Dec

29

App Store to reach 1 billion apps?

Filed Under Apple, Mobile | Comments

How will the app store differ when it reaches 300,000 or say an unrealistic 1 biiiillion apps vs. the current 100,000? Will we see a large increase in the average number of apps being used per iPhone/iTouch? I don’t think so.

For every new app I download and plan to keep, I usually delete one I’m not using. Let’s call this the LIGO method of app management or Latest In, Garbage Out. The average usage difference between the apps I use daily (5-10) and the remaining apps (50+) is huge. I’m guessing that’s true for most people and won’t change no matter how many apps become available.

(Photo credit: gnta’s photostream)

My obsessive app prioritizing is probably not the norm – I’m sure there are many people who just keep accumulating apps until they reach the 9 screen max. Either way, your organization behavior with apps is most likely very similar to how you manage blog subscriptions, your desktop, people you follow on Twitter, etc.

Let’s not forget about the problems that start to arise when you have too many apps on your iPhone including: slower performance and freezing, too many app updates, low memory, and decreasing battery life (steady improvements to hardware/software may address some of these issues). On the other end, Apple will have to keep hiring more people to try and keep the app store clean. As long as the quality of apps increases and Apple continues to manage the app store effectively, I’m all for the rapid growth. And the rapid growth will continue as long as we keep seeing success stories from the developers themselves who are increasingly starting to reveal sales figures.

I also wonder if Apple should phase out featured apps completely (but keep Top lists) similar to how Twitter hopes to abandon its suggested users list. In the future, I hope to see them make less “App Store breaks 200,000 apps” announcements and more announcements about improvements to the app store. The other major players like Google should also focus on designing a better app marketplace, then maybe people won’t care as much about them always being behind in total number of available apps.

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Feb

16

Some thoughts on iPhone apps

Filed Under Apple, Mobile, Web | Comments

How are they changing the Web? The obvious is iPhone apps are increasingly allowing people to access online content during times when they didn’t have access to it before, therefore continuing to speed up the rate of information sharing. Where apps are having trouble is keeping the users interested after a few uses or a short trial period. Social networking apps like the ones for Twitter and Facebook don’t have this problem because they are allowing people who are connected on the web to continue their relationships away from their computers. The rising popularity of iPhone apps with location-based capabilities (and soon to come the iPhone version of Google Latitude) are creating useful ways for people to access relevant data about events, businesses, and even people that are nearby.

How are they being used by brands? The smart brands are the ones that have already thought of ways to connect with a large base of current iPhone users (Kraft, Obama, Audi, to name a few). Most other major brands are most likely in the process of or just starting to think about developing an iPhone app because of the successes they are continuing to hear about. But only a select few out of the rapidly growing database of 20,000+ apps with be successful because they will either be really useful, linked to a well-liked brand, or very creative. Of course the longer it takes for the app to be released, the smaller the chance of it being successful. It’s worthwhile to note that companies like Remember the Milk, Salesforce, Mint.com are creating iPhone apps to supplement their web services as an added benefit to offer to their customers. Some of the most impressive apps aren’t just displaying content in a mobile-friendly manner, but also paying very close attention to creating a sleek user interface and coming up with unique ways to engage people using the iPhone’s features.

What about publishers? They need to recognize that besides an electronic reading device like the Kindle, people are already browsing their content frequently on the iPhone (and most likely not having the best experience if nothing has been developed for them). Even though it will take time, the iPhone will be a big advertising platform for publishers in the future. Besides newspapers, I think most major magazines will have iPhone apps soon. What they will need to figure out is a revenue model that makes sense because as of now the app store does not allow publishers the freedom of charging readers a recurring monthly fee to subscribe to the latest content downloads. The first successful magazine app will owe a lot of it’s success from free PR and it looks like Lucky Magazine and People Magazine are very close to launching. Update: Apple has announced that the 3.0 software update will allow subscription based purchases to be made within the app. Great news for publishers.

How are they affecting the gaming industry? The cost of the app plays a huge factor, but not as much as you might think. We are starting to see more findings that indicate increases in spending for apps on mobile devices. People are willing to spend $5-$10 on good game because it’s an inexpensive alternative when compared to most video games that cost over $40. It’s only a matter of time before more games that offer online play gain in popularity just as we saw happen for all the major gaming consoles over the past couple of years and the classis example of the iPhone game Tap Tap Revenge. While no one is sure yet if increasing sales of iPhone games are damaging the sales of the major players, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the iPhone’s popularity is already hurting the sales of other handheld gaming devices.

Some further reading: 8 reasons for building an iPhone Web application, Mobile ROI: You get what you pay for, and Apple iPhone controls over 66% of all mobile web use.

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Jul

31

The application “Facebook” cannot be opened solution

Filed Under Apple | Comments

I recently kept getting this error when trying to launch the facebook iPhone application. I did some research and found that I was not alone.

It seems like the only solution to get it working again is to simply remove the facebook app completely from iTunes and the iPhone then reinstalling it from the App Store. I tried to restart the iPhone and that did nothing but you should try that first. When you go to download the app again, you may be prompted with this dialog box:

Just click OK and once it’s done downloaded, sync the iPhone and your done. It should now work and you will have the latest version. I have also been having several issues with downloading app updates and getting them to sync properly once they are downloaded. Hopefully these bugs will be fixed with the next iPhone software update.

I can also imagine this simple approach will work if you are getting a similar error message with other applications.

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Oct

27

Leopard missing hard drive bug

Filed Under Apple | Comments

Many people (including myself) may have panicked a little when Leopard did not recognize their internal hard drive. It will, however, locate an external hard drive if you have one connected. There should be no reason to use disk utility or resort to a clean install if this happens to you.

After doing some research on the Apple support forums, I found a simple suggestion and solution in this discussion: just wait. It took my computer a few minutes before my hard drive appeared grayed out and then a minute later I was able to select it. Other people have reported it took up to 15 minutes for their hard drive to appear. It should not make any difference whether you have Disk Utility open or not.

Forum member ‘fancontrol’ explains what is most likely happening:

When Leopard checks for available installation volumes it does a quick check to find out if the file system is dirty/clean. If the file system is dirty than Leopard does a full file system-check on that volume. This process is running in the background and makes the volume disappear. The file system check can take up to 20 minutes depending on the size, speed and number of files on your drive. Once the file system check is finished, the volume should reappear. As it turns out the file system check on Leopard works different than on Tiger.

Apple should really have included a progress bar when the check is running (rather than doing it in the background) and letting the user know what is going on.

I definitely agree, a progress bar would have been smart. My total install took over an hour and went very smooth otherwise. I did the default upgrade and everything was exactly as I had left it in Tiger which was very comforting.

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Oct

20

Apple instructional videos continue

Filed Under Apple, Technology | Comments

It looks like Apple will continue to make instructional videos whenever a new product is introduced to the market. The latest is a guided tour of Leopard given by John, an Apple Store employee. These videos not only draw more interest to Apple’s products, but also act as a great alternative to traditional printed material. They really just make sense, especially with the rapid growth of online video tutorials in general.

Leopard Guided Tour

Here are a few trends that are noticeable with these videos so far:

1. Demonstrator has clean cut, professional appearance

The dark, non-distracting clothing usually worn in these videos really keeps you focused on the product. I also think the dark clothing is chosen to show the attention to detail given to the design of Apple products and software. You are not distracted by what the person is wearing, just focusing on what he is saying and demonstrating. Both demonstrators so far have also been middle aged men (my guess) with eyeglasses. We will see if this continues.

2. Environment has similar feel to Apple stores

In the new Leopard video, you may have noticed that similar tables to the ones used in Apple stores are used in the video. Apple is strictly sticking to the same theme and environment that everyone is familiar with if they have ever visited a store in the past. You should find the same setup in any store once Leopard is out. Again, white or black backdrops relates to the same purpose behind the dark clothing, non-distracting.

3. Well organized with smooth transitions between breaks

The Leopard video is broken into segment’s focusing on the key new features of Leopard. Each segment is introduced with a title and a smooth transition leading into the demonstrator’s segment of the feature and how it’s used. I can see this becoming the norm for all these videos unless separate segments are not necessary at all.

4. Speaking tone, vocab, and hand gestures

The demonstrator speaks very gently in a slow, but consistent pace making him easy to understand (maybe a little too slow). The words chosen are simple, and never too complicated. Although some might disagree with me on this, I think the demonstrator also does a good job at speaking in a very inviting and friendly manner. The hand gestures are subtle but add to the inviting tone of the speaker. People have to realize these videos are made to target a large audience therefore most of the technical and geeky lingo is left out not to alienate potential users who have never used a Mac before. Sure, advanced users might find it a little condescending, but just take it for what it is, a general tour of the basic new features that will appeal to anyone using or interested in Apple computers.

In Conclusion…

Who knows if this will be adopted by other companies but it can certainly work for any product or service if done right. Apple is very good at teaching people how to use their products and software. I can go into this in more detail another time since I am a former Apple Store employee myself and witnessed how a store is run first hand. They have been incorporating tutorials and beginner videos into training for their products for a long time, but this is a new trend of releasing these videos exclusively online in line with major product and software releases. Let me know if there is anything I missed which stood out to you.

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