DocAndersen
The evolution and I do mean evolution, of the software market, is interesting. The rise of the iTunes store in 2008 is a huge driver. Yes, the later explosion of Android required Google Play. But the initiator of the change was the Apple iTunes store. I’ve talked in the past about that change that occurred with the opening on the iTunes store. The big initial change was the cost of applications. I grew up in the enterprise software space. So to me, the cost of applications was often 1 million dollars (please use your best Dr. Evil voice and make that into a 20 syllable utterance). The software was expensive. I was at the time using an number of products and paying 20, 30 or even 50 dollars for the software.
Evolution number one was the release of 99 cent software. It changed the market and honestly stood it on its ear. When I was a kid trading a nickel and later a dime and a quarter for a piece of candy was a fair trade for me. The later world I lived in 19.99 for software seemed a fair evolution. The sudden appears of 99 cent applications changed everything. Suddenly the smartphone became a platform. Now it with great sadness that I report here, that Microsoft was the leader in Smart Phones in 2007. By 2008 Apple was the leader. Now the leaders are Apple and Android. Android is having many more phones in the wild than Apple now. But the innovations go Apple first, or Android first. Windows phones made by Microsoft are no more.
The second evolution is the most important in my station. It is the reality of what I call bite-sized applications. I grew up in the enterprise software space. I sued to support people with computers that had 1-4 megs of RAM. Operating a DOS-based load system that connected to the Novell S3erver, and loaded HiMem.sys. We loaded Excel and hoped we could load the financial spreadsheet. It was a different world. The reality of bite-sized applications is we are willing now, to accept smaller screen real estate and less information in the application. Games like Angry Birds (I am addicted) and Mobile Powerpoint have become the norm. The market has moved away from expensive applications.
The next evolution will be the full integration of IoT devices with your mobile phone.
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Question of
Is 19.99 (US) too much for an application?
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Yes
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No
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Question of
Do you use Freemium applications (free but some features require you to pay for them).
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Yes
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No
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Always try to use free apps. And yeah, it’s super that the market has moved away from expensive applications. Also wish to wake up in the era of the full integration of IoT devices with my mobile phone as soon as possible!!!
You can do more and more every day with IoT devices!
From weather stations to thermostats, the presence of your phone during on or off alarms IoT is here now!
I use only free apps. I think they satisfy my needs.
You know what you need and you get it from free apps, that is awesome!!!!!!
the appeal of the buck app is that you can afford to take the risk, and if it is a useful app, the developer will still make money in volume
YEs, the Walmart model. Make it up in volume. Of course, you have to have the volume for that to work.
With ESD, volume isn’t ever a problem. The challenge is to stand out from the competition
That is the interesting economic model that Steve Jobs created. The iPhone allowed him to disrupt the market, but he also managed to pull all the developers on to his platform in one fell swoop.
to be fair, the iPhone was already huge so it was easy to get dev on board. by way of comparison, look at their market share in computers
In 2007 apple actually paid some developers to build for the new platform. It wasn’t huge until Jobs held it up on stage.
Developers transitioned in droves once the initial iPhone sales numbers hit.
Sure, and they were smart to do so but iphones were always going to be huge…
I suspect you were right but remember at the time of the iPhone the Newton had come and gone as an utter failure. I am not sure it was a guarantee. Plus in 2007 Apple wasn’t a 100 billion dollars in the bank company. It was a huge risk for them.
had it not been for the ipods, I suspect they’d have gone bankrupt
I would tend to agree. They were also smart enough to exit that market when it died.
they’re pretty good at reading the market now, and even leading the market now but for a while they were failing left and right
It is an interesting study that defies things like the Blue Ocean Theory, normally when you enter the red ocean (cell phones) you eek out a small profit. Samsung, until they tripped and Apple have eeked out huge profits for the past 10 years.
cel phones are everywhere- even in third world countries many folks own more than one…
I spent a lot of time from 2001 to 2011 overseas. I can honestly tell you that when it comes to cell phone and coverage, the US is the 3rd world. I used to drive from Indianapolis To Chicago, in the heart of the US and had 5 major dead spots.
I went to Kuala Lumpur and had 5 bars the entire stay.
Countries that didn’t invest in landlines are going to struggle with 5g. But when it comes to 4g LTE (or as AT&T calls it 5g E) they are well ahead of the US.
to be fair, the US is a fairly large nation, so it is expensive to get a good level of coverage everywhere… that having been said, five dead spots between Chicago and Indianapolis seems excessive
There are massive sections of the US that have no or limited coverage regardless of carrier.
You can probably, just looking at a map, point them out.
🙂
right, and why should you try and bring coverage to rural areas for little to no gain when you can boost coverage in urban areas and see a reasonable return? smaller nations don’t face this issue…
The sad reality of what is coming (5g) is that in fact, the smaller countries are going to have a huge problem.
4g, LTE or LTE Advanced (what AT&T nicely calls 5 e) requires more bandwidth to the device, and from the tower to the “connection” to the broader internet. It means smaller nations are going to have to spend money and deploy fiber.
Or have to make do with their existing 4g bandwidth. But I expect nations like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea will adapt to 5g without issues…
I suspect you are right about the nations listed, but there is a really easy way to determine if in fact, a country is ready. If you can order a new phone (Pots or Plain old telephone service) and have it provisioned and installed in less than 24 hours that country is nearly ready for 5g.
POTS is an acronym I hadn’t heard yet
POTs is old Telcom. I think I first heard it back in the 1990s. Normally it isn’t applied to the newer digital voice phones (if you have FIOs or other fiber optic delivery to the house).
I’m still struggling with duplex
ROFL. I miss my 9600 baud modem sound. There is something about waking up to a connecting modem.
the 14.4 handshake sounded much more triumphant…
I was always overjoyed with the fourth pulse, meaning the handshaking was over and the modems were chatting!
my first modem was a smokin 300 baud, twice as fast as my buddy’s 150
My first modem was an acoustic coupler that if I was lucky could maintain a connection for about 4 minutes.
but they were so damn cool looking!
I collect old manual typewriters. A friend of mine collects Acoustic Coupling modems. He has 30. He also has recordings of modems connecting. Some people have too much time.
still, it isn’t the worst hobby I’ve ever heard of
the strangest hobby I’ve ever run into, now that sounds like a blog series. I know some really strange people.
My first boss retired at 40. Sold all his stock, bought a motor home and moved to Alaska. But his hobby is really weird…
if he bought a motor home, moved to alaska and had a normal hobby that would be pretty weird…
He does go fishing all the time. His hobby, however, is making hand carved wooden pens…
I give them to people from time to time.
That’s not all that weird. So he’s just whittling his time away?
It depends on how much I think the app is worth. I might or might not spend $19.99. ?
I imagine an app called ‘useless app’ that is on the market for that price, and tons of people buying it. Maybe it has already happened, I can’t recall.
As technology evolves, there will always be expensive gadgets that are “better” than others. You’re lucky when you’re gifted with patience, you can save some money waiting for the thing you wanted to decrease in price. ?
Well, I’m not patient but thrifty and it works alike.
The value of an app is an interesting question. Thank you for helping me consider other data points
Some apps are a bargain at any price, and others aren’t even worth installing if they’re free…
You make an excellent point!
and you make an excellent post, sir…
Technology is developing very fast. I do not follow this trend anymore. I’m currently using only free apps.
I completely understand that.
I only use the freeware so far or free apps.
apps can be very expensive – I understand that