“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.
I can’t keep quiet any longer. MDN is wrong about Apple pulling I Am Rich. It’s their store. Any store can choose to carry or not carry whatever they want. They’re under no obligation to anyone to carry anything and everything. I Am Rich had a dangerous potential. Someone could accidently download and be out $999. Someone’s kid could download it. I’m not a big fan of protecting people from themselves, but this was ridiculous. It was a stupid app that added nothing of value. I think Apple was right to remove it, but even if I didn’t think they were correct, I acknowledge their right to do it. Once again, it’s their store. None of us have to shop there or have iPhones or Macs. It’s our choice. As in everything, you take the bad with the good. Let it rest MDN. Oh, and calling I Am Rich art is why most people scoff at art.
So is MDN saying that 90% of Apple products are crap too?
As for headlines, I can just imagine the MDN staffers sitting around in a meeting:
Staffer1(Steve1): “How can we use the word -beleaguered- in a headline today?”
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Staffer2(Steve2): “I dunno, but I got this picture of Balmer with his tongue hanging out…”
“I Am Rich had a dangerous potential. Someone could accidently download and be out $999. Someone’s kid could download it.”
That’s why Apple should’ve simply added an extra disclaimer before purchasing apps over $99. They also could’ve disabled one-click purchases for apps over $99.
As for children downloading it, that’s what the new parental control settings are for. You can put a block on new App Store purchases.
There is no excuse for the terrible precedent Apple has set by removing the I Am Rich application. MDN is right on this one.
I think it’s fair to say that no more tip calculators will be written.
Every writer of a tip calculator thought they had a killer app. Who knew everyone else had the same idea?
I am sure the crap percentage will fall as all the crappy ideas are used up.
Yes, there is a finite number of crappy ideas.
“Kinda like Feces Magazine.”
EXACTLY like that! (good one!)
I love Sacha. He’s one of the very objective dudes at PC Mag. A lot of times he defended Apple from the prey of his colleagues who mostly know nothing about Apple.
He basically bitches around on nasty things regardless of the platform. He bitches at our friends in Linux and of course he bitches more about Windows. TRUST ME. He’s nearly the opposite of Dvorak!
Really, couldn’t some of these folks say the same about the iTunes Store? What if you just listen to two or three genres of music. There’s well over 8 million songs available. If you just buy a couple of albums here and there, does that mean 90% of the iTunes Store is useless? Does that mean the iTunes Store is crap?
Like I said (or quoted I guess) in a previous post, one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. An app you think is useless might be the reason another person finally bought an iPhone.
Should Sturgeon write an iPhone App that intuitively downloads and reads science-fiction books with ease in order to change the crap to 89 percent?
It would be a start and be far more effective than the 100 percent crap coming out of his mouth.
Since 90% of apps for every platform is crap, isn’t it great we only have to look in one place for the iPhone? What a pain it was searching for and downloading apps for the Palm or Blackberry, having to deal with different install methods, different stores, different payment methods and then keeping up with the updates!
This is why the App Store rules.
You could say the same thing back when Apple carried a list of AppleScripts on their web site. There was a pitiful amount of AppleScripts and the few that were there weren’t all that helpful. However, maybe it’s like going to garage sales and the value is up to the individual. Like anything, one man’s treasure is another man’s junk.
Does the iTunes App Store have a means of counting how many downloads a certain application got, or offered any area for comment postings like say VersionTracker or other software places offer? Maybe user feedback would be welcome to Apple and the developer community.
I agree 100% with MDN and R2.
Apple should have kept “I Am Rich” in the App Store.
Why not? “Oh, somebody might accidentally download it”. What’s the saying, think before you click? If somebody is dumb enough to enable One-Click buying of APPLICATIONS… well.
Tip calculators? Gimme a break. Good for groups of old ladies and retards. It keeps them from murdering each other over that stray 34¢.
Don’t blame Apple for crappy 3rd-party apps!
The 3rd-party developers moaned and demanded an SDK and Apple gave it to them.
If there are 500 guitar tuner apps out there, then it is not Apple’s fault.
Now if someone like Reyburn Cybertuner, which is an $800 piano tuning app on Windows Mobile, would write their graphical tuning app for iPhone for say, $99 bucks, there would be less crap apps out there, but they won’t do it because there is a low volume of downloaders.
Tis true … 90% of the Apps in the Store are crap.
As is 90% of music, videos, movies, television, games, etc.
I am going to write a taser app for iPhone with sound effects and charge $999 bucks. My goal…2 downloads…that buys me a new Macbook. I am rich crossed the flexible line for moral standards and Apple was right to yank it.
Let Micro$oft take advantage of the ignorant people, not Apple. Obama would take the middle ground on this just like he did on Russia/Georgia…sorry, I forgot I wasn’t on the Huckabee forum.
The column is basically a rallying cry so that we all demand higher quality and more interesting mobile applications. Like everybody around here (I think) I have had MORE than enough tip calculators, currency calculators that don’t download rates off the Internet, “location-based” apps that can’t search anywhere OTHER than your current location, Sudoku games, subway maps that charge you for what you can get for free, and reformatted Web sites that work perfectly well in mobile Safari anyway. The people developing those apps should spend some more time with their families. You have to dredge through a LOT of that to get to the good stuff in the App Store.
I’m trying to suss out where the real innovators are, or why they’re being held back. Not just people developing obvious things like office suites, VOIP, or other big useful stuff, but whatever the ‘killer apps’ will be that will transform the way we use mobile devices entirely. Is it a lack of ideas holding them back? Something about the structure of Apple’s SDK? Fear? Lack of VC money? I try to touch on all of that in the column.
Hey, the AppStore is a VersionTracker for the iPhone. Browse through all the apps at VersionTracker sometime. Better yet, spend a really infinite amount of time browsing the windoze side of VT and sift through that myriad of mediocrity to find a few good products, free, share, or commercial.
“As for headlines, I can just imagine the MDN staffers sitting around in a meeting:”
There’s only one MDN Staffer, but I’m sure he argues with himself.
Pachyornis,
You made my day!
LOL
Sturgeon was an optimist.
OK, you could claim that 90% of the software in the app store is crap, just like 90% of the widgets available are crap, and 90% of the podcasts are crap, and … BUT! That’s counting the 1% you need, and the 1% I need, and the 1% my daughter-in-law needs (etc) as “good”. Yeah … you need to sort through a LOT of dross to come up with a really decent app, or widget, or podcast, or …
Heck, HALF those items are near-duplicates of other like items. How many versions of a calculator do you need? How many updates are left lying around? We in Apple land should be thrilled that most of the games that PC owners get to choose from die before they get ported to the Mac. Same with other software.
So, if 90% of everything is crap, does that mean this article was 45% crap since it was half assed?
Is crap only 90% crap? Does this mean I can get 10% non crap from pure crap? Does the contents of crap have to labeled?
OH CRAP!!! My head hurts.
One man’s shit is another man’s shinola…
perhaps what he meant to say is that ‘95% of these apps have no PERSONAL relevance to my life’
To some it may be crap, to others it’s fertilizer.
I think the amount of crap in general has risen with the dawning Web 2.0. The more tools become accessible to the masses, the more crap is released. YouTube proves that point spectacularly. But that 10% (I’d argue 1%) that is good, makes YouTube worth it. What was life without the numa-numa guy, or the fat Star Wars kid?
It’s a shame that Sascha’s article is a bit light on detail.
I’d expected a discussion/rant about:
– how difficult it is to find the decent apps on the store (mentioned, but not discussed in any great detail, eg. suggestions about how to resolve this)
– how the user ratings don’t match “What’s hot” or “Staff Favorites” (proving trash vs treasure)
– how the overview pages don’t show ratings so you have to click the app to see if it’s gotten good reviews
– not enough groupings – so the 50 different versions of Sudoku or Mahjong cannot be grouped into single lists (reminds me of when I go looking for MAME games.)
– how people can review apps they *haven’t* actually purchased/downloaded (grrrrrr, this one needs to be fixed.)
– the possible future of the app store, be it smart searches, custom sorted lists of varying degrees, etc Is there even a way to search on apps rated with 5 stars?
– interesting ideas for novel new apps (I guess people don’t like giving away great ideas anyway??)
– what does “Most Popular” mean anyway? Most downloaded? Best reviewed? Both? Something else? (although this comes under the trash vs treasure situation anyway.)
And to all those commenting and re-commenting on everything being 90% crap, well, good on you guys for perpetuating the rule.