Every few months Apple brags about the number of iPhone apps accumulated in its App Store (most recently the count was 100,000), and most of the tech press has been hasty to deflate the hype.
But what if quantity really is what counts?
Numerous observers argue that 100,000 apps isn’t that significant. That’s because a lot of those apps are garbage, ranging from fart apps to really lame games. And the apps that make the iPhone stand out, the ones with stellar quality, are few and far between. The popular Twitter app Tweetie is often hailed as a prime example for a piece of software coded with beautiful design and rich features.
These points are valid, and I don’t disagree that quality is extremely important. But in the short term, quantity is just as big a deal; in fact, I think it matters even more.
The more apps the App Store accumulates, the higher the chance the App Store has to appeal to each of the 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners out there.
We can ignore a horde of lousy iPhone apps, but there are also many low-profile apps that average consumers wouldn’t pay attention to or care to use. And their developers aren’t targeting consumers, either. I’m talking about niche apps catering to specific professions, hobbies and interests — those apps that slip past the average consumer’s radar. Some examples include iChart, an app for doctors to view and store patients’ medical charts; Rev, an app for mechanics to perform car-engine diagnostics; and BulletFlight, an app for military snipers to calculate ballistics. Niche apps are what make the iPhone special and, in my opinion, still the best general-purpose device.
“How many applications do you really need?” asked my colleague Philip Elmer De-Witt in an October column for Fortune. That was when the App Store had hit 93,000 apps, and the Android Market, which has the second biggest app store, had reached 11,000. (The Android Market has since climbed to about 19,000 apps.)
That’s a good question. I own about 45 apps. I’ll name a few niche apps I like: MuniApp lets me quickly look up the San Francisco bus schedules. Instapaper saves entire web articles to read offline later. Epiphany easily records in-person interviews with sources and MacTracker double-checks Apple product information. Of course, I have some megapopular apps, too, like Facebook, Tweetie and Amazon, and I own about 12 games.
See what I’m getting at? Personally I don’t need 100,000 apps (and nobody does), but my collection consists of pieces of software tailored for my life as a San Franciscan and tech journalist for Wired.com (and part-time human being with a sliver of a social life). That’s a pretty specific career, and the more apps in the App Store, the higher the chance for the iPhone to become closer to the only gadget I need.
In fact, a number of my downloaded apps are less than stellar. They leave a lot to be desired, but they enable me to perform tasks that other smartphones would not. But I would still rather have a mediocre app that gives me the ability to do something than not have the app at all.
One device that does it all — that’s the dream of the perfect gadget, isn’t it?
Inevitably, I found myself comparing my iPhone with my friend’s brandnew Droid. He didn’t even have enough apps to fit his primary screen — so few that I can remember most of them. Some of his apps were Amazon, Facebook, a Texas Hold ‘Em poker game and Sky Maps for viewing constellations. He isn’t the extremely geeky type, so I doubt even if he had an iPhone he would have more than 25 apps. But he loves games, and he complained that there weren’t many compelling titles available for the Droid.
Is upward of 19,000 apps for Android enough for customers? It wasn’t for my Droid-owning friend, because among those 19,000 apps, not many suited his interests. And he’s not alone.
The quantity of Apple’s App Store is significant not only for Apple’s audience — which includes upward of 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners. It’s also a direct reflection of the segment software developers are most interested in. From a developer perspective, it’s been economically advantageous to program for the iPhone, despite Apple’s questionable and inconsistent app-approval policy. There’s an element of risk with either route, but think of it like a game of BlackJack. Developers are essentially placing a stiff bet in a single circle when coding an app for Apple, as opposed to spreading smaller bets over multiple circles for other fragmented platforms such as Windows Mobile or Android.
(Of course, developers of niche applications wouldn’t be coding for the iPhone if they weren’t making decent money. This is where the long-tail principle comes into play: They can charge more for apps that are obviously going to sell less. The aforementioned car-engine diagnostics app Rev, for example, costs $40. When I spoke to Rev, the developer declined to disclose sales numbers but stressed that it was not aiming to sell a huge number of copies — because it could still make good money by selling Rev to a special audience of car enthusiasts and mechanics.)
Also significant about the number of apps is it suggests the App Store has reached a point of market saturation — enough apps to fill almost every need, which forces developers to compete more in terms of quality, said Phillip Ryu, a partner owner of Tap Tap Tap, which developed the popular iPhone app Voices.
“100,000 apps means the market is extremely competitive, and consumer needs have essentially been saturated,” Ryu said. “So what we have left to compete on is quality and value. On Android I imagine those are secondary concerns, after being first to market.”
The App Store opened July 2008 with 500 apps. Now, Apple claims it reviews 8,500 apps a week. Android opened with about 100 apps, and to date there are about 19,000 apps in the Android Market. That’s some healthy growth in the Android Market, and at some point its store could become as compelling as the App Store. It just needs more time to grow and mature the way the App Store has.
For now, quantity is helping the App Store win, and in effect it’s driving higher quality. One hundred thousand is a huge number, and it’s truly a big deal.
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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
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