Apple claims500,000 apps in its App Store for the iPhone and over 700,000 when iPad apps areadded in. Google Play claims600,000 apps for Android. Windows Phone is estimatedto have 100,000 apps in its marketplace.
But do the numbers reallymatter, especially when the "new apps" may be content like video, music, and books?
I'm not a big fan of numbers just for numbers' sake. I watched searchengines playthenumbers game for years, each trying to be "bigger" than their competitors by having more Web pages. Those figures didn't giveyou any idea which search engine was actually most relevant, which is far moreimportant. It doesn't matter if one claimed to have gathered twice as many pagesas another if the bigger one stilldidn'tfind what you were looking for.
I've had a somewhat similar view of app store counts for some time.After a certain point, another 50,000 apps here or 100,000 apps thereseem to make little difference. We get it. Your mobile platform has a lot of apps.But does it have the apps that matter?
The apps that matter to me
For me, the number of apps in the various app stores especially seems a fairly useless metric, having just done a fresh inventory of the apps I use.
Two weeks ago, with some downtime while on vacation, I finally tidiedup the apps on my iPhone 4S, grouping ones I hardly use into folders. The onesthat matter, that I often use? They all easily fit on my home screen. That means of those 500,000 iTunes apps available for the iPhone, only about 12 of them actually mattered to me or 0.0024 percent, if I've done the math right.
This week, Google sent me a version of the Galaxy Nexus with thelatest "Jelly Bean" Android 4.1 operating system on it. That promptedanother look at my apps, as I started adding apps to the new phone that I was using on my existing Android 4.0 Galaxy Nexus. Once again, I had 12 key apps that allfit on the home screen. Of those 600,000 apps available to me from Google Play, I'm tapping into only 0.002 percent of them.
My desert island apps for Android
What are my important apps? Let me start with the Galaxy Nexusand list them in order of priority, the ones I find essential, ones I use at least weekly, if not several times per day:
- Email (sadly, Android 4.1 still hasn't added the much-neededconversationview)
- Browser
- Camera
- Calendar
- Twitter (I share a loton Twitter)
- Google+ (I liketo share there, too, especially pictures)
- Facebook (Ishare here, too -- are you sensing a pattern?)
- Foursquare (More than sharing, I use it as a essentiallocalsearchtool)
- Google Voice
- Kindle
- Google Maps with native GPS
- Better Google Voice integration
- Native GPS
- Google Voice
- Google+
For the iPhone, pretty much the same
Now let me move to my iPhone. What's missing from the list above?
Google Voice on the iPhone would improve if it were native in the operating system, as with Android. But it works wellenough that I don't hesitateto go out only with my iPhone and worry that I'll miss some call that'sbeing routed through Google Voice. Notthat I get calls on my phone much anyway. These days, I use them almostexclusively for data.
I definitely miss that the iPhone doesn't have built-in GPS as doesAndroid. That's a feature I often use, and I never seem to get aroundto finding and installing an alternative for the iPhone. Soon, Iwon't need to. iOS6willgive the iPhone native GPS in the coming months.
Is there anything I use often on the iPhone that's not on my Android list? The music app. The iPhone was built from the beginning to playmusic, and things like iTunes Match have only made it better. If I'mgoing some place where I think I want music, say the gym, Iusually reach for my iPhone. Of course, I could easily bring my Android phone up-to-date with mymusic library, if I wanted to. I just never get around to it.
The iPhone can also run Microsoft's cool Photosynth app, whichallows you to create virtual worlds with photography. Android doesn'thave that. But it's not an app that I use that often.
As for my calendar, since I use Google Calendar, that worksperfectlywell to also keep the iPhone's native calendar app updated (as itdoes forWindows Phone).
Even Windows Phone isn't missing much
Speaking of Windows Phone, it has an app market that's about one-fifth thesize of either Apple or Google. How's that impact my key apps? I don'tget:
Not having Google Voice on the phone is a real issue for me,something I've writtenabout before that I hope Google will correct. If you depend onGoogle Voice, that app -- rather than the 399,999 others that Microsoftdoesn't have -- is what you'll miss. But I'm fairly sure many phone users outthere don't depend on Google Voice.
Google+? If I really wanted, I could get things going using the Webbrowser. No Instagram? There's Bubblegum,thoughthatonly give me cool photo filters, not the ability to sharewith the Instagram community. A deal-breaker if you're really into Instagram. Plenty of people aren't.
App counts are so last year
The main point is that another 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000apps won't solve the relatively minor inconsistencies across platforms for me, nor do I suspect that the vast majority of apps out there are goingto make that much of a difference in influencing whether someone buysiOS or Android or Windows Phone. Still, the numbers game keepsgoing.
I think the real action is shifting over to the content game. I'vebeen testing the new Google Nexus 7 tablet (early take: impressive, better than Kindle Fire, a great option for anyone who finds the iPad too large or too expensive). The home screen is remarkable:
Google Play is positioned front-and-center. By Google Play, Idon't mean the new name for Google's old Android Market. I mean whatreally happened when Google Play was launched, the play forPlay to firmly putGooglein the content-selling game.
The Content Games
Forget those hundreds of thousands of apps. Perhaps one of thebiggest device questions going forward is who gives access to thegreatest number of songs, movies, TV shows and books, along withoptions to rent or buy and support of cross-platform consumption. Those things might more firmly tie me to adevice (or really, a content store) than anything else.
When it comes to music, I've done most of my purchasing with Amazon.I was attracted by its DRM-free music early on, and iTunes has neverreally pulled me back. Moreover, Amazon cleverly makes it easy formusic I purchase to flow into my iTunes library.
Most important, Amazon always seems to have all the music iTunes has at thesame price. I have no particular reason to shift, justlike those who like iTunes have no particular reason to shift to Amazon.
Being comprehensive, being portable
It's different for Google. When Google Music (now Google PlayMusic) launchedlast November, it made it easy for Android users to purchase music directly from Google rather than turn to Amazon or Apple. But Google Music still seems to come up short onmatching the selection of its competitors. It was a problematlaunch, and I continue to run into it. One example: Google Play doesn'thave any albums from the popular band Paramore. Apple does.Amazondoes.EvenMicrosoft does.
Comprehensiveness is one issue; portability is another. Moving musicthese days is easy. Moving your video around is not, thanks to largefile sizes and DRM.
I also tend to buy my video from Amazon. Doing this, however, leavesit inaccessible to me on my mobile devices -- with the key exception ofthe Kindle Fire. There's no Amazon Video app for the iPhone norAndroid. Watching through a browser only works if you have Flash. iOSdoesn't, and thereisno Flash support for the newest version of Android.
With Google,I have more portability. If I can play YouTube, I can play my purchasedvideo -- even on my iOS devices.
How about books? DRM exists here, but Amazon has Kindle apps thatlet you read on Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Google Play Bookssupports both Android and iOS.
Then there's Apple, where you can check in to its content ecosystem butyou can't check out, other than music. Your books, your movies, yourvideo. Those get locked to Apple's platform. That might sounds like anadvantage, but it can also be a disincentive to buy. For example, there are some whoprefer Kindle specifically because they want to read on both Kindlehardware andnon-Amazon mobile devices.
Games are a special case. They're both apps and content. If you're really into particular games, if one platform lacks a title, that might prompt going with another. So, too, is staying with that platform if you've spent a lot on games. On the other hand, if it's Angry Birds you're after, the various platforms all have it and switching is only $1 or less away.
Content: the killer app?
Rather than number of apps, these are the issues I think are more important to watch as the variousmobile platforms continue to compete. What type of content can youpurchase? Are there gaps in selection? After you buy, how locked tothe platform are you? Content might, in the end, be the killer app.
What made you buy?
I've shared my experience that when it comes to apps, I couldeasily shift between iOS or Android. I'm curious to hear from readers.I'm not looking to spark fanboy comment wars. AsI've written before, there is no "wrong" phone. Whatever works foryou, works for you.
I'm just wondering if there are key apps that some found make itessential for them to go with a particular platform. Please share! And if you made yourchoice not based on apps, what was the primary reason or feature thatmade you go for a particular device?