I do not personally own or use an iPod, iPhone, Mac, Apple or anything else, although I support them some times and really don't mind them. But think about this from a newbie perspective while you read.
So iPhone apps are everywhere on TV and I figured, let's see what one can do with an iPhone. Should be easy, right? Like finding Lotus on the IBM website, www.ibm.com/lotus go to www.iphone.com/apps, but you see this instead:
Hmm, ok, lets try the front end. Click on iPhone. That's better.
But wait...where is the app Store?
There is an icon for the App store. Now we are getting somewhere.
Hold on a sec, what's this:
Browse the App Store in iTunes
WHY? I now have to download a 70-80MB file and install it on my machine and it probably invades my startup files too?(it did)
Nice, how friendly.
No way to search or browse the apps from the website, you can see the top 10 items but that's not much of a help really is it when you want to find an app that converts tefachs(old talmudic length of measurement) to feet.
So I download it and install it. Evidently I had to wait for a bunch of updates since my first searches were limited in answers.
So now I can search and find things and found something really interesting so it does work after all. But I am still not very happy about what I had to do to find it.
You may ask, Why would you search for iPhone apps if you don't have an iPhone.
For the same reason why would someone search for a Lotus Domino application if they don't have Domino. And if they wanted to, how would they? Which option from that www.ibm.com/lotus page leads to actual applications which run on Domino?
Competitive purposes? Business ideas? Gift? Helping a business work smarter?
Perhaps because you want to see if there is any interest in a product.
It didn't make me want to be an iPhone, although I may one day, but it showed me a different view of proprietary or as some might say exclusivity.
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