Separating The Wheat From The Chaff
By 
“When you were talking about apps for your iPhone I didn’t realize the kind of garbage to which you were referring.“ said my father-in-law with more than a bit of a perplexed look yesterday.
What a great conversation starter!
Turns out he had just read an article in the current edition of Fortune Magazine entitled ”Is Your iPhone Cool Enough?“ The article lists some of the sillier apps and discusses the challenge of transforming such Apps into real-life dinero.
As one Bay Area technology tester is quoted to say, ”We’re all amazed that people are trying to monetize stupidity,“
And stupid the article highlights.
A box toward the bottom of the article lists the ”Top 10 Must-Have iPhone Apps“. Included on the list are such apps as iLightr, RimShot and Wooo Button.
It is no wonder my father-in-law was suddenly perplexed as to how and why I am spending what little free time I have on an iPhone app site.
And THAT is the problem…
The article doesn’t say anything WRONG. It IS amazing that people are trying to monetize stupidity. And there is no shortage of stupidity in the App Store. Once again a huge number of new apps were released in the Apps Store today and NOT ONE looked interesting enough to actually download. Moreover, as the article states, while a few individuals are getting some huge check from Apple, for most it IS difficult to make real money creating iPhone apps.
So yes, people are trying to monetize stupidity and there is a ton of stupidity in the Apps Store.
But that is only PART of the story.
Mixed in with the silly, the stupid and the just plain dumb are some amazing apps.
Unfortunately the ”stupid” is flowing in at a far faster rate than the awesome. As a result, with each passing day it is a bit more difficult to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff/the useful and the not/the dumb and the Awesome.
That doesn’t, however, mean the good stuff isn’t there. It just means you have to look a bit harder. (Or come to WhatsOniPhone.)
I decided to balance the article a bit. I pulled out my iPhone and turned it on.
I showed my father-in-law Asphalt4 and he was blown away.
I showed him eReader and he was impressed.
I showed him Pandora and he said, ”That’s neat.“
”Okay, he finally said, “Enough, I get the point. But that other stuff is just dumb.”
I couldn’t agree more.
