iPhone’s 100K Apps milestone is the New '7-Minute Abs'

There is a classic scene in ‘There’s Something About Mary,’ where Ted (Ben Stiller) is talking to the slightly-askew Hitchhiker (Harland Williams), and the Hitchhiker is telling Ted about his brilliant idea: 

Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?

Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.

Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.

Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh? [Hitchhiker convulses]

I thought of this scene for three reasons in reading up on Apple’s celebration of hitting the soon-to-be-dispensed with 100K Apps milestone, yet another signpost on the ‘There’s an App for That’ Highway.

One, at this point, the number (and its subsequent increments) is largely meaningless until someone ELSE passes it. Then, it’s news again. 

Two, the REAL gambit for the competition, most notably, Android, is to render this number meaningless by coming up with a better, DIFFERENT metric. 

Three, given that Apple’s success has been predicated on a perennial willingness to cannibalize and re-invent itself, isn’t it about time THEY shift the story line (or at least augment it) away from quantity, Quantity, QUANTITY, and towards something else? 

Related Posts:

1. Is the iPhone Platform Destined to Disrupt the Packaged Software Industry?
   
2. Should Apples's Give a Rat's Ass that Developers aren't Getting Rich off of the iPhone Platform? 
   
3. iPhones, App Stores and Ecosystems

Comments

[sfmitch]

There is a very small percentage of tech news that gets into the mainstream. Something like 100K Apps is something that non-techies can understand.

The other issue is that while there is a whole bunch of crap in the App store there is also a whole bunch of awesomeness. There are so many quality Apps that I don't believe the App store has a quality problem.

I think Apple has both high quality and large quantity of Apps (not saying that the large quantity is all high quality) which is a pretty unique position to be in. Think Windows with the quantity of desktop software but Apple with the quality of desktop software. Now iPhone has both.

So, to your point - the iPhone & App store are still pretty new for the non-techie. Apple coming up with easy to understand, relevant data points is a very smart idea. Showcasing quality with the TV ads - there's an app for that - is the flip side of the coin.

I'm sure the tech blog readers / writers who are immersed in this type of info, find it to be old news (50k, 55k, 60k, 65k....OK, I get it) but it is still relevant and important for Apple to be communicating to regular folks.

[Mark Sigal]

sfmitch, hard to argue with your logic, and others (via twitter, blogosphere) have pointed out same. to be clear, I am not saying that this milestone does not serve a purpose or that this talk should just go away, just that the "there's an app for that" backed by large numbers starts to become the tail and not the dog, with the dog being some other piece of narrative like "killers apps," "reinventing print media," etc.

Thanks for the counter perspective.

Mark

[Oli]

Another thing to consider is whilst it's an impressive number for customers it's a worrying number for developers. How can a company with an unrecognisable brand actually make money for this? It's ok for the big boys but how do customers actually get to my app and how am i going to sell it if it's not featured?...

[Mark Sigal]

@Oli, I agree with you, and that was part of the joke. Namely, that that these numbers become meaningless, although in world of small-time developer, that means that much more chaff for consumers to sort through to find your wheat. Bottom line is that developers need a good set of marketing skills, as inclusion in the store only part of the selling equation. Thanks for the note.