“Ninety percent of everything is crap, science fiction author Ted Sturgeon once said. That’s certainly true of the crud passing for ‘software’ in Apple’s new App Store,” Sascha Segan reports for PC Magazine.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s even more true of the personal computer market.
Segan continues, “This makes me worry about software development in general. Mobile computing platforms are the future primary PCs for much of the world.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ironically, Segan is helping to provide definitive proof that Sturgeon’s saying also rings true for PC Magazine and tech articles in general.
“The App Store is beautiful, comprehensive (by fiat), and well designed. For the first time, you can actually get an overview of all the applications available for a computing platform and easily acquire them. It’s an idea that a lot of other people have had before, but Apple has done it with more polish and ease of use,” Segan writes. “But what do we get? …About 10 percent of the apps are great. Ninety percent smell like old Sturgeon.”
MacDailyNews Take: What is Segan complaining about? “Ninety percent of everything is crap” isn’t just a saying, it’s a truism. It’s that way in the software market in general (and the automotive, restaurant, apparel, music, film, etc. markets), so it logically follows that it’ll be that way in the App Store, too.
We imagine PC Mag staffers sitting around in their morning meeting:
Staffer One (Beavis): “Duh… ‘App’ rhymes with ‘Crap’ …uh, huhhh huhh huh…”
Sascha replies: “Beavis, you’re one pathetic piece of crap…”
Beavis: “Shut up, Butt-head!
Sascha: “But I think I can make it work!”
Beavis: “Uh, they should have a name for these kinds of articles.”
Sascha: “They already do, Beavis: ‘crap.'”
Segan continues, “Of course, it’s not as if Apple encourages app developers to think outside the box. IAmRich.com [sic: wrong name, wrong site; it’s “I Am RIch” and the minimal website, including screenshots, is here: audio-sandwich.com. Next time, Sascha, pause the virus scanning, fire up a browser and do at least one second of research] was a German avant-garde art project in the form of an iPhone app. It wasn’t malware. Apple yanked it from the App Store just because the company didn’t like its face. That’s a great message to send to developers: We might kill your app if we think you’re a little weird.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ah, a little pearl inside a rotting oyster. We’re 100% agreed. Apple blew it by pulling “I Am Rich” which did exactly what it promised buyers it would do.
More in the full article which seems to be little more than a bunch of words strung together in order to support a headline where PC Rag could do a little hit-whoring by rhyming “crap” with “app” — Think before You Click™ — here.
MacDailyNews Take: This article is not recommended. Sascha, you can do much better.
So, 95% of this article is crap then too…
Can’t we say the same thing about the music on itunes, too? And just music in general? In fact it’s probably more like 98 percent crap.
The very same can be said of my local library. Or any supermarket. Or the NASDAQ. Or any political party.
Actually, the world IS 94% crap; thank Gawd for the elite 6% who bring quality of thought and production to the fore.
It’s true that 90% of the apps are crap. However, when sifting for gold one has to sift through a lot of sand to find the nuggets.
MDN once again looks like an idiot with it’s childish comments every couple of sentences. Then again once in a while MDN has good comment so you have to sift through 90% of the crap MDN writes to get to the 10% of useful comments LOL
If 90% of crap is crap, what’s the other 10%?
behold the harvest of society….
a generation of programers have been taught by microsoft that “innovative” means “a cheap knock off of someone else’s 4 year old bad idea.” they have also learned from the music industry that a single good song and 8 filler tracks are a good way to make money.
…and thus we have the $9.99 flashlight app.
look, all i am saying is, you reap what you sew. if you want to pick apples, don’t plant weeds.
Apple is a software company…it’s obvious there will be compelling Apple apps in the Appstore. Verizon might as well create a VCAST iPhone app and get it over with
What is this, “Useless” “Crap” Day? (See other MDN post(s))
Hypocrite.
“That’s certainly true of the crud passing for ‘software’ in Apple’s new App Store”
“It wasn’t malware. Apple yanked it from the App Store just because the company didn’t like its face.”
Too much crap. Apple pulls crap. Damned if you do . . .
What a wanker.
Oh I get it… Crap rhymes with App!
Kinda like Feces Magazine.
90 percent crap … isn’t that microsoft’s market share?
There is some truth to the headline. I mean, how many tip calculator options do we really need? The only killer app I’ve downloaded and used with regularity is the Apple Remote app.
Beyond that, everything seems to be almost novelty based. Almost functional, but falls short of the mark. I can only hope Apple is working on additional killer apps, while the dev community is churning out tip calculators.
Yeah, this is an odd article, clearly written in a way to state the obvious while getting the Fan boys upset and it seems to be working.
As MDN indicated, 90% of all the software out there, especially in the PC world is crap.
With just a bit of observation though, one might conclude that there is something special about the iPhone App store because developers were able to generate so much crap so fast! That is an indication of promise.
There is always a ratio of crap to good stuff, so let’s just assume 10% is great software.
That’s an awful lot of good stuff for a nascent platform in so short a period.
Apple did the correct thing by pulling the I am Rich application.
Only a say-anything-anytime-you-want hack journalist like MDN is want unbridled apps on the App store … they equate it with free speech.
Wake up. The App Store is not a outlet for free speech. Apple wants to keep shit out of it like I am Rich apps. They don’t take a vote, they don’t check with their lawyer, they don’t give a shit about free speech. This is business … you dont like it, then carry your ass.
Then 90% of posting on MDN are crap. Calling ZuneTang.
So 90% of Sascha Segan is crap!
“I mean, how many tip calculator options do we really need?”
It’s not about what you really need. In what book is it written that we should only have one tip calculator available to us?
I get sick and tired of people dumping on the tip calculators. Some of them have a terrible interface and others work nicely. What if the ones that sucked were the only options available?
If only we could get that kind of variety when it comes to other utilities such as American dictionaries. There’s only about three and I don’t like any of them. Maybe we should get the tip calculator developers on it.
My advice to Segan: Go bite a fat hog in the ass!
I’m Victor Meldrew and I approved this message.
One thing that I am not fond of in the App Store are the reviews. It seems most of the reviews are written by people who have not purchased the App. Very annoying.
ForeFlight Mobile is a perfect example. It’s an application for pilots that has detailed information about every airport in the US, aviation weather, file flight plans, and more. It’s a replacement for a book that we pilots must buy and replace the paper pages every time something changes at an airport, or simply order a new one every year or so…
There are reviews on there saying, “this should be $4.99”, or “why would anyone want this?” with a 1 star rating. It’s ridiculous.
This is probably one of the best-made apps on the store, and the pilots that have bought it are in awe.
My suggestion to Apple is to only allow reviews to be written by people who have bought the app.
The only reason why people are able to assess the App Store in such a way, no matter how wrong they may be, is because Apple put it all together in a single easily accessible area. If Microsoft did the same for Windows Mobile applications, there’d probably be 300 tip calculators.
Only difference is that they’re scattered all over the place and the last thing Sascha Segan would do is some real journalism by researching the apps of other platforms. That’s far more work than sitting down with his iPhone and browsing the App Store.
“Go bite a fat hog in the ass!”
Or as Ballmer calls it, “playtime.” The safety word is developers.
Holy gesundheit, somebody wrote something funny right here in the Reader Feedback on MDN. I’m serious.
“If 90% of crap is crap, what’s the other 10%?”
I’m going to spend my day pondering this one. And who knows? I might just do a little research and discover a golden turd. Heck, it’s worth a try.
Yes, 95% of this MDN article is crap and 95% (at least!) of the feedback is crap also. Crap is crap, and the whole world is made of crap. Has this simple fact really not been established yet?
“If 90% of crap is crap, what’s the other 10%?”
Perfectly good corn.
A crap app to one person is a useful (or fun level) app to another.
I only label an app as “crap” if it doesn’t work properly for the specific function it was designed to carry out.
It all depends on what level your needs are, for some people a quick, cheap & dirty app completes the task they need done, others need a full blown $$500+ app. to get desired results.