The impending iPhone application traffic jam
Mike Cane raises a number of good questions about the impending rollout of iPhone/iTouch apps.
My personal belief is that initially there will be a lot of overlapping productivity apps across the board: ‘to-do’ list managers, note-taking apps, etc. as well as a flood of games, all vying for attention. It’ll be like the grand opening of an FAO Schwartz, where the glitter and noise will overwhelm the senses.
It’ll take a while for consumers to digest what’s out there — and my guess is there will be no clear early winners. To help pave the way, look for a spate of early vaporware announcements by companies trying to mark off the territory and grab early mindshare.
There will be early leaks to media, lots of photoshopped screenshots, and ever-escalating grand promises. But that will also bring out a whole slew of copycat pre-announcements by others not wanting to give up the fight too soon. We’re already starting to see that in the gaming market — with early “we intend to develop games for the iPhone” press releases by Gameloft, Namco, PopCap, THQ, Freeverse, Harmonix, and of course, EA (with Spore) and Sega (with Monkey Ball).
What’s strange about this market is that the ecosystem around a consumer device usually starts small, since there aren’t that many units out there. Then as word spreads and applications mature, platform sales move beyond the early adopters and a whole information infrastructure falls into place to help people find and support apps, which brings in a larger mainstream audience, and the upward cycle continues.
With the iPhone, the early adopters were all lined up the day of the release outside the stores. We’re now into the larger mass-adoption curve — with an estimated 10 million iPhones/iPods out there by the June AppStore launch. Yet none of the customary information pipelines of magazines, blogs, TV shows, and review sites are in place yet. Yes it’s early, but watch for pre-emptive announcements of iPhone-related magazines and buyer’s guides in the next few weeks.
My guess is that as the launch date grows near the volume will go up as well. Developers will pre-announce their product offerings hoping to start gathering mind-share and building up excitement even before the App Store launches. But they can’t do it too soon, since that would allow competitors to pre-empt the pre-announcement with their own PR-ware.
Developers have been questioning the need for the $100 million iFund. You can bet some of that money is going to find its way into the pockets of media in the form of early advertising for software and brand-building. All this for software that can’t be bought yet. Under normal circumstances, all this would be yawn inducing. But hey, this is the ecosystem that will form around a company that pre-announced the phone itself by nearly half a year (and the app store by three months). You’ll be laughed out of town if you wait until there’s actually something ready to ship.
Once the store launches, it’ll be pretty chaotic for a while. Apple is going to have to come up with some sort of policy to decide which apps are going to get featured on the iTunes front page. Will they take advertising from developers? Will it be based on user-reviews? An editorial staff? They are going to be in a uniquely powerful position here. A front-page token announcement and you’re practically annointed in Myrrh.
Much of this will depend, as Mike points out, on Apple clearing out the backlog of ‘approved’ applications and issuing those certificates (a topic that already has some people in the developer community worried).
Another question will be that of pricing. Jens Alfke has floated the idea of $0.99 applications (to mimic the iTunes music sales). It’s customary on the desktop to have a ‘try before you buy’ period. Since Apple is going to be in charge of distribution and licensing, they’re going to have to be the ones providing the infrastructure for timed trials.
The thing is, they never implemented it with iPod games, choosing to keep the game prices in the sub-$5 casual gaming level and they haven’t announced anything of the sort for the iPhone App Store. Maybe they will by June, but if not, you may end up with a flood of users entering the App Store, browsing around confused and not knowing what’s worthwhile to buy, not knowing where to turn for advice, then taking a look at the ‘take it or leave it’ price tags, and walking out to wait yet again for the early adopters to take the first plunge.
As a small developer hoping to have a small part in this ecosystem, I hope it doesn’t happen. It’s still early and the traffic jam can be averted.