Since you asked, Gruber, here are my Android "killer apps"

Post by nailer » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 10:33 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #23

mithaler wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That definition assumes that there is such a thing as an "app worth buying a phone for" that holds for a majority of people . That will always vary by person. I've listed killer apps for Android for me; as I said, I can make no claims about killer apps for everyone, nor can you, or for that matter, Gruber. So I guess the term is kind of silly in the first place when applied to third-party mobile app offerings, no?

The iPhone had a killer app in the full web(minus flash) web browser. No other phone at the time had a web browser anywhere near as good as mobile safari is. That and google maps and mail made a compelling case to buy the phone.

Post by msisk6 » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 10:37 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #40

YooLi wrote: post #13

None of those are "killer apps" in the classical definition of the phrase. Those are apps that are awesome to you, but not killer apps. People use killer app now to mean any good app, kind of how every model today is a super model if you know their name. Halo was a killer app for xbox 360. People bought xboxes to play halo, hence a killer app. People arent going to buy an android phone to use a music player with a ne…

> Halo was a killer app for xbox 360. People bought xboxes to play halo, hence a killer app. Really? Halo was well marketed by Microsoft as a leader game that ran on Xbox, but it was fairly average as an FPS - do you have a ref for this?

Post by tptacek » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 10:43 PM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #16

vito wrote: post #9

Parcels seems to be a knock-off of the iOS Delivery Status app, which I use a lot: http://junecloud.com/software/iphone/delivery-status-touch.h... I've noticed this about the Market - there are a lot of blatant clones of better-executed iOS apps.

"I've noticed this about the Market - there are a lot of blatant clones of better-executed iOS apps." Is this not also true of the Apple app store?

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 10:58 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #14

mithaler wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only point I really care to make with my list is that Android's app offerings do not lack superb content, no matter how much other catalogs may have. Does Android appear to suffer in comparison to iTunes? Maybe, but that doesn't stop me in any meaningful fashion from finding apps I love on my Droid.

Then the only point you care to make is orthogonal to Gruber's question. He's asking, where are the apps that: * Are standouts, * Are exclusive to the Android platform, * Have high production values, and * Aren't system enhancements. You're entitled to say "that's a dumb question", but you can't claim to answer the question by rejecting it.

Post by tl » Sat, Nov 20, 2010, 11:07 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #31

YooLi wrote: post #13

None of those are "killer apps" in the classical definition of the phrase. Those are apps that are awesome to you, but not killer apps. People use killer app now to mean any good app, kind of how every model today is a super model if you know their name. Halo was a killer app for xbox 360. People bought xboxes to play halo, hence a killer app. People arent going to buy an android phone to use a music player with a ne…

I agree. There are four killer apps to date, and they exist on all the big players: 1) Web browser 2) Email client 3) GPS/Navi 4) SMS There is no application I've never heard anyone, other than a Gruber/Scoble like geek saying, "I need to buy an iPhone because of this app". In fact, ask someone who does NOT own an iPhone to name one iPhone application. Just one. Any one will do. I bet most of the time the answer will…