Basically the game is rigged, apps are just a testing ground for ideas that Google and Apple can ripoff at their will. If you're extremely successful and lucky the best you can hope for is an acquihire. But usually they just steal the idea and kill the market.
But it didn't stop companies from becoming wildly successful building desktop software.
MS did do some of what you describe but it seems much more prevalent with mobile OSes.
Microsoft used to issue press releases about how they were going to build a product in category X, killing all venture capital in category X. In many cases they never built a product in category X or if they did it sucked. But they were able to cut off the air supply.
Apple and Google don't do that.
This may sound trivial, but it is huge- it means you have a couple years to build traction and a chance of getting acquired by Apple or Google (as say, SIRI was).
Some instant messengers enjoyed success ( but were never as big as Adobe in terms of revenue) due to the fact that the OS makers (msft, apple, google) are typically incompetent in social.
In terms of ideas implemented in software alone, it's trivial and the vast majority of ideas can be easily implemented by anyone working on the platform, thus not deserving protection. Anything obvious and trivial is not deserving of patent protection imho.
Your idea is worthless. Execution is what matters. If Google and Apple can integrate your idea that easily into their ecosystem, its overvalued as an idea.
That strikes me as an overplayed sentiment.
Your execution can never be as good as one done at the OS level by the company that owns it. That does not mean your idea is 'overvalued'. In fact, quite the opposite - it usually means you have proved that your idea has enough value that it should be bundled up and given to every single person who uses the OS. You just won't benefit from it.
The platform providers don't seek direct revenue, they just want to channel cattle in their hardware/advertising cages and killing off any ISV that could ever grow powerful enough to challenge them is a bonus.
I think one sign of mobile's maturation is that people now see mobile as part of a bigger integrated picture of distribution. For example, it's essential (more than ever) to have a strong strategy to be on mobile, on desktop, and in social channels. I think this makes it more challenging for small startups since they typically don't have the manpower to do everything well. So you've got to prioritize and go with what gives you the most bang for your buck. Sometimes it's mobile; sometimes it's desktop; sometimes it's social.
My opinion:
* Downloading a new app has lost its novelty. It used to be "there's an app for that", now it is more "is it compelling enough to load an app to do that?"
* Mobile web is good and continuing to get better due to better phones, browsers, and web sites. This is making apps less necessary and thus less compelling.
Personally, I treat my phone like my house. I am vary particular about who I invite in.
If you have created a valuable service/tool/game/etc that people really want to use and is also a good fit for mobile use, people will download the mobile app. But the conversation is all about "how do we come up with apps that people want to use and can compete with the top handful?" Isn't that just a solution in search of a problem?
Maybe those top 10-20 mobile apps that get the lion's share of relative adoption are the 10-20 things that people find worth doing with apps on a mobile platform. The mobile apps that I always install and continue to use/reinstall on new devices are the ones that address an existing need. I only have so many of those needs that can be reasonably addressed by mobile apps.
I need something to jot down quick notes wherever I am? Notes app. I want to see what amusing things my friends are up to on Facebook? Facebook app (not really in my case but as an example). Same for Skype or Uber or any other service. I want the service first and since it makes sense to access those services from my phone or tablet, I get the app.
I don't just go looking for apps randomly because I feel like (outside of games) there is a limited set of things I want to be able to do on my cell phone. The only time that set gets larger is when someone comes up with a really useful or desirable new service. Not because someone came out with a really cool and well-designed app.
* People made a bunch of things that should have been websites apps. Still happens way too often. This sucks.
* More recently, people have been making things "mobile web apps" that should be websites. This sucks.
Mobile apps are a mess and the mobile web keeps getting worse, IMO. This won't stop until people quit pretending Javascript/DOM performance — including power drain and memory footprint — is acceptable on mobile. It's even bad on laptops!
Mobile web is getting better, but i'd still rather use facebook's app and airbnb's app vs their adequate mobile web experiences. It's just a better UX. For things like uber, you don't even have that choice. On the other hand, if you're experience is not task intensive, mobile web is just fine.
(Thinking if I should move to mobile development..)
nothing in the past decade has been here to stay. I dont know what the next decade holds, but i highly doubt it will look like what we now call 'mobile'
I know that he is talking about mobile apps as a business rather than the end user experience, but I am disliking mobile apps from a user experience more and more.
I access Twitter and Facebook on my Android Note 4 via their web apps - I like the user experience just fine, thank you, and I don't worry as much about giving mobile apps permissions that I don't think they need. I also logoff after using the web versions of Twitter and Facebook. Maybe with finer grained access controls in Android version 6 I might change my mind but probably not.
On my iPad, I find it much nicer reading GMail using the browser (not mobile) version of the web app, including access to the calendar. Use the apps: no thanks.
Web HTML 5 standards are fantastic - let's use them.
Are there consumer facing web sites that have gained massive traction and sustained it in the past three years?
Is the problem really mobile specific or is it just that consumer space has become much harder in general as Facebook and messaging juggernauts capture a lion share of people's attention.
In 2005-2010, when social media was still young, there were a lot of cheap or even free marketing and distribution tactics that were not oversaturated, but now as the new medium has matured a bit, and even less nimble players start to understand the game, you need huge ad budgets to capture attention of consumers.
This is the interesting thing to me. I tried to explain this to some friends who wanted to do something and they immediately wanted to submit themselves to the walled gardens… well, I'll watch them try, I could be wrong, and that's like Fred and their kindred that continue to let such people in the building… now I find that phenomena interesting as well and wonder why?
