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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."
I just used twitter for the first time this morning. What the fuck is the point of that website? Even the 'official' twitter feeds were stupid & had no content....
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.
It's stupidity continued - Twitter is truly the bottom of the tubes. I think someone needs to hand in their geek ID.
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
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.
Wiser words were never spoken.
Rubbish. I use my iPhone for business, where before I used to have a WM device (besides an old iPod, the iPhone is my first Apple device). When I first got the iPhone I hated the little incompatibilities with Outlook and the reliance on iTunes for synching. Actually, I still hate that... but for the rest, I found the iPhone to be vastly superior to WM phones when it comes ease of use. The GUI is fast and responsive, the on-screen keyboard is very usable even with fat fingers (and I hate the tiny physical keyboards that many phones have), and I can hold the phone in a sinlge hand and operate it with the thumb, something I somewhat surprisingly find very convenient.
It's a matter of preference, I suppose. The iPhone falls well short of full compatibility with Outlook, which is the de facto industry standard in business whether we like it or not. A big mistake on Apple's part if they are truly after the business market (as they claim to be). There's a reliance on iTunes and it only accepts Apple-approved apps, which some may object to. But the ease of use of the phone more than makes up for all that. I'll not switch back anytime soon to a WM phone.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
First, the case that you make about iPhone users using less and less functionality as time goes on is probably accurate. My question is whether you believe that this is unique to the iPhone, because I don't think that it is. I'm sure that the WinMo, Symbian, Blackberry, and Android users would have this trait to some extent as well.
Second, it's not *just* about whether they've got headphones handy. What about people like myself who plug their phone into the car radio? Some people have an iPod dock on their desk at work. One of my friends' mom has an iPod dock in the kitchen. just because I don't carry headphones everywhere doesn't mean that the music functionality goes to waste. It is simply used in a different context.
Third, let's take this to the desktop. I've got my freeware that I use all the time (Firefox, icechat, digsby, filezilla, ultravnc), my paid apps that I use occasionally, (ACID, Street Atlas, Office 2007), and the apps that I paid through the nose for (Adobe Suite, Mixmeister). Go to Download.com/Tucows/Softpedia and you'll find the same needle-in-haystack story. Apps I pay more for I use more, but I paid alot of money for them because I knew that they would prove extremely useful to me. While it's partially a self-fulfilling prophecy, it's partially just knowing that I need something before I buy it. this is true anywhere and on any platform. As long as there are developers, there are good developers and there are bad developers. It's up to the end user to sift between them.
I know I'll probably get shot down in flames for saying this, but you could always use the damn thing as a phone. ;-)