“While many of us eagerly await the release of iOS 8 and OS X 10.10, what’s typically more important than interface improvements, or organizational tools and other gizmos, are the killer apps that can be run atop of each OS,” E. Werner Reschke writes for TGAAP.
“Apple missed the boat in the late 80’s and early 90’s failing to court developers onto the Mac platform,” Reschke writes. “In 2007 Apple almost made that same mistake until developers screamed loud enough that an SDK for iOS was developed — the rest is history.”
“Windows 95 didn’t boom because of a Start menu and all the third party apps available, rather, it was Microsoft’s own apps (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook) leading the charge. When OS X made its debut, Apple didn’t just launch a naked OS, there was Safari and Mail, quickly followed up with the iLife suite. When iOS was born, Apple loaded the phone with 20 or so wonderful apps, making any iOS device work well right out of the box,” Reschke writes. “As we wait for the next versions of OS X and iOS, the real key to their continued success is the continued development of killer apps by Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
We’re so lucky that we have people like this telling the biggest company on the planet what they need to do.
Apple was far from the largest at the time of iPhone launch.
Also, listening to paying customers is a good idea.
— as an aside
I might be wrong, but I have seen no evidence that before iPhone launch that Apple had an SDK under development where the apps were standalone. Apple advocoated apps of html and javascript. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/459-iphone-sdk-its-called-safari
That said, the timing here is peculiar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS#SDK
Nothing new in this article, it’s just a rehash of how important content is. We’ve all known that for a very long time.
Sorry to say, but Mac lost the “killer apps” war with Windows a long time ago. The head of Quicken sits on Apple’s board but he has the gaul to offer watered-down ports of Windows applications to his Mac users — pretty much the way it is with the majority of professional-level software. Cook seems to not want to change this, he’s spending all his time flattening iOS. Disgusting that Apple hasn’t made any serious effort wooing more developers to the Mac, nor marketing Mac to customers with Hodgman-Long spots showing how bad Windows 8 is. Missed opportunity, Apple.
If only you were CEO of Apple, then they would be successful.
Insightful comment about being the CEO of apple. I’d never heard anything so interesting and original.
You don’t get out much, do you?
I must say that I bought my iMac because of one app – iMovie.
I was sick and tired of crashing and slow PCs running crappy Windows Movie Maker.
I don’t know how many movies I’ve made since on my white, plasticky iMac and iMovie ’06. It has served me so incredibly well.
Now, if only they could have made iDVD just as good…