How Mobile Apps Are Reinventing the Worst of the Software Industry

An anonymous reader writes "Jeff Atwood, co-founder of Stack Overflow, says the mobile app ecosystem is getting out of hand. 'Your platform now has a million apps? Amazing! Wonderful! What they don't tell you is that 99% of them are awful junk that nobody would ever want.' Atwood says most companies trying to figure out how to get users to install their app should instead be figuring out just why they need a mobile app in the first place. Fragmentation is another issue, as mobile devices continue to speciate and proliferate. 'Unless you're careful to build equivalent apps in all those places, it's like having multiple parallel Internets. "No, sorry, it's not available on that Internet, only the iOS phone Internet." Or even worse, only on the United States iOS phone Internet.' Monetization has turned into a race to the bottom, and it's led to worries about just what an app will do with the permissions it's asking for. Atwood concludes, 'The tablet and phone app ecosystem is slowly, painstakingly reinventing everything I hated about the computer software industry before the web blew it all up.'"

But this time it's different.

[plopez]

A whole new paradigm. You just don't get it! There's no down side etc. etc.

Re:But this time it's different.

[locotx]

The sarcasm is strong with this one....

Re:Mobile app wisdom

[steveha]

Now I feel silly. In my P.S. I said he missed my biggest peeve, when actually he started his rant there. By the time I reached the end of his rant, I guess my tiny brain had already forgotten it.

So feel free to point at me and laugh. Sorry about that.

Re:Mobile app wisdom

[tsqr]

There's an old saying: To gain knowledge, add something every day; to gain wisdom, get rid of something every day.

"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing that a tomato doesn't belong in a fruit salad."
--Miles Kington

How much longer until the shovelware discs?

[ebunga]

The fun isn't over until you can get a quarterly subscription to a stack of DVDs or USB jump drives or something containing "100,000 of the best [platform] Mobile Apps" delivered to your door for the low, low price of $125 per quarter.

Re:Let's Recap

[FuzzNugget]

That was... beautiful *sniff*

sent from my Google Nexus 4

Re:But this time it's different.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like 3D printing. I get the feeling the crest of mindless, hubristic hysterical over-optimism is over now. A few months ago however, it's like we were on the cusp of Star Trek, all on the basis of a few belt buckles and leaky Yoda coffee cups.