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I don't use a single App from the store...

I find it pretty crazy...well not really actually. I remember back to the days of 'no app store" I also remember when I bought the first gen iPhone. It was Xmas and it was a gift to my gf. Gawd, I can still remember the both of us being amazed at what it could "do" 🙄

Then sometime later the app store came around.

My dad is thinking about getting an iphone, mainly for email. So, yeah actually, I can see where you are coming from. I know he would never buy an app from the app store. Heck, he probably wouldn't even know how. 🙄
 
Interesting. Some good replies, and the thread has trended much more civil that I thought it would when I posted the topic. A couple responses to your posts:

I still don't own a computer. I use the local and university libraries, within walking distance, for most, if not all, of my needs. When I have to hook up to my iTunes account I visit my parents.

Games. I don't play any but I certainly undertand the appeal. If you read back through the thread this seems to be one of the highest causes of "App hunger".

Jailbreak. I've thought about it. But it seems complicated. I'd love to delete certain Apple apps, change theme's, have the icons display realtime information, etc...

Connection. I live in Ohio, around the Cleveland/Akron area. Connection is solid. 3G runs spot on, save for this week and a couple months ago when I dropped my iPhone. Plenty of WiFi around as well. I may be one of the very few that actually likes the AT&T coverage. (Not that I like AT&T mind you...)
 
I thought the basic point was convergence. No need to carry a phone, pda and music player. I only pointed out earlier why the OP might want to branch out form the web browser. However the point of an iphone will vary from person to person. If the OP is happy that is all that really matters.
 
Two words: FART APPS

Seriously, as the commercial says, there is an app for everybody. You are essentially saying "I bought a portable Mac to surf the web and check email..why do I need Quicken, iLife, Word/Pages or any other program?"
 
definitely give some of the free ones a try! after you see they can be useful.... then you can graduate to buying a few!

i've downloaded way too many.... and don't use but a smal percentage of those... but the ones i use i enjoy!
 
grantsdale said:
When exactly does this happen?
Click to expand...

When AT&Ts "nation wide coverage" fails you and you barely have one bar of GPRS....I wouldn't rely on Internet ever to keep me entertained no matter what, that type of thinking is why AT&Ts 3G network is so bogged Down with bandwidth hungry iPhone users.
 
bmstrong said:
Interesting. Some good replies, and the thread has trended much more civil that I thought it would when I posted the topic. A couple responses to your posts:

I still don't own a computer. I use the local and university libraries, within walking distance, for most, if not all, of my needs. When I have to hook up to my iTunes account I visit my parents.

Games. I don't play any but I certainly undertand the appeal. If you read back through the thread this seems to be one of the highest causes of "App hunger".

Jailbreak. I've thought about it. But it seems complicated. I'd love to delete certain Apple apps, change theme's, have the icons display realtime information, etc...

Connection. I live in Ohio, around the Cleveland/Akron area. Connection is solid. 3G runs spot on, save for this week and a couple months ago when I dropped my iPhone. Plenty of WiFi around as well. I may be one of the very few that actually likes the AT&T coverage. (Not that I like AT&T mind you...)
Click to expand...

Understandable why you don't see the need. I am in the minority, games is the last thing I might look for on the App store. I have to many other devices better qualified for that. When I have time to actually use the other features, I am reading news of some sort, or browsing forums.

I would stay away from jailbreaking unless there is a feature you must have that Apple does not provide. If was not for the crippled Wifi only Slingbox app, I would never have jailbroken my phone. I would much prefer a pristine phone. If some strang behaviour starts to occur, you don't know if it is the jailbreak, Apple or ATT, (depending ot the problem).
 
bmstrong said:
With the constant always on 3G or WiFi I just go directly to the site, or the news, sports, weather, etc..

I just don't get it. Who's App hungry? What am I missing?
Click to expand...

You're missing the iPhone! It becomes a real muti-purpose phone only when you use the App. "There is an app for that too"

You can use other phone if you don't use these Apps. It doesn't make the difference.
 
Single purpose app for a single purpose use often gives you a better experience than going to the web page.
Click to expand...

That's a really interesting point, especially as some people agree with you. I guess that endorses the idea that seperate devices for seperate purposes are generally better than one multi-purpose device. It seems to go completely against the idea of covergence (which I'd agree isn't always a good thing)!
 
Safari is indeed great, but using eBay/Amazon, etc on the main site, is a lot more fiddly than using the official app or web app(especially when not using wi-fi or 3G). The same goes for Facebook, Twitter and a lot more 'optimised front end apps'.
 
mrochester said:
That's a really interesting point, especially as some people agree with you. I guess that endorses the idea that seperate devices for seperate purposes are generally better than one multi-purpose device. It seems to go completely against the idea of covergence (which I'd agree isn't always a good thing)!
Click to expand...

What I meant by that is you can go to the New York Times web page, or you can download the the NYT app, which would be a single purpose app. Or better yet, download an app with multiple news feeds instead of switching web pages, it would still be a single purpose app, for multiple news feeds.

In the case of the iPhone I would say having a single device perform multiple functions is better than an ipod, phone and pda as seperate items to carry around.

But yes, convergence is not always a good thing, it is sometimes poorly implemented.
 
bmstrong said:
With the constant always on 3G or WiFi I just go directly to the site, or the news, sports, weather, etc..

I just don't get it. Who's App hungry? What am I missing?
Click to expand...

Do you also use your PC or Mac with only the apps it came with?
Its just like that.
 
For one thing, if a website is coded well it will have an API, and apps on the iPhone should load faster if they don't have to download all of that HTML like the web browser does.
 
I don't regularly use many apps, i play some games but not often. However there are two apps i would be lost without:

Notebooks (Alfons Schmid) - This is the best app i have found for writing on my iPhone, its fantastic for when i am away from my mac and i need to write a chapter or two for my (unpublished) books, or even organised note taking.

PhotoForge - A fully featured photo editing app, crop, adjust the sharpness, noise reduction, blur, saturation etc. It even has loads of fun filters! Great for on the fly editing.
 
skubish said:
Do you also use your PC or Mac with only the apps it came with?
Its just like that.
Click to expand...

As I stated in my reply: I don't own a computer. The computers I normally use are locked. I use what programs are loaded onto them without any problems.

I downloaded the ESPN App yesterday. I'm spending the weekend pitting the ESPN App versus the ESPN Mobile Page versus the ESPN Full Web Page. Football and you guys have given me a good reason to see if I'm missing anything. Roadtesting is always fun.
 
I use exactly ONE third party app… Twitterrific… and I don't really even have to use it. I could post and receive twitter updates right through texting, but I use Twitterrific because it's a little easier to look at and has more features (following people, deleting posts, posting photos, etc.). I really don't feel the need anymore to use any other apps.

I'll admit, when the App Store first came out… I was downloading EVERYTHING and installing a ton of things on my iPhone. However, I found that most of this stuff was like snack food… only satisfying for a short while, and then I needed more.

So one day… I got tired of seeing all those icons on my iPhone. It takes away the simplicity of having an iPhone if you have to scan through pages and pages of stupid looking icons. So I went through and deleted what I don't use a lot. Come to find out… it was almost everything! Most of the things that were installed were used mainly for showing other people how cool the iPhone was, but I ONLY used them for that purpose!

Once I deleted all the apps I didn't use, I was left with Twitterrific. It works great for me. I even post and receive tweets through my text messages. When I figured that out… I realized that I could drop the iPhone data plan… while I'm at it… I might as well drop my calling plan as well because I only made a few minutes worth of calls every month.

Long story short. I canceled my iPhone plan, got a go-phone, activated it, stuck the go-phone sim card in my iPhone and put a data block on the line. Now I have an iPhone 3G that costs me only $25 per 3 months, plus unlimited texting for $20 every 1 month. That's only $28.33 every month!

I applaud you Original Poster. If you don't see the appeal, nobody is forcing you to use the apps. Fact is… most of them are crapps anyway.
 
bmstrong said:
As I stated in my reply: I don't own a computer. The computers I normally use are locked. I use what programs are loaded onto them without any problems.

I downloaded the ESPN App yesterday. I'm spending the weekend pitting the ESPN App versus the ESPN Mobile Page versus the ESPN Full Web Page. Football and you guys have given me a good reason to see if I'm missing anything. Roadtesting is always fun.
Click to expand...

ESPN Scorecenter is better than the website. Add your teams and browse with ease. The ESPN logo on the bottom right brings you directly to the news.
 
There are many useful third-party apps that do things web pages simply can't. A few I use frequently:

BeeJive IM - Multiple-protocol chat client with push notifications
Distant Suns - a portable, interactive star map in my pocket, replete with information on all sorts of heavenly bodies.
FaceBook - Especially since the update, this is far simpler and easier to use than the web page
BofA - The Bank of America app is one of the few that repackages web content that I use. I believe it is faster and easier to use. And it remembers my username.
AOL Radio - hundreds of radio stations on my iPhone.
Public Radio Tuner - Hundreds of NPR streams from around the country all in one place on my iPhone.
Shazam - identifies songs; now I can find out what that song I keep hearing is called and who sings it.

All of the above apps are free, with the exception of BeeJive IM, so you can try them out and see if you don't find some of them useful. I know they add a lot of value to my iPhone.

And this is without getting into Jailbreak apps. Some of those are phenomenal. They have allowed me to turn my iPhone into a true multi-tasking device. It's great.
 
Probably the most useful app to me is the Citrix client. It gives me a little more room to be away from a computer when I am on-call at work. It came in handy recently when I had to reset a password for someone that was working on the weekend.

I also use ESPN score center and Navigon. I was all into the apps thing when I first got the iphone, but I was buying stuff that I wasn't really using. The novelty wore off. I am much more selective when it comes to apps. I hardly even browse the app store anymore.
 
bboucher790 said:
ESPN Scorecenter is better than the website. Add your teams and browse with ease. The ESPN logo on the bottom right brings you directly to the news.
Click to expand...

I just wanted to chime in. Part of the iPhone appeal is the apps. Although not for everyone, I like the simplicity of using apps like "USA Today" for news and "Colorsplash" for some quick photo editing.

I am a sports nut and can't get enough sports radio. I recently downloaded the ESPN radio app and it is amazing. I can listen to live feeds from ESPN radio affiliates throughout the country. I have also been playing with Sportacular for scoring updates, etc.

Give the apps a try. I think that you'll find some of them useful.
 
I understand the OP's point though. Apps are a very welcome addition, but I got on just fine and loved having an iPhone way before 2.0 was released as well. 🙂
My core reasons for owning an iPhone(apps or no apps), are purely for the awesome iPod, internet tablet, and phone convergence.
 
I like you also don't use a single thing from the app store. Nothing in there is really appealing to me. But on some occasions I will go download the eBay app and browse using that and then once i'm done i'll delete it.
 
Todo and GroceryIQ are certainly apps you're missing out on.

I use those two apps daily to help organize my life, in conjunction with the built-in calendar.

Also, most apps are on an "occasional-use" basis. I keep them on my iPhone for the times when they are appropriate (e.g. Shazaam).
 
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