When the first iPhone came out a year ago, it was criticized (among other things) for the lack of third-party apps. They weren’t allowed, except for so-called Web-apps, which were « just » Web pages.
So hackers unlocked the iPhone, developers developed unsanctioned third-party apps, and eventually, Apple released a software development kit for writing native iPhone apps (a rather condensed history of the situation).
With last week’s rollout of the new iPhone 3G came the opening of the new AppStore, available to all iPhones, provided they are upgraded to the new 2.0 OS. Hundreds of apps are available. Games, productivity, social networking, etc, etc. Many are free. Many are cheap (less than $10 (chump change in Euros)).
I never unlocked my 1st generation iPhone. I didn’t want to brick it. I didn’t want some dumb application crashing my phone, and more importantly, no third-party application appealed to me enough to take the risk.
But in the last week, I’ve downloaded quite a few apps. Mostly freebies, although I did buy a few too.
I suppose it’s unfair to criticize, because these are 1.0 apps on a brand new platform. But I have to say I am mostly dismayed by what I’ve tried. Apps that have been highly anticipated and praised just crash miserably and/or suffer from horrendous usability problems. Not to mention the fact that they are usually functionally no better than equivalent WebApps. It’s safe to say that I’ve uninstalled about 80% of the apps I tried.
I bought (and kept) Guitar Toolkit, a nice guitar tuner and chord reference ; Pianist, a little piano app (Pianist) that records, in case inspiration strikes when I’m out and about.
I also bought a somewhat OK Solitaire game, Platinum Solitaire, if you can overlook the 10 clics (taps) and animated logos and cartoon characters with annoying voices that you have to endure before you can even start a game (and it also crashes randomly). In fact, there were several solitaires and I bought this one by mistake (which is very easy to do on the App Store). I asked for a refund, which was granted (« exceptionally »).
So far, the only other App that stands out (paid or free), apart from the previously mentioned Tuner & Piano, is a beautiful little 3D MahJong game Moolight Mahjong Lite, which outshines pretty much anything else I’ve tried. It is simple, straightforward, stable, and fully takes advantage the iPhones multitouch capabilities.
I’ve also noticed that my battery seems to drain faster than it did before, even when I’m not using the iPhone. I don’t know for sure, and I don’t know if it is due to some misbehaved App (in theory, they are sandboxed, but who knows?) or some official feature of the new 2.0 OS…
Still, there is no doubt in my mind that the iPhone is the only major new computing platform to emerge in years, if not decades, and it is an incredible platform at that. So hopefully, the third-party App situation will improve over time, as developers learn how to code for the platform, and users start being a little more demanding and discriminating.