“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.
In fact, one thing I’d like to see on the store is a way to mask things already downloaded/viewed. That way you wouldn’t have to keep seeing the same old crap over and over.
Sorry, but all you are really saying is Apple and the App Store are NO BETTER than anything we would find on a PC for a WM platform.
Unfortunately, that is true. BUT, we hold Apple to a higher standard than the low bar set by MS. If not, why are we paying a premium for Apple’s software and hardware?
App Store is a great idea, but PC mag is telling the absolute truth – 99% of its apps are pretty much worthless.
Apple can and needs to do better.
Microsoft keeps setting the bar so low that most people think crappy software is the norm.
Ok – 47 comments posted above mine
Figure that 90% crap ratio, means – 42.3 post are crap
Oh, the po fo with the point-three
Or could be less the other point-seven
AND, of course, we all know MY post is NOT crap
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So, by process of elimination
Or, the *real* crappers have yet TO post, so you above are safe due to the laws of averages
Excuse me .. now have to go ‘down the hall’ (if you know what I mean) … to, well, you know what I mean
And never forget the famous words of somebody who I can’t remember their name at this moment:
There are two kinds of people in the World
Those who think there are two kinds of people in the World
And those who know better
BC
cynic – +5 Excellent on your message.
I was trying to look at the bigger picture though. You make some good points about how to improve the shopping experience of the App Store.
I’m trying to strike to the question of why there are so many repetitive apps in general, why some big, important app categories (like an office suite) are missing from the iPhone, and whether something about the mobile app marketplace is slowing down innovation.
nyr, well, YES – that’s what that really good Dvorak column from April was saying. Maybe there’s some sort of malaise in the software industry in general. I think it shows up worst in mobile, though.
As a life long SF fan, I appreciate Sturgeon’s work. He wrote some of my favorite stories. Old Ted was a great writer, no doubt about it.
But… Sturgeon’s Law is a prime example of lazy thinking by those who typically use it today. Ted, at least, originated the idea. Those who use it today do so more as a cliche, or rather a stereotypical “thinking”, than a truism. It allows a casual dismissal of pretty much anything, without putting forth any intellectual effort into thinking about what it is that’s being dismissed.
Pretty much like all other stereotypical “thinking.”
If 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of the time that Sturgeon’s Law is recited is crap, too.
Also, if 90% of everything is crap, that doesn’t say much for democracy, now does it?
The real question is would Apple pull a ‘I Am Poor’ app that sold for $0.99 and all it did was show a fake Rolex watch?
Everybody who suggests that “accidental” download of I am rich is stupid on the downloader’s part must lead charmed lives and certainly does not have kids. As though one more button, is a good enough safety valve for a click-happy child. Spare the self-righteous parent talk – if you have kids you KNOW that no matter how much you watch them, they still may end up in harm’s way. Ridiculous. As well, just yesterday, I downloaded the wrong app accidentally and, currently being a graduate student, I am quite sure I am not a total numbskull. I am also sure I am not the first to do so. After a thousand disclaimers, most be people ignore them. $999 would, however, be a far more expensive mistake. I am liberal-minded, too and support free press and general anarchy on the internet, but such things require responsible decision-making. Apple has a responsibility to their customers. I guarantee you Jobs is not suffering from nightmares due to his decision to pull “I Am Rich.” Seriously, do you really want to argue about such an asinine offering? If that’s the case, go back to Windows – they’ll provide you with tons of thoughtless, dangerous, potentially expensive, and bad applications.
“they’ll provide you with tons of thoughtless, dangerous, potentially expensive, and bad applications.”
One of them is pronounced “frәnt pāj”.
I’ll make excuses for him: When one gets up in a daze and puts on the wrong thong then every app looks like crap.
Sascha wrote:
>> why there are so many repetitive apps in general
Perhaps it’s simply ‘cos they’re easy to produce? Or they’re obvious ideas? (I too thought of a shopping list applications, musical tuners and some others which are there. A friend came up with language translation ideas.)
In some cases, existing code-bases could be used as well, which would have sped development time (certain games in particular would benefit.)
What’s worrying is that these devs didn’t bother to convert the app to the iPhone in a way which utilizes it’s features. I smell “rushed” and being first may mean more sales from the unwary. (A certain dev for example has about 20 apps on the store, and judging from the reviews of 1 – 1.5 stars, most (90%? lol) are crap. And even his good ones only get 3 stars.)
I fully expect 3rd party websites to pop up listing the great apps if Apple doesn’t start to do so.
>> why some big, important app categories (like an office suite) are missing from the iPhone
Too early in the game I think. These apps require lots of work. I worry about the screen real estate the keyboard takes up for such apps too (esp. in the landscape orientation.)
>> whether something about the mobile app marketplace is slowing down innovation.
Interesting thought. I (we all?) hope not. It could be that again, it’s just too early to tell. Great ideas which haven’t already been done are hard to come by though.
The advantage windows users have when it comes to such a large volume of their available software being crap is that it’s much harder to find. The simplicity of the appstore is (currently) almost its own worst enemy because the crap is so easy to find.
The thing is, if 90% of everything is crap, and 90% of that crap is crap, and 90% of that crap is crap…. well after a few iterations you get down to the 0.0001% core of ultra-pure supernuclear military-grade crap. If you could bottle that and sell it… why you could have a monopoly on the PC operating system market.
App Store is a great idea, but PC mag is telling the absolute truth – 99% of its apps are pretty much worthless.
I think that could be true for an individual, but collectively I don’t know. That is like my wife (a registered nurse) saying “I don’t need or use solid modeling software, so SolidWorks, NX, ProE, etc.. are all crap”. Well, for her, that would be true; she doesn’t need or use them.
I could say the same for me (an engineer) saying “All books on heart surgery are crap”. That wcould be, from my perspective, true as I don’t use or want heart surgery books.
Just because an app isn’t something you’d use doesn’t mean it’s crap…
It’s what I do, Baby. It’s what I do.
Reminds me a chestnut:
Statistically, one out of four people is mentally unbalanced. Think of your three closest friends.
If they seem ok, you’re in trouble…
It’s the same as in a book shop (I’m old enough to remember book shops): about 90% crap.
But that still leaves many hundreds of good books (or apps!) for you to browse and, after consideration and selection, plenty worth buying.
Segan sez:
“IAmRich.com 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.”
This app wasn’t ‘weird’, it as the most expensive JOKE app I’ve ever heard of.
And Apple is being derided for pulling a $999 joke out of their app store. This is Apple who FUD mongers refuse to take seriously, and this Segan FUD monger is saying Apple should put the joke back up for sale. Sheer insanity. 100% ignorable. Yet another moron disguising himself as a technology journalist. Another spawn of the Dvorak school of shock, awe and vacancy.
The PC magazines are certainly desperate for something to write about these days. It has to be August. Oh look, it is.
This guy better not have a Facebook account. You want crap apps, that’s the place to go.
@ChrisM
MDN Staffers? Try one guy who spends way too much time inside.
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So 90 percent of my crap is…….
HOLY CRAP!!!
No, 98% smell like old Segan. (That is Sturgeon entrails.)
Why is this article even here? The links in it spontaneously pop up ads for pro PC crap, including “The MoJave Experiment” and I’ll bet there are kickbacks involved. Fire the author/poster…
I am a Pc User that dose not own a mac only Ipod and Ipod Touch. I get macworld sent to my house each month because I enjoy reading it more then I do Pc World. Pc World has been going down hill for years. They no longer matter.