“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.