Why Mobile apps don’t matter anymore
by Peter
We all remember that famous quote “if you need a stylus for your tablet you’ve failed”. Well “if you need 500,000 apps for your phone you’ve failed”.
Seriously think about it. People cannot deal with 100 apps let alone 500,000. 99% of the apps are merely features not apps. For example how many features are there in Microsoft office – probably over a thousand (but not 500,000). How many API’s are there in Apple’s iOS? No idea – but it’s not 500,000
Do you see the point here – the number of apps doesn’t count. What counts is the apps that I really need. And for us mere mortals that usually no more than 10, maybe 25 and never exceeds 50
There’s big debates going on about why Windows Phone 7 hasn’t take off – link and Scoble responds that it’s about the apps and customers wanting to feel “safe” – link
I don’t think so. Windows Phone 7 has a superior user interface to both iPhone and Android – it has 40,000 apps (if you feel the need) and what it really has (and no one is paying attention to) is seamless integration into the Enterprise. Microsoft owns the Enterprise – what it was missing was a real phone OS that played nicely with IIS and their cloud solution. Now it has one. No other phone OS comes close to that level of integration.
So what if Round 1 went to iPhone and Android. In a few years no one will care. What they will care about is integration into the one thing that really counts – the Web. And nobody will do it as well as Microsoft.
We’re now coming to the end of the first innings – App fatigue is setting in, I don’t need more features in my phone, what I need is better battery life, better connectivity to where the real content is – the Web.
And my next post will be about just that – Why the only app you’ll ever need is a browser.
Posted in: #mobile, #webperf, #wpo, Enterprise Mobility