Finally, iPhone advantage disappears

[Slalom]

The end of apps!


No app for that? No apps, period - thestar.com

[pdelong]

The flamebait is almost palpable. I'll just leave it at I doubt the iPhone is in any danger.

[andyahs]

It's not only the apps they (Me) will be leaving for.

[ugahairydawgs]

Apple initially tried to have the phone without apps (the app store wasn't introduced until the iPhone 3G). Steve Jobs thought they were clunky and thought that web apps would be the future. After the maketplace spoke (jailbreakers and 3rd party devs) and his board members begged him, he finally saw the light and relented and the App Store was born.

I'm not saying apps will never be replaced, but I have a hard time picturing how such an ingrained part of the smartphone experience can removed.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Oniberry]

This is old news. The predictions I mean. Years away from 'no apps'. With Mobile Flash no longer supported and a final release of Silverlight 5 is anyone really surprised? To say Apple has lost their advantage is a little short sighted on the OP's part at best. The beginning of a flame thread at worst. Seriously? The Toronto Star? lol

[guerllamo7]

I am not an apple fan because of what I view as nefarious corporate behavior. The fact that they are less secure than BlackBerry is also important to me, though it seems not for most people). However, this post may be missing the mark. BTW, Apple already holds pattens for certain portions of HTML5.

People that buy apple products should ask themselves what happens when one organization becomes the sole provider of all your digital purchases and even all your information? Is that good for a rich, diverse, open environment where free market competition works best?
Look at Apple, calling it a bit early in my view, already started restricting the use of popular competitor apps such as the kindle, audible.com, Kobo, etc. And that is just the surface.
The reason Steve Jobs vowed to destroy Google no matter if it spent every cent on it was that they were well on track to establish hegemony on mobile devices. A closed ecosystem has to dominate or it eventually becomes marginalized. Google took away Apples dream just when it seemed inevitable they would win.

I used to be a big apple fan when I saw Microsoft unfairly rob them and many others of their ideas and use their size to compete unfairly. Unfortunately, Apple learned all the wrong lessons from their near death experience and they now sue more people than Microsoft.
Just my view, but the fact that information is moving from the desktop to mobile devices makes it important. How many people really want Microsoft and Apple to be the only two players in the mobile space?

Not me.

[lnichols]

While I agree that apps will eventually be much less relevant, that eventual time is not close. It is a few years out still. RIM still needs to get an ecosystem and apps built for BBX in the interim. Unfortunately as we've seen with OS 2.0 delays for Playbook, and still no BBX phones, RIM's transition is going at a snails pace.

[BBThemes]

its not the end of apps, i think thats very overblown, its simply that webapps are on the rise, which are really just HTML5 apps, which are on every platform pretty much now anyways. pertinent examples are the gmail app for iOS thats a html5 webapp, also RIM has `webworks` which has alot of html5 apps, heck even webOS was aligned with that.

so no, its not the end of apps, but maybe more a beginning of `unified` app experience across multiple platforms as they`ll all run the same tech so a simple .css file will be enough to resize/restructre for each device`s screen properties.

[lnichols]

Originally Posted by guerllamo7

I used to be a big apple fan when I saw Microsoft unfairly rob them and many others of their ideas and use their size to compete unfairly. Unfortunately, Apple learned all the wrong lessons from their near death experience and they now sue more people than Microsoft.

Not a fan of iOS, but I am a fan of the OS X compare to MS desktop offerings. And to say that Microsoft isn't suing is true, but they are threatening to sue every Android OEM out there unless they get a cut per device and getting the cut. I'm not opposed to MS doing this as most open source OS's out there are obviously using intellectual property from established paid OS's because they need to do the same functionality or they wouldn't sell, and I agree that Android shouldn't be free to use if it is using IP others own. Apple probably went to Samsung and gave them a chance to pay a fee like they are doing with Microsoft and since Samsung makes a lot of the tech used in iPhone and iPad decided not to and so they are battling it out in courts. Both Microsoft and Apple see Android as not only a threat, but a blatant rip off of IP. Obviously MS has them dead to rights or these OEM's wouldn't be paying a per handset fee. I bet RIM could go after the same if they really wanted to, but are content to let bigger companies snuff out Android, and they plan to support Android too.

[CrackberryBrandon]

Originally Posted by Phil DeLong

The flamebait is almost palpable. I'll just leave it at I doubt the iPhone is in any danger.

I fully agree here


Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

[moiselles]

Originally Posted by CrackberryBrandon

I fully agree here


Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by Phil DeLong

The flamebait is almost palpable. I'll just leave it at I doubt the iPhone is in any danger.

Ditto.

[deRusett]

The iPhone users have spoken

----

[Caymancroc]

I wish I could have the last couple of minutes back after reading that article. Seems like I have been hearing this for years.

In 1994, I remember hearing about how software would be dead because the Internet would change it all. Here it is, 17 years later and instead of software it is apps, which are essentially the same thing. Oh yeah, people are still buying software.

iPhone 4S is still selling well despite this person's fantasy of "no apps". Wasn't Google development also really pushing for the google docs replacing microsoft office? I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who uses that as their main word processing, number processing, presentation tool.

[Economist101]

Originally Posted by guerllamo7

People that buy apple products should ask themselves. What happens when one organization becomes the sole provider of all your digital purchases and even all your information? Is that good for a rich, diverse, open environment where free market competition works best?

Yes, because when you buy an iPhone, that means you can't also buy Kindle books, or stream Netflix movies, or use Hulu. Oh wait, you can.

Originally Posted by guerllamo7

Look at Apple, calling it a bit early in my view, already started restricting the use of popular competitor apps such as the kindle, audible.com, Kobo, etc. And that is just the surface.

Apple didn't restrict those services at all; what they did was require payment for customers using App Store distributed apps to access that content. As a way of moving around Apple's rules, vendors then altered their apps. That their is a legitimate, approved way of paying Apple's fee directly counters your primary premise, which is that Apple is restricting those companies.

Originally Posted by guerllamo7

The reason Steve Jobs vowed to destroy Google no matter if it spent every cent on it was that they were well on track to establish hegemony on mobile devices. A closed ecosystem has to dominate or it eventually becomes marginalized. Google took away Apples dream just when it seemed inevitable they would win.

One, he didn't vow to destroy Google, but rather "Android." There's a difference. Two, it was because he felt Android to be a stolen product. You'll notice he didn't vow to destroy WP7 or the PlayBook (though admittedly both seem to be self-destructing anyway). The funny thing is, if you consider the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola to be an Android cost, Android as a platform has actually lost money for Google, since they're blowing nearly 2 years of quarterly profit on Motorola despite Android generating only about 1/3rd of their mobile searches. (According to Google, the other 2/3rds comes from Apple, which is why even as Android is "activating" 550K devices a day it still pays Apple for default search engine placement on iOS.)

As for closed ecosystems having to "dominate," at last check, the Mac is closed, and though it is nothing close to "dominant" it's still incredibly profitable. Also, isn't RIM's ecosystem "closed"? I don't believe "BlackBerry Music", "BlackBerry Movies" and "BlackBerry Messenger" fit the definition of "open" systems, but we need not let the facts interrupt your baseless rant.

Originally Posted by guerllamo7

How many people really want Microsoft and Apple to be the only two players in the mobile space?

I'm sure Amazon doesn't want that either, which is why they likely sold 3x as many Kindle Fire units this week as RIM has sold PlayBooks since April. But again, let's not let the facts get in the way of your rant, which can be summed up as "The sky is falling because the closed ecosystem I favor is not doing well. Therefore, closed ecosystems must be stopped. But, if RIM should rebuild its closed ecosystem, then closed ecosystems will be okay again."

[avt123]

HTML 5 is the future. This has been known for a while.