Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So that means that Apple invented the App Store then, right?

No one had already been doing this?

The fact that Jamba! primarily sells ringtones proves nothing with respect to the App Store. That was my point. The poster that I was responding to seemed to thing that it proved something.

Apple did invent the App Store. As I said before, they didn't come up with the idea of a store to sell mobile apps. Before the Apple App Store there was no mobile application store that contained every single application that was available for the device with integrated installation, updates, purchasing, and developer payments with sync and backup to a dedicated desktop application. If I'm wrong about that, I would be happy to stand corrected.

All inventions contain things that have been invented or discovered by someone else. It's putting them together in a new and useful way that makes it an invention or innovation.
 
So they've finally created hell and confusion for the cellphone user. On the desktop/notebook front you get to chose between Apple and MS and from there on you are kinda stuck with the applications available for those 2 OSes (ok so there's *nix as well but the adoption rate is so low that it doesn't even register with most people). The mobile store was great for Apple as they introduced a new platform and took the idea of having a list of applications taht run on OS X even further. And while it works great for the iPhone it's almost certainly going to spell death for a lot of other companies. It is a large market but fragmenting it into 5+ OSes each with their own online store and none of them compatible with any one of the others seems very much like the early days of personal computing. And if history has anything too teach us, I'd say wave palm goodbye and hope that symbian, MS, and Nokia will come to some sort of an agreement.

Oh and the only winner out of all this will be Apple since they are the only one standing still (sort of).
 
Been there, done that?

I honestly don't think any store will be as popular as itunes, unless they severely undercut apples prices, but they will surely keep apple on their toes and forging ahead.

Well, Amazon's MP3 Store undercut iTunes (at least initially), and it's effect on the iTS was rather negligable.
 
Everyone needs to remember that the App Store isn't Apple's innovation. The App Store emulates what Installer.app did back in the early jailbreak days, before Apple stepped in and copied it. If it hadn't been for that, official apps would be downloaded and imported using iTunes, just like games were on old iPods.

The notion that Apple somehow copied the Installer.app assumes that Apple had never intended to create their own App Store all along, which simply does not hold up to reason. Anyone who even vaguely knows the history of Apple product releases could see that Apple had every intention of creating an App Store, despite Steve Jobs' dog-and-pony show regarding web apps at the 2007 WWDC.

To all of those here who chide Apple and criticize it's success as being solely due to marketing; Marketing is how you SELL STUFF, and in retail, anything you can do to help you SELL STUFF is a GOOD THING. As a shareholder, I'm thrilled when a company that I invested money in performs well, which is what happens when you SELL STUFF, which is due to, in large part, marketing (and great products, of course).
 
So they've finally created hell and confusion for the cellphone user. (snip) ...

It is a large market but fragmenting it into 5+ OSes each with their own online store and none of them compatible with any one of the others seems very much like the early days of personal computing.

That's exactly what ATT's CEO just said at the MWC:

Industry needs common APIs and not multiple stores

He also said that it would be better if the iPhone was more open.
 
The fact that Jamba! primarily sells ringtones proves nothing with respect to the App Store. That was my point. The poster that I was responding to seemed to thing that it proved something.

Apple did invent the App Store. As I said before, they didn't come up with the idea of a store to sell mobile apps. Before the Apple App Store there was no mobile application store that contained every single application that was available for the device with integrated installation, updates, purchasing, and developer payments with sync and backup to a dedicated desktop application. If I'm wrong about that, I would be happy to stand corrected.

All inventions contain things that have been invented or discovered by someone else. It's putting them together in a new and useful way that makes it an invention or innovation.

What about the fact that the Apple App Store mostly sells music and videos?
 
I remember being able to carry my paper calendar and address book in my pocket before there was ever a Palm Pilot. What's your point? :)

Amen, just cause apple didn't invent the wheel some people will have us believe that their innovations are not innovations, of course anything can be traced back to anything and a derivative be found, but that doesn't make a good point. Just because some sort of, half baked, overpiced, stuffed with redundant apps, not integreted etc. etc. ways to buy something like an application for other mobiles existed that doesn't take away anything from apples innovation. Just cause there were cars around before the car with the airbag, that doesn't mean the airbag wasn't an innovative feature. It's similar here. And the argument that really debunks all those that came in an apple user forum to deny apple's innovations, IF there had been "app stores" that equaled apples store in innovations and features, WHY THEN IS EVERYONE RELAUNCHING their services, why is everyone re-implementing their "app stores"?
 
Amen, just cause apple didn't invent the wheel some people will have us believe that their innovations are not innovations, of course anything can be traced back to anything and a derivative be found, but that doesn't make a good point. Just because some sort of, half baked, overpiced, stuffed with redundant apps, not integreted etc. etc. ways to buy something like an application for other mobiles existed that doesn't take away anything from apples innovation. Just cause there were cars around before the car with the airbag, that doesn't mean the airbag wasn't an innovative feature. It's similar here. And the argument that really debunks all those that came in an apple user forum to deny apple's innovations, IF there had been "app stores" that equaled apples store in innovations and features, WHY THEN IS EVERYONE RELAUNCHING their services, why is everyone re-implementing their "app stores"?

To make mother f*n money! That's all its about. They are all businesses who want to make money and us as the consumer have a choice from which business we get to buy from (which I personally think is a damn good thing).

I believe that people were using the term "invent" in the context of this argument, when what they meant to say was that Apple is "innovating" on the idea of mobile application stores. Basically what all these companies are doing is innovating on ideas that someone initially invented (who those inventors are, I have no idea). Suffice it to say, I am all for Apple making a damn great App Store and continuing on their journey to continue to innovate, just as I do for every other platform out there. :)
 
What about the fact that the Apple App Store mostly sells music and videos?

The App Store does not sell music or videos. :confused: The App Store is a subsection of the iTunes Store in iTunes. On the iPhone, it is a completely separate app.
 
Well, Amazon's MP3 Store undercut iTunes (at least initially), and it's effect on the iTS was rather negligable.

Except now iTunes Plus tracks cost the same as regular iTunes tracks, when before they were $.30 more expensive. I believe they dropped the price difference when Amazon announced their tracks were DRM free, higher quality, with no price inflation.
 
Jamba! primarily sells ringtones. They are nowhere near as successful as Apple.

They always sold lots of apps (mainly games) too. And they are more successful than Apple. They are the world market leader for mobile content.

Apple has less than 1% market share with the iphone while Jamba supports the other 99% of the phones.
 
They always sold lots of apps (mainly games) too. And they are more successful than Apple. They are the world market leader for mobile content.

Apple has less than 1% market share with the iphone while Jamba supports the other 99% of the phones.

By what measure are they more successful than Apple? I can't find any statistics for total downloads in any category. Apple certainly has more content available. More games, more music, more video, more applications. What are you basing your statement on? :confused:
 
By what measure are they more successful than Apple?

Revenue numbers. Apple's goal is around $1 million a day that's $360 million US a year. Back in 2005 (yes that's almost 4 years ago!) Jamba already made nearly twice as much: more than $600 million. They earned more than $20 million just with the crazy frog ringtone.
 
The App Store does not sell music or videos. :confused: The App Store is a subsection of the iTunes Store in iTunes. On the iPhone, it is a completely separate app.

Well in the iTunes store there's a section for apps and a section for music. How is that any different than having apps and ringtones separate?
 
Apple innovated the handset based application market because they gave it ease of use and scale of choice. It's by far the best means of application distribution currently available on a mobile device.

However, they didn't invent application stores as Nokia had the likes of Download! and N-Gage for quite some time before Apple came up with their model. That's the difference between invention and innovation - the latter takes an idea, thinks how it could be better and executes it. Any one of the other providers could have done the same thing but they didn't. Apple saw the opportunity and grabbed it.

It's no surprise then that the other providers have seen how well Apple's model works and are now implementing their own versions. Apple's only concern is that their competitors do an even better job than they have.
 
Revenue numbers. Apple's goal is around $1 million a day that's $360 million US a year. Back in 2005 (yes that's almost 4 years ago!) Jamba already made nearly twice as much: more than $600 million. They earned more than $20 million just with the crazy frog ringtone.

Revenue for what? Apple has over $10 billion in revenue per quarter. If you are just talking about media and application downloads, Apple is selling close to 3 billion songs a year. Just songs. 500 million applications downloaded in 6 months. Over 20 million movies per year.

Jamba! may be doing great, but I have yet to see any numbers that approach what Apple is doing.
 
Well in the iTunes store there's a section for apps and a section for music. How is that any different than having apps and ringtones separate?

zacman originally claimed that Jamba! has an app store that was more successful than Apple's App Store citing total revenue numbers from 2005. However most of that revenue came from ringtones and other media. Hardly comparable to an app store.
 
Revenue for what?

Revenue of their app store which includes normal apps, games, ring tones etc.

How many ring tones did apple sell, how much money did they make using their app store alone? The iTMS is not the iPhone app store.
 
Revenue of their app store which includes normal apps, games, ring tones etc.

How many ring tones did apple sell,... The iTMS is not the iPhone app store.

I think you misunderstand the concept on an app store. A ringtone is not an application. An app store in the context of this thread is a store that sells mobile applications.

If you want to compare all mobile application sales or downloads, then find some numbers for Jamba! and compare them to Apple's 500 million downloads in 6 months.

If you want to compare all mobile content downloads than the iTunes store dwarfs Jamba! in downloads.

If you just want to compare ringtone sales than I'd bet that Jamba! has Apple beat.

Just don't try and compare all of Jamba's sales (4 years ago) in every product category that they offer to Apple's App Store. It's apples to oranges.

how much money did they make using their app store alone?

Apple has stated the they made $30 million in revenue on their first 60 million downloads. If that revenue to download ratio continued, they made $250 million in the first 6 months.
 
Do you think that purposely leaving out steps from the PalmGear process makes it easier?

App Store on Computer: 1) Launch iTunes 2) Buy and Download app with one click 3) Sync

App Store on iPhone: 1) Launch App Store 2) Buy and Download app

PalmGear: 1) Launch Web Browser 2) Navigate to PalmGear website 3) Buy app 4) Download app 5) Launch Palm Desktop 6) Install app in Palm Desktop 7) Sync 8) Maybe a serial number is needed, maybe not
You're kidding me.

Real App Store on Computer: 1.) launch iTunes 2) Select iTunes Store 3) Select App Store 4) Find app 5) Download app 6) Sync

you can set Palm applications to launch the Palm Desktop when you double click them
serial numbers may be needed because PalmGear has trial versions, so you can decide if you want to spend $10+ on an app after trying it out for a week or however long you're given.

App Store on iPhone: 1) launch App Store 2) find App after navigating clumsy search or scrolling through myriad apps you have no interest in 3) buy (and then it auto-installs)

PalmGear had some wireless install thing but I never used it. Much like I haven't used the App Store on the iPhone after using it three times and being fed up with it.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.