My computer science teacher today started a discussion about a blog post he found recently about predictions made for 2010 by IDC. I wrote my response earlier today in our internal moodle, but I thought I’d share my thoughts here too.
My response:
The post was saying that people follow the applications. PCs (Windows) have 10,000 well-known Windows 7 compatible applications. How many apps are there in Apple’s App Store? Last I heard, it was around 70,000 apps, but it’s closer, probably to 100,000 now, and the post says 300,000 by next year. So then, how many great apps are there? How many do you use frequently?
I think the post was hinting that mobile devices will gain traction because of the number of apps. That’s not quite right. Even on a PC (Windows) you only use about 20 different apps. Office (excel, word, powerpoint), Firefox are the things that come to mind. I can’t even name more than two applications that “normal” people use, other than, of course, those two.
Mobile devices are great but the quality of the Apps in the App Store and also in Mobile in general do not meet the quality we know to be found in desktop, classical, applications. There are probably only 12 apps you use frequently if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch. Even less if you’re on Android or Palm OS.
Mobile Safari is a gateway app to the internet, it’s staggeringly more important to me than pretty much any third party app that can be bought for the iPod Touch.
I predict that mobile usage will increase. I predict that, even I, who is poor, will eventually buy and consistently use a mobile device. It’s possible that an apple tablet will emerge, there is currently no stationary touch oriented device in the Apple line. The tablet will be mobile, but function like a stationary computer too, I can only hope. That brings the best of both worlds, mobility and power (via full and complete applications) to people.
Netbooks are stifled by Windows 7 Starter Edition, I simply refuse to buy one with W7SE on it. Over time, super mobile laptops with halfway decent battery life (more than 4 hours) and processing power, will come out and actually replace the netbook craze. Personally, I’d love a netbook, as long as I can run what I want to run on it. I think many people don’t buy netbooks because they’re already speeding $250+, so why not go for $479, get a 2Ghz processor and 4gb laptop. Google’s Chrome OS not even workout in the long run. I’m not too impressed by this cloud business, and I certainly enjoy running my own programs and storing my own data.