I don’t think the apps thing will blow over at all, as I see mobiles essentially becoming laptop replacements (within realistic limits of course) and consumers will expect the same software flexibility. Internet via mobile will also (need to) become more commoditised with less involvement from carriers and bandwidth restrictions.

Any too hardware-focussed company will eventually fall into the same trap that IBM did in the beginning of the PC days, with them being perceived as commodities. For some, like Nokia, Motorola, etc., having been the slaves of the carriers for over a decade, it may already be too late.

The future may just be the Mac vs. the PC all over again, with all-in-one solutions coming from Apple and software-only solutions from the likes of Google. Like you say, each focussing on their strengths, and no one trying to do everything.

But as Toby said, standards are the issue here, which is determined by reaching critical mass. And whether Apple can serve the whole market, that I am not so sure of.

What’s missing from the iTunes store: http://www.appstoresocial.com/blog/2009/2/28/what-is-missing-from-the-itunes-app-store.html

And, why I think Apple’s not gonna fix it: http://www.appstoresocial.com/blog/2009/4/24/apple-thinks-app-discoverability-is-under-control.html

Really, it’s up to us to build a better app store and get people to use it. If we wait for Apple to do it, we’ll be waiting a long time. iTunes was never a great music shopping experience, but it was always good enough to sell iPods – same goes here, I believe.

The operators will fight tooth and nail not to become bit-pushers and probably are betting on Android, which allows them to brand the experience and harass the customers as usual. Nokia knows that bulk of the profit comes from the cheap handsets sold to operators and probably doesn’t want to screw them over. This is the reason why Ovi Store is full of ringtones and wallpapers. Nokia knows that for the low- to mid-end operators will just buy phones from Samsung or some other and the end user doesn’t care.

Apple, on the other hand, could go to the operators and show them an iPod and tell them to trust Apple to make money for them. It’s stupid, but I think all the players should focus on their core (Google: apps, Others: phones). They don’t have the competitive advantages Apple has: design & user experience, iTunes, OS X technologies or a board chair at Disney.

I would still categorize Google’s current Android phones, Palm Pre and iPhone as high end, early adopter devices. I’d imagine the user bases are quite homogeneous. The only difference here is that only iPhone aims (through design and marketing) to be a smartphone for everyone. Now, this has been a strategy for Nokia.

Nokia does have Symbian in pretty much every mid- to high-end phone these days and has been struggling with app stores and web services for a long time. One of their main problems seems to be that their user base just isn’t interested. Earlier Nokia was trying the strategy 2 (decentralized), but is now trying 1 (app store). The other problem, is the developer problem, seeing that they don’t even use their own SDK internally, why’d anyone else bother?

I would argue that both Nokia and Google try to move software from the phone to the internet as services, whereas Apple is cashing on the software in the phone with its App Store. The main gripe I have about Apple’s App Store is that one of things that I enjoy about using Mac OS X is that it comes with “batteries included” – you’re up and running almost instantly, whereas on Windows side you need to install a load of 3rd party software before you have a decent setup.

This has lead to a situation where the comment I hear most often about iPhone is how the device itself isn’t that great as a phone, but apps are nice. This is a stark difference to what people say about other Apple hardware (iPhone, Macs).

For example, looking at the Nokia Morph concept you have up there, you can see that the “mobile phone” is divided into parts or interfaces. It’s more of a user agent for different applications (as in use, not software) than a thing. Google on the other hand, doesn’t care which browser or device you use to access their services as long as you do (and has created Chrome and Android to guide development in those areas to where they’d like).

As a hardware manufacturer, Nokia’s biggest mistakes have been not to figure out US markets and not being able to launch a smartphone “for the rest of us”. Their most compelling smart phones are still in their business E-series, while the N-series tries too hard with an user interface only their developers can love. What Nokia, on the other hand, can do is make smartphones a commodity. That would make Nokia the Microsoft of mobile space and put Apple as Apple of mobile space.

You raise a good point about the need to create a personal space for you app as a developer, if a centralised app store does not exist. With regular software, of course the budget for creating dedicated websites, etc. is higher, than for a $2-10 app developer.

Two negative things that I’ve been hearing a lot regarding the app store, is its design and the authorisation process. Design-wise, it’s very difficult to get noticed and developers seem locked into the “iTunes way,” which is “here are the top-apps, good luck finding the rest of it.” Authorisation-wise, you already know the surreal bans that have been happening these last few months (the dumbest one was really the rss-reader, which had a swear-word in its feed).

That, together with mobiles becoming PCs, lead me to believe that perhaps we need a more PC-like marketplace for mobiles, in other words through the internet instead of iTunes. I don’t really think that this requires each developer to set up their own space (even though I do think marketing is a crucial investment into any commercial software business), but more using the collaborative advantages that the internet offers (voting on apps), together with a simple, web-based store, that also is better designed.

In the end if developers act like the flock, by just submitting their apps and do nothing in terms of marketing, they can’t really expect to make much more than the flock, except if their app is really exceptional…

The standards-point is definitely a good one too. I don’t think that, unless devices decide to use the same code-base, this problem will ever be overcome. I suppose it is hopeful that both Android and Palm are more focussed on web-apps (correct me if I’m wrong), but whether they will be on par with iPhone apps, I can’t say. What is sure is that these “language islands” create the incentive for developers to focus on one platform only and the critical mass of apps and consumers will lead towards one, not multiple winners. Other variables such as company adoption play a part as well though.

I have been following this blog for a little over 1 year now and I thought I could finally give you some real feedback…

I think you are right about that the developers are pushing the iPhone platform. And that is the reason why other vendors just dont have as much success with their smartphones lately. The iPhone provides the developer with fairly good tools as well as a good hardware. We are now in G2 with the iPhone, so the hardware is pretty much still the same. Now think about being a developer for the other vendors who use Windows Mobile on their devices. It can be quiet irritating to write a program for one device that just wont work on the next one, cause there is some feature missing from it. Apple created this stable environment for developers and thus they jumped on the bandwagon.

Furthermore i think the reason there are so many developers for the iPhone is that there is such a centralized Appstore dedicated to their work. It is easy for a spare-time programmer to create a small app and just put it out there. Otherwise he would have to create a small webpage that looks more or less professional, which would cost more time. Besides, the user who actually downloads the app from the Appstore has somewhat of a guarantee that the software is “safe”.

I personally dont agree with the way Apple handles the authorizing process of apps, but thats just my personal opinion…