This is an example of what I call "Feature vs. Product."
A classic example is Snapchat and Instagram. Snapchat was never something that stood on its own, as everything that made it unique would easily be duplicatable by Instagram, down to the tiniest feature. Theoretically, the network of users would be the unique value but it was nowhere near Facebook's size, and thus would not be able to truly compete. All it took was Instagram copying most every good feature to dominate the space.
In the article's case, each of the apps (Clue, Duet, DoApp, Voxer) were creating something that, while valuable to users at the time, was simply an addition to the existing functionality and in no way was a valuable product outside the context of the phone or iOS itself. Effectively, they were features wrapped in an app that in no way stood on their own.
If you want to make a successful app in the App Store, make something with value to a user that can stand alone.
I don't disagree, but I think Apple to could this a lot better than they do.
Imagine this alternate universe for a moment, app developers assign Apple, as part of their developer status, a non-expiring option to license in perpetuity their application for one million dollars by Apple Inc.
Apple adds an "application acquisition fee" of $50 on the sale of every iOS device. At the end of each quarter, Apple distributes a fractional share of the acquisition fee amongst all of the developers for whom it has opted to take their application. Those payouts continue until Apple has paid out $1M to the developer.
From the developer's perspective, if their App gets consumed by Apple they now get an infusion of capital to spend the time on the next big thing, so having Apple decide to incorporate their 'feature' into the Apple 'product' is a win.
From Apple's perspective its a win because they have a bunch of developers working for "free" trying to produce the next big thing, and only after the market has said "Hey, this is something worth paying for." Does Apple incur a forward liability which comes out of future revenue, not cash on hand, and without a specific due date. So easy to manage on an earnings call and when planning cash flow.
By "sharing the wealth" in that way, Apple can make better partners out of their developers than they currently do.
I definitely agree they can handle some things better. After all - why not try and buy out those little app makers to add more great talent? There’s a ton of PR/brand/goodwill to build there and it’s a total lost opportunity.
And interesting idea— I’m going to mull that one over!
And yet lots of people still use Snapchat, myself included. I have zero need for Instagram, on the other hand, since I am not into sharing photos publicly.
I use Snapchat for chatting, bitmojis, and simple photos/videos with one person. There's nothing superfluous to annoy me.
Yep - plenty of people will prefer one platform over the other, such as yourself. But in the end the only thing that really stands to differentiate them is the network, not the app, as either one can duplicate the other’s functionality at the drop of a hat.
You would think that having a successful product with a strong user base would be enough but it seems tough to work w/Apple when you are reliant on their platform and they have a competing product as Spotify (which compete's with Apple's iTunes) can attest.
If you’re making something people use because Apple doesn’t make it then you don’t pass the test, and there’s zero reason Apple shouldn’t do it themselves, especially if they can do it better.
To stay relevant, don’t expect to plug gaps in Apple’s product offerings if you don’t want them to one day render you irrelevant.
Spotify isn’t one of the examples I’m pointing at either, but it is still relevant as they aren’t doing something Apple can’t do better (in Apple’s mind). I’m not going to weigh in on preferential treatment vs Spotify here as that’s a whole different kettle of fish though :)
Sure but that means that from the user's perspective the app is probably going to be better/more seamless in some way. I'm fine with Apple making their own versions of popular apps if they are hamstrung in some meaningful way by access to low level iphone stuff.
Yes, obviously, of course Apple's app is more seamless as a result. That is entirely the point. They are only able to beat other developers in this area because they don't let developers even compete with them. Saying their app is better, so it's all okay, misses the point that other developers never have the opportunity to show if they could equal or surpass what Apple does. It's like if Ford went to every other car manufacturer and sabotaged their brakes. Sure, Ford's cars are better! They can brake! Who wouldn't choose that over a car that can't stop? But it's not competition.
Nah, it’s not out of business, but the point about there not being much of a fundamental differentiation from Instagram that gives it unique value stands.
That may change over time as these things aren’t set in stone of course.
I’d say an attempt was made by Microsoft to render the web browser a feature of Windows. That didn’t pan out in the long run as (a) a web browser was a horrid file browser, and (b) IE just wasn’t that good.
Because they tried to make it a feature, it lost ground in terms of functionality and performance and users preferred a different option with a better experience.
That brings me to another point - you can make a feature into a product by creating a fundamentally better experience. It isn’t easy though and you can find the tide shift against you long run.
Anyone who says "IE wasn't that good" wasn't making active use of the current browsers at the time for browsing and web development. IE had a better feature set, better development tools, and was generally just more pleasant to use than current Netscape at the time. Stuff like XHR appeared in IE first.
Of course IE eventually rotted, but it's silly to claim that low quality was actually the case or that low quality was the result of it being bundled with the OS.
It's not as if we had auto-installed monthly or weekly browser updates back then - if you were using Netscape 4 the odds were you didn't update it very often at all. If anything the odds were better that grandma's PC would get a Windows security update/service pack with IE fixes/improvements installed than a critical Netscape update.
IMO the point at which IE truly started falling behind was around when Firefox came onto the scene, and once Chrome was a thing its fate was sealed. Before that point I don't think you could realistically argue that it "wasn't that good" because there was no superior alternative out there and it got the job done.
Shipping a web view as an OS component is also a good idea in general, as demonstrated by the fact that all the major commercial OS vendors are doing it. Many apps rely on webviews and in the past major software was using IE to render HTML content (Steam, for one example)
At that point in time literally nothing would have stopped bad actors from shipping malicious Firefox extensions. IE only had that problem because it was popular.
And over time Dropbox ended up creating unique features and a value that stands on its own.
In this case, the Apple ecosystem limited Apple’s thinking and both Box and Dropbox were able to move to create unique value. And frankly, good for them.
Jup! And what's with the pricing? The next best tier is 2 TB? Why isn't there an option, with say 100gb, 3-4 bucks a month and not annoyingly trying to sell me some stuff when I'm just using 25% of my space.
I would buy it in an instant.. but for 10 dollars a month so that I use 2% of that space? Sorry, then I will look somewhere else..
Well, it’s not “valuable” enough to make Dropbox profitable and for the same price you can get Office 365 with 6TB of storage and the complete office suite.
The main reason Dropbox exists (along with WhatsApp) is that Apple is unwilling to support its "unique" ecosystem features (iCloud, iMessage) on other platforms (they only make it a "feature" of their own platform to increase its perceived value and attract users). So if you want cross-platform, you have to use 3rd party stuff (Dropbox, WhatsApp).
A classic example is Snapchat and Instagram. Snapchat was never something that stood on its own, as everything that made it unique would easily be duplicatable by Instagram, down to the tiniest feature. Theoretically, the network of users would be the unique value but it was nowhere near Facebook's size, and thus would not be able to truly compete. All it took was Instagram copying most every good feature to dominate the space.
In the article's case, each of the apps (Clue, Duet, DoApp, Voxer) were creating something that, while valuable to users at the time, was simply an addition to the existing functionality and in no way was a valuable product outside the context of the phone or iOS itself. Effectively, they were features wrapped in an app that in no way stood on their own.
If you want to make a successful app in the App Store, make something with value to a user that can stand alone.