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Slashdot Asks: Is the App Boom Over?
Quartz did a story in 2014 in which, citing comScore's data, it noted that most smartphones users download zero apps per month. Two years later, the data from Nomura reveals that the top 15 app publishers saw downloads drop an average of 20% in the United States. While there are exceptions -- Uber and Snapchat continue to attract new users worldwide -- it appears that developers are finding it increasingly difficult to get new people to download and try their apps. Recode reports: But now even the very biggest app publishers are seeing their growth slow down or stop altogether. Most people have all the apps they want and/or need. They're not looking for new ones.What's your take on this?
That is a sad rehash of their website. I don't need access to a diluted version of your content SO BAD that I'm going to store an icon for it on my phone. Maybe if people started releasing apps that were AT LEAST as fully functional as their webpages (hopefully more) people would actually download them.
I'd be far more willing to install new apps if the permissions weren't so incredibly invasive.
This is your story dude!
Apps are for luddites, etc, etc
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
There is too much junk in the app world. I personally don't want to sort through all of it. I have the apps I know I need/want and never search for new apps without a recommendation from a friend.
My most recent app download was Microsoft office lens, I had no idea I needed it until I took a picture of a whiteboard and my coworker told me to use office lens instead.
Basically I don't know I need any new apps so you have to advertise it well or it has to be recommended by a friend.
" Most people have all the apps they want and/or need. They're not looking for new ones."
Not much more to say. Galaxy Note 2, only 2GB of ram and 2012 tech, runs totally fine, quite happy with it, considering I paid $100 a year ago for it used... but I don't see the need to get a heap of pointless apps. I probably regularly use no more than 10, including the ones that come on the phone.
I know everybody just LOVES it and I am alone on this. But micro payments / in app purchases killed the games for me. I don't mind paying for the games and I used to buy new ones every month. But I haven't spent money in any "app store" in over 2 years now.
A lot of users nowadays consider apps as spyware and rightfully so !
And even when I am seriously interested in some app but, say a tasklist manager, wants access to my photo's, contacts, call list, sms, and what not I just don't install it.
Has advertisements in it ? No thanks.
I am using a few apps, like 5 or 6, that really bring something usefull for me and I don't mind paying for them as long as they don't have adds and use me as the product
No. As an app developer, Web apps do not integrate with the hardware that well. While most pf your apps, will work just fine, there is a niche out there where running on the handset and not in a browser is the only way to get the job done.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I can deliver a wonderful interactive user experience with HTML5, especially because of the Web Audio/Video interface which makes the microphone and camera available to a Javascript program, the HTML5 2D canvas (I've not done anything with HTML5 3D canvas yet) and Websockets for a session-based connection. The Javascript language and the web APIs are kludges built on top of kludges, but they are well-optimized and they work across three widely-available browsers.
That is, except on iOS because Apple insists that web browsers use their handicapped rendering engine instead of the browser's native one. Apple needs to catch up. Right now, I just don't support them. You need to run Chrome, Firefox, or Opera with their full rendering engine, not Apple's handicapped one. This even works on Mac, just not iOS.
Bruce Perens.
Anything that is media heavy or uses machine learning will need to still run locally. You just can't afford the round trip to the server and back in a lot of cases.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
From time to time I look into the list of new apps available on f-droid.org, but it's a long time ago I saw something new I really wanted to have. And certainly, I will not register an account with Google or use any commercial app store.
... because it's a smartphone?
Are you sure you're on the right site?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The excess permissions are an issue.
But the real road block is larger apps that require the limited phone memory and which won't / can't use the SD card.
I've had 29 gigabytes of free memory and apps that couldn't update or install due to lack of space.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This xkcd states it pretty well.
I own a software company. Every week someone talks with me about the app they want built. Almost always, they do not actually need any functionality that is missing from HTML5. Very occasionally they do (such as these guys.)
Why would anyone install an app which does not offer anything above the web site? They wouldn't. Clients pay tremendous amounts of money to build apps, which have not been designed, tested, or thought about in any kind of a meaningful way. Even when those clients have money, most of the time I stay away, since being a part of something dumb isn't that great (even if you're getting paid.) Or I try and help them think about it, and then build them a webpage, if they have money.
This. Web apps can't easily upload and datamine my contact list, photos, etc..
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
"Most" smartphone users run Android. Mostly because "most" smartphones out there are Android. Been that way for a long time - Android's outsold iOS 4:1 or so for a few years now. So I wouldn't be surprised that "most" smartphone users download zero apps - they got a smartphone because that's pretty much what is available.
So I'd guess most smartphone users don't bother with apps not because they are scared of permissions or whatever, but because they don't care - their smartphone already came laden with the apps they care about - Facebook, Pandora, Spotify, etc. They don't know, nor care about anything else. They got a smartphone, and damned if they were going to pay more than $0 for it.
Of course, that excludes a certain other mobile OS where developers do make money. Granted,t he gold rush is over, and there's tons of crap, but whose users do keep getting apps and all that. Of course, since they are a tiny minority of smartphone users (under 20%), well, they don't count.
Then of course, Android app users generally don't pay for apps as a whole so if a developer wants to eat, ads are pretty much the only way.
Most apps are trash -- free to buy, but crippled and requiring more work to actually make work, tied into network cloud / validation, etc.
If you want me to put it on my phone or tablet, here's what you need to do:
1) write something useful
2) charge me reasonably -- I'll pay up to $10 without flinching if it's actually useful. More if it's fabulous
3) no nickle and diming. None. I buy it, it works. I'm not doing "in-app purchases" and that's bloody final
4) no network ties for continued operation or validation or any such shit. I paid you, it should work, period
5) no ads. No Ads. NO ADS. NO FUCKING ADS.
6) Make sure you make both Android and iOS versions for games or chat or other device-to-device applications.
7) interoperable - if it's a game, for instance, make SURE the iOS and Android versions interoperate.
8) did I mention no ads? Because, FFS, no ads, please.
9) If you think you need the "cloud", you should probably rethink that. Hard. Because the cloud sucks. If your app uses it, your app sucks.
A) Is it too much to ask that your shite actually WORKS? (I know a lot of this is Apple and Google's fault.)
More on #6: Carcassonne is a poster child for this. The Android version doesn't talk to the iOS version. So you want to play a game with someone, but you aren't using the same OS... can't do that. This happened, BTW, because the original game authors sold some part of the rights to a completely different company. Now they both have a crippled product. It's just data, you idiots.
More on #A: I bought Fieldrunners for the iPad. Really like it, great game, grandkids like it too; so I bought it for my Galaxy S6. Money up front, yay. Right? No. Crashes on startup. Every. Fucking. Time. So this year, when I moved to the Galaxy S7, I thought, I'll try it again. Crashes on startup. Every. Fucking. Time.
One reason I stopped buying apps for iOS is the stream of broken apps Apple leaves behind by constantly breaking the damned operating system. Probably a third of the apps I have on my iPad no longer work because iOS got API cancer. Again. And again. All kinds of stuff is broken. For instance, Plants vs. Zombies just crashes when I start it. Used to work fine. I hardly use my iPad any more because of apps that don't work.
Another reason I stopped buying apps for iOS is the disappearance of apps from the store: Apple requires devs to pay a fee just to keep an app in the store, and at the same time, prevents sideloading. Reminds me of the mafia's business model. Repulsive. Makes me actually not LIKE to buy apps. My S6 lets me install apps from anywhere. Which means devs can maintain apps and keep them available without having their blood sucked constantly, regardless of sales level. Much better.
Finally, sometimes I simply can't find anything. For instance, for my Galaxy S6 and now S7, I can't find an app to give me audio control; all I want is a decent EQ system, 10 bands or more, with some decent range. I have looked for this multiple times in the Play store and Amazon's app store and all I can find is the very worst kind of junkware, from being infested with ads to crashing to working then stopping. It seems that no one actually wants my money. Seems a shame, as I'd actually like to give it to someone.
Bottom line for me is that it seems that in the rush to monetize the living shit out of everything, producing quality applications for a straightforward exchange of value is no longer what I typically find. The blame goes in many directions. But part of the solution is pretty easy. Stop writing shit apps, and you can have my money. I don't know how you can get Apple to behave, that seems like a lost cause to me (and we own a crapload of Apple hardware here, so that is in no way a smug observation), but under Android, the door is wide open to my wallet. I would LOVE to buy your app if you would just write a good one that does something useful or fun. I could buy a hundred apps today without impacting my budget in any way. And I'd LIKE to. For me, fo
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm a UI designer, and I find it amazing that almost very business I've worked for is happy to fling huge amounts of cash at creating native apps without even wanting to answer the obvious question their customers will ask: "Why should I download this?"
So far in pretty extensive customer research, the best that anyone can come up with is an offline condition (eg MailOnline's news app allows you to download news and read it 1995 style), speed (they think it's somehow faster) and a kind of ragged notion of better aesthetics. After that it's a grab bag of slightly better maps integration, the convenience of a shortcut on the desktop, and (for the business) avoiding the Google tax that your web app will have to pay if you want to sell anything online. Statistically, it's also known that some apps (mainly news ones) will get huge usage from a tiny (and usually numerically static) fanbase.
But that's about it.
It's all so weird. So wasteful and strange - but I'll design 'em if they want 'em (I've given up pushing back).
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
It is hard, especially in developed countries, to even find non-smartphones in stores. Even people that have 0 interest in any of the "smart" features such as the expandability via apps. are by in large forced into the smartphone market
Since you've made a list, i'll add to it:
6: Fear of malicious apps: As with #2 a lot of people don't give a fuck, but as more and more stories come out about malicious apps slipping past the security of the official stores more and more people will be wary of downloading an app they're not sure they can trust.
7: Lack of space: Many phones have limited space and don't allow you to use an SD card. On my Android phone when i dip below 500 MB of free space it won't let me install anything new, or even update an existing app. So i can either find some music or photos i want to delete or an old app i want to uninstall or just say screw it, i didn't want that new app that badly anyway.
And finally, N: The original premise, most people already have all the apps they really need: This by itself might not kill app downloads, but when you combine it with all the other issues listed above it provides a strong incentive to just not bother.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Serverauditor is a decent SSH client for Android. Free works, but does occasionally nag you to pay for the subscription. I would happily pay a one-time fee, but app subscriptions are silly.
My personal opinion is that application developers are generally misguided and developing stupid applications. I make a point to occasionally look around at what apps are available on different platforms, and with all the glut of apps, they're generally not aimed at solving problems that need to be solved. There's always another runner game, or someone trying to make the next Angry Birds. For some reason, there have been a lot of new mail clients for OSX/iOS recently. There are a bunch of task/todo list apps that don't offer distinct features. Every once in a while, you'll see a bunch of apps released that seem to be taking aim at a particularly successful app-- Slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, whatever.
So you take an existing app, rehash it with some gimmick, and hope to sell that for millions of dollars. Sometimes the existing app is actually useful (e.g. email), but often enough the app is silly and gimmicky to begin with (e.g. Flappy Bird). But in any case, the app doesn't add any value, and doesn't solve the problems with the existing app. And then a month later, some other developer has a newer more gimmicky app that also doesn't solve any problems with the original app. Or maybe it does solve some problems, but creates new ones.
Now, there's a very good argument against my complaints: Even though I'm saying these apps are silly and useless, they seem to be what people want. The reason there are so many Flappy Bird clones is because so many people are buying them. However, if the problem now is that people aren't buying the apps, then I have a new counter-argument to that: No, people aren't buying them.
It all just makes me sad because I work in IT, and I see problems every day that need to be solved. There's so much work that needs to be done, and all our money and development talent is going towards trying to make the next Snapchat.
2) charge me reasonably -- I'll pay up to $10 without flinching if it's actually useful. More if it's fabulous
For every one of the "pay up front" customers, there's literally a dozen who will prefer to be nickeled and dimed. This probably goes double for games.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Most apps are like shifty browsers where you can't zoom in.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And it has nothing to do with the lack of storage space on currently shipping, top of the line devices...such as Samsung's Galaxy S7, whose makes think that USAsians only really need 32GB of on board storage space, and Europeans / other parties might want just a tiny bit more in the form of 64GB of storage. True, you can use a MicroSD card to increase storage, but it's not Android storage...unless you use a hack / enable that special feature, at which point, you lose the ability to transfer files to and from the phone the MicroSD slot (as the slot / card is now 'welded' together, so far as Android is concerned). As a bonus, on this particular model, it's dual SIM, or SIM + microSD...so, still juggling stuff if you go abroad.
We have 10TB HDs, 2TB SSDs, 200 GB microSDs...and the equivalent of 640KB or 8GB of RAM as storage space as the shipping standard for Android devices. "No one is downloading any more apps!" -> "Plants vs. Zombies 2 eats like 1 GB of storage space on my phone!"