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We're Just Not That Into You, iPhone Apps
maximus1 writes "A new report compiled by iPhone analytics firm Pinch Media finds the majority of people stop using apps the day after they download them, and only 1 percent develop a long-term relationship with any given app. Instead, most tend to lose interest after a few minutes, according to this article. Paid apps fare slightly better. 30% of the people downloading a paid app return the next day compared to 20% who download a free app. No surprises that the survey found that apps that focused on games and entertainment seem to outlast other categories when it comes to long-term love."
So...you're saying we should charge for EVERYTHING to maintain interest?
/me charges girlfriend $20 for sex...
Bored at work? Play Game!
I'm an avid buyer of iPhone apps and games. I get dozens every week. And, yes, just as the article asserts I rarely return to them after a day or two. There are exceptions, such as Tweetie (I'm utterly addicted to Twitter, see sig (and follow me!)), and a few great games (Trism, Enigmo, GeoDefence), but the majority I see as throwaway stuff.
Which is fine.
These apps are priced to be treated like that. It's a return to the PD and shareware library ethos of old (old? I mean late 80s/early 90s). I remember paying a buck or two for a disk with a raft of simple, mostly awful Commadore Amiga games. Fred Fish anyone?
It's pretty much the same thing. There were gems on those disks occasionally. There are gems in the App Library. Long may it continue.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
... mis-belief that Apple customers actually pay for utility. You see this a lot in cults, high-ranking Amway people don't really use Amway products...etc.
Alrighty.
I'm stopping myself now because, to be honest, I really, really want to post something that's, well, "Flamebait" or "Troll" to Apple users. It's an issue of mine. I was an abused child.
It might be that I'm jealous of folks with the discretionary income to buy those stylish electronic gizmos that really aren't necessary for everyday life or for life in general. Or for the fact that I have Back Turtle Neck envy. I wish I could look as good as Jobs in one of those.I wish I could look that good balding! unlike Jobs who looks cool balding, I look like a dog with bad mange.
Oh, never mind!
The Apps store has a lot of junk. Quite a few apps are buggy. Some are interesting. The business apps are typically tied to third party services. Some are only interesting for 10 minutes. And some have a great deal of potential that's unrealized.
For instance I'd love a restaurant locator app that works outside of San Francisco, Chicago and New York.
A lot of apps provide the same info you can get from a website or web app. And as long as that site works on Safari on the iPhone, there's not much reason to install an app just for that task.
It's not that the apps aren't useful, but rather after you download the app you find that it's just as easy to accomplish the task like you've always done it before you downloaded the app.
I have apps that get little frequent use, but are indispensable nonetheless in certain circumstances.
Makes for multiple panes, but I can solve a lot of problems from just about anywhere because my toolkit is with me.
The App Store offerings are growing rapidly (not quite exponential, but pretty close by previously set standards). I see this use-and-discard method as a pretty healthy sign for the platform because it lets people experiment with different things. If people kept all their apps and used them every day since the day the App Store opened they'd run out of space pretty quickly. The turnover rate is pretty high, but I've discovered few gems that set a new expectation when I pick up a new mobile platform.
Besides, mobile app half-life is much shorter than those of desktop ones. I've played some iPhone games much longer than full PC variants.
I use that almost daily, have since I got it on my (J2ME) phone.
In my experience, the free app store is inundated with shovelware. But there are a few free apps I use on a regular basis, including: * TwitterFon * Last.fm / Pandora * Facebook * Fring (for instant messaging) * Urbanspoon (or Yelp) * Sol Free (solitaire) * Morocco (othello) So for the most part, I keep apps that supplement or extend the online services that I already use. These apps offer regularly updated content and a (relatively) rich user experience. Also, a couple classic games with good replay value make my list. In general, I find that the iPhone makes for an awkward gaming platform. Due to the lack of physical controls, the control scheme has to be overlaid onto the screen, thereby obscuring the player's view. The majority of unsuccessful iPhone games fall into three camps: 1) Gameplay ruined by aforementioned control issues 2) Not enough content (i.e. Space Deadbeef, high production value but played like a proof of concept) 3) Low quality games created by novice developers Then there are a few other apps I keep because work they work so well, but I don't often use. These include Remote, Shazam, Air Sharing, and a few others.
Must ... resist ... snide ... Apple ... userbase ... comment ... argh ... ugh...
Lurking in the desert
In my experience, the free app store is inundated with shovelware. But there are a few free apps I use on a regular basis, including:
* TwitterFon
* Last.fm / Pandora
* Facebook
* Fring (for instant messaging)
* Urbanspoon (or Yelp)
* Sol Free (solitaire)
* Morocco (othello)
So for the most part, I keep apps that supplement or extend the online services that I already use. These apps offer regularly updated content and a (relatively) rich user experience. Also, a couple classic games with good replay value make my list. In general, I find that the iPhone makes for an awkward gaming platform. Due to the lack of physical controls, the control scheme has to be overlaid onto the screen, thereby obscuring the player's view. The majority of unsuccessful iPhone suffer from one or more of the three following issues:
1) Gameplay ruined by aforementioned control issues
2) Low production quality
3) Not enough content (i.e. Space Deadbeef, high production value but played like a proof of concept)
Then there are a few other apps I don't use often, but I keep them because work they work so well. These include Remote, Shazam, Air Sharing, and a few others.
Of all the apps they watched how many were mainly a gimmick? A friend of mine downloaded an app that turns the screen into a small keyboard, how useful is that? He has a bunch of other apps he played with once and forgot they are even on his iphone. He mainly uses it for Google maps, the internet browser and a face book app. Other then that they are all mostly useless gimmicks.
There are a couple of extremely useful apps, but think about it. The majority of those free or $1-$2 apps have extremely limited scope and utility, and dare I say purpose as well. Seriously, an app that animates a zippo? Lightsaber sound effects triggered by the motion sensors in the iPhone? Come on, like those are supposed to amuse anybody for longer than 5 or 6 minutes.
between this and any other portable applications like say, games.
My DSlite has been sitting on a pile of PS2 games for the past five months collecting dust along with all the games I bought for it. It's a giant stack of good games I've played/been meaning to play/shoved in my face to play, yet there they are. Not to mention that I had carried my DS for 3 months with me before I realized I wasn't playing it.
Oh, but during the first 4 months of me owning that system you bet I played the crap out of it.
the iphone is a toy, not a business tool. Yes, it is a fantastic device for MP3's & video, but I prefer a WM device, where I can run outlook, word, excel, which I do daily. It's a personal taste thing...I use my phone for business, most iPhone users are caught up in they hype...the follow the Jones' attitude. "I got an iphone...why? Because everyone else has one". Reminds me of the Razr when it first came out.
So it means, Apple users have the attention span of a 3 year old?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
read their report and they seem more than happy to admit their apps phone home with these stats
and as they are a "analytics" company not a software company it makes you wonder wether their apps are really spyware with a game tacked on, unless Apple release their stats publicly the only way they can get numbers is by spying on anyone who downloads their crap
analytics is another name for spyware or stalkerware, the methods may be different to regular spyware but the results are the same.
looks like Windows isnt the only vector for this business
> "It's shareware all over again"
Did you use/sell/buy shareware with embedded ads?
You got your app and the author got paid. What is the problem here again?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Most apps are mere curiosities to say the least...some I have and I use but most I try and delete after using it a bit. I mean that's nothing new....
I mean really how many FLASHLIGHT apps do your truly need?
The reports findings make perfect sense. And I'd be willing to bet that on top of this, more people than you might expect don't regularly use their IPhones as MP3 players either.
My best guess is that most IPhone users get the phone -all excited, fill it with music and start checking out the features and then gradually start using the full capability of the phone less and less as time goes on, until basically they have a glorified cell phone which they occasionally use for maps and the Internet when nothing else is readily available.
How many IPhone owners actually even carry around a set of headphones? And the ones that do, well do those headphones just find their way stowed in the bottom of a purse or the pocket of a backpack rarely to be used?
To a pre-2.0 state.
All the applications developed by the underground iphone community, well 99% of them, were broken and abandoned when 2.0 came out.
Why would I want these older applications when there is now an apple store to provide most of the functionality of these applications? I loved having a chat client that would run in the background. I loved having my iradio, my wedict, my ebook reader (and a ton of ebook sources for easy install on the go.) my video recorder, my ssh client, my voice recorder with easy import, my NES emulator and ROMS (legal... I own each one of those, I swear...) and other games. I miss installing a free ringtone of a song I already own. And I miss said ringtone being full length
When people start porting their apps to 2.0 for installer or cygia, then I will move forward again.
The iphone can be a very open platform, and a good one at that. It just needs people to move from the official SDK and create ones own; to forgo the rules imposed. To make whatever one wants...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
I'm not sure why this is news to anybody. I've downloaded a lot of apps, and I will often times trash them after the first few uses. They were free, and as an app developer in training (still working on my first app), I was curious to see how they worked. Sure there's a lot of junk on there, but one thing often overlooked is that many people who write apps will be constantly updating the features of their apps. I bought Solebon for $.99 when they advertised a sale on their free version called Sol Free. That has gone through a few updates since then, and there are some really nice features that the app maker has added since then. I've played hundreds of games of Free Cell on it, and it's been a great purchase. Some apps that we've junked have probably gone under similar updates. While the quality might not be there today, it will be for many of these apps in the future.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Or could it be that people just want a phone and not some kind of do-it-all gadget?
Call me old fashioned, but I've never understood this obsession people have with making their cellphone do tricks and whatnot. It's a phone. Its purpose is to make phone calls. If you want more capability, get a laptop.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Would all those "Apple user, ha-ha" posters look stupid if we also had the data for other platforms? Because we all know that stuff downloaded from Sourceforge will be used at least a decade, right? Do Jamba (sorry, "Jamster") downloads get a longer usage because they are so expensive?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Did this story hit a nerve or something? Why are you on the defensive?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
so wait, you're saying netbooks don't have screens large enough to use the net with?
I remember so well the proto-economy that was the PDA application marketplace. Virtually the same were present back then as well, but now it's all news all over again. Now, with a big online app store, it's just a more widespread thing.
Hopefully people won't think the only way to solve that problem will be web based apps (keyword there is "based", not locally hosted web apps masquerading as native apps). They work great on a desktop, but they will always suck on mobile phones. Just how it is with a small form factor.
If you've developed a "long term relationship" with your iFarting app, it probably isn't because you paid for it.
Ya know, a 15 inch screen sure is nice when I've got a place to sit. And yeah, it does provide a nicer browsing experience than my little WinMob phone.
But firing up my notebook is not at all as convenient or quick for doing a quick price check, whipping off a one or two line e-mail, checking a quick headline, checking movie showtimes, or doing a restaurant search. Even given Opera for WinMob's slower render times (to speak nothing of Pocket IE which is slower, or Safari which appears to be significantly faster) I can still get most MOBILE tasks done in less time than it takes your typical notebook PC to finish boot device detection.
Apple users might get there quicker from sleep with a macbook, and I know how much y'all love your macs, but even the staunchest of fanboys isn't gonna lug around a 2lb air where an 8oz iPhone would do the job. More to the point, the macbook isn't a constantly connected device either; it'll need a data card or wifi to get there.
Different needs, different users. iPhone users obviously value portability over browser experience. (Being a longtime WinMob user, I don't necessarily agree with the device choice, but I agree with the sentiment...)
But hey, thanks for assuming that our mobile data needs and wants are nothing more than "ooh shiny thing."
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
IMO The current crop at 1024x600 is useable, if not ideal. Like the OP implied, if I have to do anything resembling heavy lifting, I'll tether my phone to my Aspire One, and do the job from a "real" machine. Much like how my phone is always at my hip when I leave the house, the A1 is small enough that I usually just grab it on the way out of the house and toss it in the back seat of the car, just-in-case. (And in lieu of my much larger, but much more capable ASUS notebook.)
But 90% of my mobile web use is fine from the phone itself. The A1 still isn't really usable standing upright, or any place where I can't locate a surface on which to place it.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
I have a good dozen apps on my Palm that I use on a regular basis. But then I didn't get it until January 2000, so I never had to put up with the sucky apps you hated back in 1999.
I think that the revolutionary change that Apple brings to this situation is the accessibility. For Palm, and WinMob, a PC was usually necessary to install new applications. (Not sure about BlackBerry, Symbian, or the other common Phone OS environments.)
For an iPhone user it's 2 taps and maybe a password, and boom, there's your app. Microsoft has obviously seen what this means for users; they have an app store coming. Google made it a launch feature for Android too, and IIRC even Nokia will be getting into the act for Symbian.
If there's a castle floating upside down in the sky, then there's a castle floating upside down in the sky.
Depends. I've not downloaded a lot of apps, but only a few remain. A lot get deleted because I down load 2 - 3 freebies for a task and then keep the one I like best, usually purchasing the "pro" version if available. That's what I did for an RPN calculator. (I really wish someone would develop an HP48 emulator) .
But I have a whole screen of apps that I bought that I don't use on a daily basis. They are an SSH terminal, RDP, and VNC client. I don't use them "everyday", but in a pinch they come in handy. Same with some PostgreSQL utilities. Basically, I can log into our servers and fix whatever I need to from anywhere I have an Edge or 3G connection. And I've used them to fix problems remotely. Then I have a few more apps that get used about once a week, like Paypal, Flixter, Wikitap. Same with Google's apps. We share business docs via google docs and it's handy to be able to read, just wish I could edit.
I have a few apps that I use everyday (The Weather Channel, AOL radio, Pandora, Sourceforge).
I wonder how many people have apps they use, just not "everyday".
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The browser on the iPhone is a revelation. It's the first small-format browser that has generated the same sense of "flow" that I get from a full-size browser. I sit down to use it after lunch then look up surprised when 40 minutes have gone by and I'm late for my next meeting.
The only applications on my desktop/laptop that I use on a daily basis are Apple Mail, Firefox, iTunes, and Adium. I'm not a major hunter for new cool utilities or applications (partly as a holdover from using Windows, unless I REALLY need what an application does, I don't bother with it) but even then that's 60 other things in my Applications directory that see little if any use (though a fair few of them are pre-installed iApps I never would bothered to have installed in the first place, and other 'built in' stuff). There are some of those that I paid money for (though they're all games).
The majority of iPhone users I know goes into the App Store / Cydia / Installer, sees something interesting, looks whether or not it is free, and if free checks if the phone has enough space, and if so download said app, rinse and repeat. The same pattern goes for apps that are not free, with the exception that the process becomes more conservative and stingy. It is actually by seeing this trend that I know that iPhone 2.0 only supports 9 pages of apps!
In response to the article about apps being used only 1% after it has been installed, doesn't that work the same way in Windows as well? Notable examples off the top of my head is Photoshop, which I can see most people actually have a copy installed on their machine, yet the same user probably really only uses Paint.
Pandora Rocks, rolls, jazzes and classics it up... even if 99% of what comes out is meaningless fluff for 99% of people, there will be killers like Pandora that most everyone can use, and super super niche stuff that's awesome for 1/10,000 iPhone owners and useless to the rest. That's the beauty of a "programmable" device, unlike the Moto815eVerizonLockedPieceOfStuff that I carry - it has some decent basic software, but could be sooooooo much more if it were open for people to get the most out of the platform (such as, the crappy GPS software that Verizon wants to rent to their subscribers...)
The Palm software marketplace was almost identical the the iPhone store - cool shiny new programmable gadget appeals to semi-geek crowd with lots of disposable income. HandFart would have sold very well if the PalmPilot had a decent speaker.
Of course. I'm posting this on my fold-out 27"-screen super-laptop with a holographic keyboard and laser-guided missile defense system.
You and your weenie netbooks. Pfaw.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I get a lot of apps to use as blades in a Swiss Army knife -- you know, you have blades you hardly ever use on your knife, but when you need them you're glad they're there. I don't need a flashlight every day, but I have a flashlight app on my iPhone "just in case." Same for a unit converter app. Many of the travel apps will not get used every day, but will likely see use for the few times a year I travel.
This guy doesn't look like he quit "playing" after he bought an iPhone app: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6qy4bi3SPI There's some seriously cool stuff out there, but most of it costs more than free or a buck.
Perhaps this survey only concentrated on iPhone users and not iPod Touch users. Perhaps those who have iPhones are not as interested in apps as they are in communication. I've found that most iPod Touch users (of which I and my 12-year-old son are) usually fill up there iPods with multiple pages of apps. Though I have bought apps, I would say that most of the apps I have are free. I had jailbroken my iPod Touch previous to the creation of the app store. If the app store didn't offer free apps along with the paid ones, it's possible I would have kept my iPod jailbroken. I haven't tired of many apps, and I use some apps everyday (like Chess Genius, iSports, iReversi, Sudoku, Facebook, WorldWiki, Maps, Stocks, etc...). Other apps like Guitar Chords aren't really the kind of app you use everyday, but are nice to have when you need them. So I dispute the claims of this survey. I think "we" are very much into appstore apps. I wonder if these are the findings of a envious HP iPaq owner or a "Zune Person"...
I ended up tagging the article "babycomeback" in response to the title.
"A lot of apps provide the same info you can get from a website or web app. And as long as that site works on Safari on the iPhone, there's not much reason to install an app just for that task."
Sounds like what XUL was made for.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
It might be that I'm jealous of folks with the discretionary income to buy those stylish electronic gizmos that really aren't necessary for everyday life or for life in general.
Do you drink? Go out to movies? What about restaurants? Do you own a car? Do you ever travel? Do you subscribe to cable?
I'd say there's a 99% chance that you do plenty of things that other people would consider "unnecessary" for everyday life. So why attack people who choose a different use for the money they work for than you do?
Unless you are posting from a monastery, I think I smell the tangy essence of hypocrisy here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've already posted or I'd mod you up.
Think about what kinds of apps actually install these analytics packages. Few serious apps would do so, not wanting analytics overhead to tinker with the app performance (or at least that is why I've not been interested in integrating third party analytics into my application).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For Palm, and WinMob, a PC was usually necessary to install new applications. (Not sure about BlackBerry, Symbian, or the other common Phone OS environments.)
Now I'm all for bashing Windows Mobile, but let's not get too hasty. I'm on my second WinMob phone and I did all my application installs on both either over the air (download the .cab file with the browser) or from a memory card (.cab copied from PC or different phone). A PC isn't even remotely necessary to install applications.
I am going to pay for some app and not use it? Well if its worth anything i am going to use it till my iPhone dies,dont let any penny be thrown away.
They're usually a surprise and many times unexpected in simple apps. I stop using them the same day as the download too while keep using many of the other ad free apps much longer.
sit down to use it after lunch then look up surprised when 40 minutes have gone by and I'm late for my next meeting.
That's because the browser and network are quite slow.
Dont forget how much of one's self image is involved in this purchase of expensive toys.
Only a select group have the brillance to buy something so genial. The rest are all jealous.
The same way were jealous of that big fat black mama wearing clothes 5 sizes on Maury with cellulite jiggling and her scream "You jus jealous because Im all that!!" (Do finger Z snap)
You should see those people when they decide to buy toilet paper... another buying decision with life changing consequences.
I'm sure if they were offering porn apps people would come again and again ;)
Here are iPhone apps I use almost every day:
1) Light. Yes, I use my iPhone as a flashlight more than I like to admit
2) i41CX+ RPN calculator
3) Files, which I often use to store reference PDFs for work, and I always keep an NYC subway map on it.
4) Shazam, which I've used to figure out what a huge number of songs on the radio were
5) The Weather Channel, when the Appleweather isn't enough (radar + NWS warnings)
Things I've used once or twice:
Panolab - sure, its fun, three times maybe
TouchTerm - interesting to try, painful to use
Night Camera - not sure this does anything
Ruler Phone - not much of a ruler
AIM - more of a problem of me not liking IM
Agreed, most of the apps are just crap. Twitter/hyves/facebook apps are decent and i use the teletext app daily but thats about it. When do we get the good stuff?
TomTom or route66 with locally stored maps and turn by turn navigation?
Skype without any wifi restrictions?
A tethering app
You know, apps that one actually has a need for and uses. Also i'm sad to say these apps are available on competing platforms. The iphone hardware is nice but the software is crippled.
It is a weird concept, since I own an iPhone, but there are just some things that a laptop does better than a phone or mobile device. I got an FTP app and the iconic notes app and the social networking apps, I thinking communication apps will be dominate since the phone is a communications device.
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
Holy crap! Find me a bunch of free applications where this ISN'T true.
Goddamn, 90% of the stuff I try for the first time via apt gets shitcanned five minutes later.
This sig is part of your complete breakfast.
I remember the old Amiga days that ran on shareware and freeware software. It was cheap, cheaper than windows stuff, and ran with less bug. And if there were bug the author was easy to contact a fix thew problem. I have one app with my Ipod touch called Recipes that there was a problem with the sending the recipe by email and I contacted the author and actually responded to the problem, found it, and said he would fix it. That's like the old days.. And true I usually stop playing with some 20 percent of the apps but most were free anyway. Those I use I use alot.
If you install apps like a maniac, maybe. I use many apps daily, like Wikipanion to search and read Wikipedia, "Wijngids" to buy the right wines in the Netherlands, "Buienradar" to check if rain is coming my way, "Trein" to find public transport information, and so on.
I remember using 'Act Names' on my Palm Vx...
I want a decent CRM on my iPod touch, but I can't, it's not possible. iCal (on the touch/iPhone) simply does not cut it, which practically writes off the device for me.
The app store's offerings are mostly trinkets, and browsing for apps from the device is awkward at best.
Now I just use it for music and mail.
But it was just an example.
join my family, 195 064 788
it's pretty cool attacking someone who has 70+ hotdog stands, if they lose the fight and I get 500k+. It reminds my of what it was like to play Legend of The Red Dragon back in the day.
Other than that, I'd say the article is spot on. Downloaded a ton of stuff only to never be used again. Thank goodness for the free stuff.
Sure, NOBODY wants iPhone apps afterall. Sure.
I guess that's why Ballmer is wailing and moaning for Apple to 'open' the iPhone platform?
You like Twitter? You'd probably buy an iPhone app that just played a video of Steve Jobs banging your mother while she mocks you on endless loop.
Smells like a troll is awake at a certain "iPhone analytics firm" ...
What is an "iPhone analytics firm" ? Do they make something other than scary "boogity boogity" sounds?
So what. This is a non-announcement.
We install MS Office on everyone's computer and folks guess what? Yep, people only use about 5% of the whole suite.
As an iPhone owner myself, I know the apps I keep coming back to very regularly (and have been using for almost a year now, non-stop) are NOT the games, but rather, the information-related apps.
For example, the AP Wire News program, is great. I read the daily news with it all the time when I'm waiting someplace in line or what-not.
Many of the other apps I keep on my iPhone and like a lot are simply "special purpose" programs I wouldn't have a use for very often, but they're really nice to have when the need arises. (EG. I recently got one that gives you average price estimates for various automotive repairs, and lets you find shops in your area along with recommendations/reviews from other users of the app.)
I do know a few people who tend to do a lot of program purchasing/downloading and rapid deletion afterwards -- but they tend to be parents who share their iPhone with their younger kids. Half the time, it boils down to the kid not using really good judgment about what's worth installing, so the parent has to go back through and do some "clean up" of all the unused stuff.
The Iphone is the first Apple product I have ever owned or used. It is also the best device I have ever owned. I use it all day everyday. I use two radio apps everyday to listen to stations all over the world. If the performance and ease of use of the Iphone is any indication of how good their computers are then I will be buying nothing but Apple from now on.
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
After talking to both Verizon and Apple, I am reaching out to the tech sauvé community to see if anyone knows how to make an IPOD Touch compatible with my Verizion wireless external card that I use on both my MAC and PC. My direct email is: jshapan@shapan.com if anyone has a solution, or knows of an adapter that would make this work. Before I spend the money for the Touch, I need a solution. Thanks so much, Jan
I have a different take on this article. 99% of apps are absolute shit and it takes people less than 1 day to realize this.
I think that some of the apps for sale tend to be a bit better since the authors want to make money, but there is still a lot of crap out there. I rarely buy any apps for this reason. Sure, I know it is usually only a dollar or two... but I hate wasting ANY of my money on crap.
I would probably buy more apps if I had the option to return them or demo the full version for a day or two.
"...report compiled by iPhone analytics firm..."
Yes, that scraping sound you can hear indicates that we've reached the bottom of the barrel.
I bought Galcon after it went down to $4.99 and haven't looked back since. I play it daily online. I didn't even realize online gaming was possible with the iPhone but they nailed it. It's the one game I've played on the iPhone that I really feel just can not be duplicated on a normal PC. Playing it with a keyboard and mouse would feel awkward, in my opinion.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
I agree! Safari on my IPT2G is so much better than PIE on my tilt. I find myself bringing up internet sharing on my phone and looking stuff up on my ipod instead.
i am so very tired....
Why not just get a used i730 off of ebay and get the unlimited internet. there should be wmwifirouter app available that will turn the i730 into a wireless router and allow you to use your IPT2G with it like a phone using skype or one of the other voip apps on the app store. I just hide my smartphone in another pocket and pretend like my touch is an iphone.
i am so very tired....
Wonder who got paid and how much for the advertising in the subject?
I think this sums up not just what's successful from the iPhone App Store, but the general usage pattern of a mobile device. A phone is a communications device, so it's no surprise that Facebook and Twitter apps are more commonly used than any others.
A phone is also an instant notification device. Phones have had ringers for a long time, telling the recipient of a call that someone would like to speak to them now. It's also true that many iPhone apps are crippled, and many potential iPhone apps unworkable, because of the lack of a push notification system so far. IM apps are almost useless, for example. If the five-months-late push notification system every makes an appearance, I think we'll see a significant rise in the diversity and quality of App Store offerings, because the applications will become that much more useful.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Based on the popularity of the device, I'd never have known there were so many fanboys. Or maybe you are just an uninformed, biased douche. I'll take a fanboy over negative-nancy any day of the week, btw.