Apps are too much like 1990's CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web

Scott Hanselman:

I’m starting to resent Apps like I resented CD-ROMs.

I started playing this evil little game called Tiny Tower last week. It’s effectively a Sim-Tower-heroin-clone-resource-management game. Every few hours I return to feed the beast make sure the little “Bitizens” are OK. Moving things, managing resources, restocking virtual shelves with new virtual goods. Mindless and addictive, but pointless.

The Update Beast

I realized that I’m doing the same thing with the apps on my phone. I’m always feeding the Update Beast. How often have you looked at Non-Technical Friends phone and showed them how they need to update their apps? All the time.

Scott agrees with David Winer that apps have a long way to go and posits the hard to dispute notion that web apps and native apps are constantly pushing each other forward. Linking between native apps has taken baby steps in the right direction — savvy developers can link between supported apps, but they still lack the seamless integration and automatic updates seen on the web.

(Continue on Scott’s Blog)

UPDATE: Worth reading this clarification from Dan Winer

Reality Check: NPD’s Android vs. iPhone sales headlines

Headlines tell such a sensationalized side of the story. Here’s the missing bits of recent tech media events that have been reported with a slant starting with:

NPD says Android has surpassed iPhone in US unit sales . The suggestion: the reign of iPhone is over because Google’s Android platform is taking over the market in terms of sales and installed base.

The reality: Android sales are certainly not eating up iPhone sales, which are higher than ever–especially in the first quarter, when Apple’s hardware sales have historically plateaued. Rather than taking on the iPhone, Android is really just replacing the plummeting sales of Windows Mobile and the old Palm OS (and even webOS) and the embedded software that formerly ran a lot of HTC and Motorola phones. Consumers are upgrading away from pseudo-smartphones from LG and Samsung, and buying more advanced smartphones, which looks good for Android.

Globally however, Android sales are still well below the iPhone. According to IDC, Apple took 16.1% share of smartphones in the quarter, while HTC and Motorola (the only Android makers, who also sell other non-Android smartphones) amassed a combined global share of 9%. Android’s total share is less than half that of second place RIM’s BlackBerry sales and less than a quarter of the smartphones sold by Nokia, but Android is getting a lot of press to suggest that it is taking over the market, at least in the US.

Why is Android doing so well in the US? It’s the same reason RIM’s BlackBerry sales have kept pace ahead of the iPhone, despite failing to best or even match Apple’s platform in terms of technology: most of those phones are being given away for free. That’s an easy way to claim market share, but not really a way to actually create sustainable growth. And if you look at RIM’s global sales in the last quarter, they’re only up 45% year over year compared to Apple’s 131% growth, despite all of RIM’s promotional free giveaways contrasted with Apple’s actual sales to customers.

(Continue reading on Roughly Drafted)

Source: roughlydrafted.com

Google to Start Selling Own Phone Next Year

Google Inc. has designed a cellphone it plans to sell directly to consumers as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the matter.

The phone is called the Nexus One and is being manufactured for Google by HTC Corp., these people said. It runs Android, the operating system for mobile phones that Google developed, they added.

But unlike the more than half-dozen Android phones made by phone manufacturers today, Google designed virtually the entire software experience behind the phone, from the applications that run on it to the look and feel of each screen.

The Internet giant is taking a new, and potentially risky, approach to selling the device. Rather than selling the phone through a wireless carrier—the way the bulk of phones are sold in the U.S. today—Google plans to sell the Nexus One itself online. Users will have to buy cellular service for the device separately.

(Continue reading on The Wall Street Journal)

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