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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
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.
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
A mobile phone is a device that most people will have on them pretty much all the time. And if you are carrying it around anyway, why not use it:
- to make pictures (you don't carry a camera around all the time, do you? neither do I, but I use my phone all the time to make snaps of notes on whiteboards and such).
- to manage your agenda and to-do list (instead of having to carry around a separate organiser or diary).
- to look up stuff on the internet (The apps with the Dutch train schedule and road conditions are ones that I use pretty much every day, on the go).
- to find directions? (we're men; god forbid that we should have to *ask* someone).
Come to think of it, I don't actually make that many calls on my iPhone. But even that functionality is there when I need it, and for all that I have to carry around just one tiny, lightweight device. I for one am glad that the functionality of phones has been expanded, the latest meaningful change (to me) being always-on internet that is actually usable.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
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...
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.
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"...
Are you suggesting that Apple customers have a short--OOoo! Shiny!