What’s the killer app for the iPhone? Most hardware platforms have had one: the app so great you go buy the hardware just to get it. But it occurred to me in a recent conversation: there might not be a killer app for the iPhone (and it might not need one).
With the App Store, Apple’s done the expected exceptional job of app distribution, including enabling small dollar payments. Can you name another mainstream system where you can seamlessly buy, install, and run $1 apps? It’s no surprise the first batch of apps are “narrow apps”, that do one specific thing, (in most cases) do that thing well, and don’t cost much.
When combined with Springboard’s ability to customize the launch screen icon layout, it’s entirely possible that the “killer app” for each user is not a single distinct application, but a personalized selection of a dozen or so narrow apps chosen by that user.
In other words, the killer app for each user is a sort of “app mix tape”.
I’ve been thikning about this a lot as well, but I’ve had a different take on the answer to the question. What if rather than there being a single ‘killer app’ that causes most people to buy the hardware, there is a long tail of killer apps, each of which causes a segmented group of people to buy the hardware. My current example of this is the app ForeFlight Mobile, which is a preflight planning app (60 bucks, BTW) which includes the ability to check detailed weather as well as file flight plans. I’m not a pilot, but is sure seems like that app, in that vertical, could be a killer app for private pilots… It’s easy to extrapolate to a variety of other verticals that could be radically changed by a relatively inexpensive small, mobile, connected, and easy to use device.
It’s great watching this new market emerge…
-charles
so maybe the killer app for the iphone… is the app store?