17 popular apps Steve Jobs just killed

“Yesterday, just in case you were not online, was Apple’s annual WWDC event,” Hillel Fuld writes for Tech N’ Marketing. “The enhancements Apple made to iOS, Mac OS, and the entire Apple ecosystem were, yes I am using this word, revolutionary.”

What is really interesting is that the new iOS, with all its features will essentially lead me and many other users to delete different apps that prior to iOS 5, provided a certain functionality that is now part of the operating system itself,” Fuld writes. “The following is a list of app categories, represented by one example, that will surely suffer from the new and integrated features in iOS 5, which Steve Jobs announced yesterday:”

1: Boxcar (Notification Apps)
2: Dropbox (Cloud syncing apps)
3: WhatsApp/Kik (Free messaging apps)
4: QuickPix (Camera- enhancing apps)
5: Instapaper (Read later apps)
6: Twitpic (not an app)
7: Remember the Milk (Reminder apps)
8: Photoshop Express (Photo Editing apps)
9: Echofon/Tweetdeck (Twitter apps)
10: Instagram (Photo Sharing apps)
11: Pulse (Reader apps):
12: iChromy (Browsers)
13: Wifi Photo (Wifi syncing apps)
14: Dictionary (Translation apps)
15: Gmail (Web app)
16: Find my iPhone
17: iTunes: “For the first time ever, you can now own an iOS device, without a computer. No more need for iTunes and all that wasted syncing time. You can set up the device wirelessly, back up your files wirelessly, and sync your device wirelessly. This is huge. I have two words for you, Apple. Good riddance. And here are some more words I have been waiting to say for a long time. Bye bye iTunes, hello wireless syncing. I don’t know you yet but I think I love you!”

Much more in the full article here.

60 Comments

    1. I do not think Apple killed Gmail. iCloud will only be available to IOS devices. Apple would have to really open it up to other platform to hurt Gmail.

      Also, there is a switching cost so I would image most would continue using gmail, even if they use iphone or ios device. I personally will dump gmail on the first day icloud will come out but we have to be realistic here. Most people will not.

      1. They killed gmail/ google sync on Apple devices. No need for it’s calendar, contact or even email sync services anymore. iCloud is a suitable replacement for it all.

        1. Looks like you are right. PC is supported too.

          “iCloud stores your content so it’s always accessible from your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.”

        2. So iCloud will be available on iDevices, Macs and PCs. Conspicuously absent from the list of eligible devices are Android or WP7 phones, and any non-iPad tablets.
          Awwww, poor babies!

      1. Hmmm.

        With many possibly dropping text msg plans… They may do so as an offer to keep people.
        Come on apple… Be a carrier and let’s drop AT&T Verizon and the rest.
        No fee for app store/iTunes usage.. 😉
        No cost for txt msgs…

        Let’s hope.

      2. I already have NO MESSAGING PLAN thanks to What’s App between my family, friends and I. iMessage will be cool too, because it integrates iPads and maybe even Macs.

    1. This is the big “gotcha” in Apple’s plans. Cellular networks are going to choke on the deluge of data that Apple is about to unleash, and cellular providers (curse their miserable, greedy little hearts) are going to try to charge their customers a fortune for the increased bandwidth that the Age of iCloud will require. This is obviously not going to fly with customers. I see a huge collision coming.

  1. my only concern is that the apps that apple borrowed from will be taken out of the app store due to duplicating functionality. That would piss off developers. Other than that, 5.0 and icloud put iPhone and iPad head and shoulders above the competitors. I’m reinstalling pages on my Mac as we speak because of it.

      1. Yes, but who knew it would take Apple 4 years to come up with built-in “to do” functionality!? Granted the iOS5 version looks very promising (location-based reminders that doesn’t drain your battery = awesome), but still…

    1. … out of the App Store? That’s not quite the same as “apps removed from the App Store”, now, is it? If Apple tosses, say, Boxcar, the developer has every right to be pissed! But, if the developer gets pissed and withdraws? Not Apple’s fault! Nothing to stop the devs from adding functionality, is there?

  2. I use dropbox every day. I will still use it as a backup to the cloud. Nothing is foolproof. As far as Instapaper, I now use Zite. For GMail, I will still back up my documents there for a secondary backup. I cannot afford to lose documentation because I’m an author and novelist.

    1. Dropbox is a must-have for me. I have 10GB available and Apple isn’t competing with that. . I use it every day for a multitude of purposes – including syncing DocsToGo, Pages and Numbers, too. What pissed me off is that DropDav is now chargind $5 a month just to use WebDav syncing. My bet is they’ll change that real quick if they want to stay relevant. Heck BoxNet just upped their storage available to 5GB for users. I just don’t see how they’ll go away despite Apple’s new setup.

  3. Yes sir. I’ve been looking for a means to eliminate gmail, and it looks like I’ll be moving shortly. iPhone4+iPad2+iMac (core duo though:( ). Life is about to get very good.

    1. I’m wondering the same. Hell- I am wondering how find-iphone fits into apple’s new cloud offering. If they make that free as part of the cloud bundle- phew. talk about genius.

  4. One of the perils of being an iOS developer. If your app fills in an obvious gap it’s a risk/reward scenario. Milk it while you can and move on. If you did it once you can do it again.

  5. I just hope none of those app makers were very “surprised.” Apple had already hinted at or implemented most of those ideas over the last four years, albeit in a cockamamy, half-baked way. Now they’ve finally fixed them in an elegant, integrated fashion.

    BTW, I’m still waiting for the iOS “Notes” app to sync with my Mac Notes app, not send me an email.

  6. I just don’t see how this really kills Dropbox. Dropbox is awesome and works with ANY app. From what I am seeing, Apple showed it working with their iWork apps, but with nothing more. If I want to take my collected InDesign folder to go anywhere with me, Dropbox is fast and is always there. Besides they’re a lot people out there who use more than the iWork and iLife apps that offer iCloud syncing.

    It’ll just fuel more innovation I think.

      1. Well, that still doesn’t kill Dropbox and anyone who thinks it does has no idea of the full capabilities of Dropbox.

        The world is larger than just the Mac or iOS, and my needs to share information with people and vice-versa transcends iCloud.

        I’ll grant you it’s an interesting service. But it’s not quite as much of a paradigm shift as people may think. But maybe some of the stuff that I’m thinking of will turn up in a future revision.

    1. There are iCloud APIs, hence this is called developer conference, hense the beta for developers. So yes, there is no way be more dead than Dropbox. ;))

      But this, of course, only in the autumn, and if everything will go as smoothly as Apple plans stability-wise.

    1. … that Billy S. was “experimental” with his spelling, but he spelt it “Much ado” … 😉
      I will be curious about what happens to so many of the OSX apps that seem to be left behind, here.
      iWeb, I’ve mentioned. What about iChat? Can FaceTime connect you with three friends for a video chat? Can even an iPad provide a large enough screen for that?

  7. Some of these apps will live on just fine. Instagram has unique features and a strong user community. Dropbox and Instapaper also have unique features and fit into workflows in ways 10.7 won’t (at first).

  8. MDN- You missed all the ToDo apps. Apple adding support for this in the core OS is looooong overdue. Devs knew it was coming. Still opportunity to innovate though.

  9. So you really think that all these developers won’t continue to innovate and offer other useful tweaks to their apps to keep them relevant?

    I am so sick of the overuse of the word “kill” to describe open market competition. Sure, Apple will take a piece of the pie. It won’t “kill” its developers like Microsoft did in its gorilla days.

  10. I seem to remember Microsoft getting hauled into an expensive multi-year anti-trust lawsuit over bundling Internet Explorer with Windows and tying it so tightly to the OS that it effectively killed 3rd party apps. Apple is far from a monopoly system with Mac OSX, but iOS has over 200 million devices.
    Given the walled garden of iOS, I wonder if the EU or US DoJ might end up filing a lawsuit over some of this. I’m not suggesting it should happen- just saying it could happen.
    iCal it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.