standard.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

A few reasons that Apple's AppStore is the biggest one:

1. It's the first of its kind (headstart, most well known)
2. It still has the most paying customers (payment system on hand, credit check ok, willing to part with their monies)
3. It still has the highest 'prestige' among the appstores (whatever that means)
4. It's on Steve Jobs' marketing boat. Has a much higher chance of (free) publicity than other competing app stores.

As long as these are not trumped by other app stores, then anyone making a mobile app will still -have- to consider Apple's AppStore in their target list.

PS: Stop comparing or trying to make sense of these app stores with the logic of an oss repository. They work under a different logic.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Yeah.. you can't compare those to the awesomeness of an oss repo. Thats what Nokia are doing right here. While Apple will continue to be a lesser and closed machine. Sure as a phone it will suffice and that might be enough for the casual user. But in the end people want freedom. I know a couple of co-workers who will change their mark next time they are buying after have showed what my N900 can do. So the greatness of a big app store is a myth.

Re: Less is more: the 200′000 apps myth
 

Heheh i'll try to ignore the biased tone there ;)

imho there's no better one. It is what it is. For those that want to make money, then obviously marketplace is better. Arguably, for those that are looking or innovation, marketplace is better too, because that's what the suppliers are forced to do when the market is saturated. Whether the direction of the innovation is good or bad.. Well that's a whole other can of worm too.