make or break" a device in the open industry is the
support and availability of third-party apps. Just look at those first touch phones. Sure, it was advanced for its time, but when you really look at things now the sad reality is that those phones wasn't much more than a current day "dumbphone." I mean, how advanced is a phone that simply makes calls, gets mobile web access and plays music? Not very. So what makes a "smartphone" smart? Simple, the answer to this question is apps.
Mobile applications increase the usability of a mobile handset by bringing limitless third-party function to the device. Let it be games or personal information, the fact of the matter is that without the function brought by mobile apps smartphones are of little use.
In my honest opinion, the iPhone's biggest innovation came the day that Apple released official support for third-party apps through the App Store. By offering users the ability to purchase apps over-the-air onto our handsets Apple not only created a new mechanism for generating revenue, but more importantly created a business venture that helped them to gain the edge over their competitors. Finally, users could justify the price of Apple's mobile operating because of the simple fact that third-party developers were actively developing applications that introduced new functionality to the phone.
Personally, I think this is the biggest reason the iPhone became as successful as it did and why Apple was able to successfully bring the success of the iPhone over to the iPad. By introducing an organized App Store and marketing it as heavily as they did. Apple was able to take third-party apps straight to the bank.
So imagine how troubling it must be for companies like Microsoft and Google to have to sit back and watch developers fuel the iOS's popularity while their own platforms fail to attract developers and applications capable of capturing consumers. Even the CEO of Evernote said that iOS is a bigger money maker than both Android and web development, giving the concept that "big developers" simply develops focusing on iOS than anywhere else.
But as sad as it is that non-iOS platforms are failing to attract developers, I really haven't seen Microsoft and Google getting their hands dirty to fix the issue.
This week though, Google announced that dates for four developer camps in the form of one-day events that aims to attract developers to create applications that take advantage of the Android OS.
This may be a small step in taking Android in the right direction, I must say that I am somewhat let down at the fact that Google only seems to be targeting experienced developers. Nonetheless, I think it's great that Google is at least making an effort here to better the ability of the developers who can better the success of their products.
No comments:
Post a Comment