Happy 500K, App Store, but what about these apps? (Appolicious)

Congratulations, Apple! 500,000 apps, according to estimates. That's a lot of apps in your store, it truly is. I've been reviewing apps for nearly two full years and although I don't have an official count, I don't think I’ve downloaded even 1,000 of them.

That said, as far as I’m aware, the other 499,000 that I've missed out on don't appear to cover the next five I'm about to mention. Sure, some of these ideas may not be safe or even legal, but for an impatient guy of nearly non-existent willpower like myself, they're exactly what I’ve been missing. If you want a truly satisfied customer, I'd appreciate someone, anyone, thinking outside the box to deliver on the following suggestions.

I love newspapers, so it's no surprise that one of my favorite ways to kill time when I'm stalling on more important projects is to read a few stories online. But despite my best intentions, I can never stop at the last sentence of an article. Instead I linger a little too long and start reading the terrible, ridiculously offensive comments that follow every story.

Newspaper comments sections are the sort of places where stories about little leaguers selling candy invite commenting rants about the value of the free market. And those are the more polite comments. Well, enough is enough. I clearly don't have the willpower to stop reading these things by myself, but an app that prevents me from ever seeing them? Yes please!

My vanity knows no bounds. But sometimes my forgetfulness trumps my vanity and I forget to check Craigslist Missed Connections after I come home from a night on the town. What if some weirdo is fantasizing about meeting me and I missed out!?

I propose an app that lets users add in descriptors about themselves so that they can quickly scan the last few weeks of Missed Connections and see if their next stalker is out there, waiting to place unreasonably high expectations on them based on how they looked eating pizza with friends a few nights ago.

Patience is a virtue that I simply don't have time for. And as sympathetic as I am to the people who cook and then deliver whatever food order I have called in, I'm also really curious. Is my order third in line to be cooked? Has it just hit the oven? Are you boxing it right now? I want to know! As far as impractical app ideas go, this may take the cake, but an app where you could get the dirt on what's up with your food would be a fun novelty. At least for the first few times you used it.

Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, all I want to see is an animated GIF of Arrested Development's Bluth family trying to figure out whether they're saying “Bees” or “Beads.” An app that randomly plucked that GIF and other old favorites from various corners of the web would be difficult to police, and the nature of rights to the shows and events these GIFs came from means this idea isn't very plausible in the first place, but that won't stop me form dreaming big. When all the "Hang In There" posters in the world can't bring a smile to my face, I could use an animated GIF or two.

In addition to exhibiting poor Internet self-control (see newspaper comments above), I also find eating the right thing to be a never-ending battle. Sure, that salad would be nice, but wouldn't you like it better covered in chicken and a layer of dressing? The devil on my shoulder is so much louder than the angel. I’d like to see an app into which you could plug your terrible food ideas in order to get better, more nutritious suggestions using some of the same flavors or main ingredients. That way, I’d save myself a few calories. After all, there’s nothing like the power of suggestion to get you back on the right track.

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What are they building in there? Speculation on the Apple Store birthday mystery (Appolicious)

With all the chatter about Apple’s super secret sweet 10th birthday party for the Apple Store, what better time than now to engage in some trivial speculation?

There’s just something about new tech that’s much more fun when it’s shrouded in mystery and built up like some sort of Secret Service need-to-know business, isn’t there? Whatever Apple has planned for this big 10th birthday party for the Apple Store seems likely to be much more iPhone 3G than iPhone, given that it probably won’t change the very idea of shopping, whatever that would mean.

Instead, there’ll be some cool feature added to the store, possibly something to do with NFC Scanners or a separate NFC device, if you can believe the speculation from FastCompany.com.

The point is, all of this is much more fun and interesting because of the mystery. If Apple just rolled this thing/idea be into stores Thursday and nobody had bothered speculating, how many people would notice? I’ve lived with people who re-arranged the furniture in my living room and it took me weeks to figure it out.

But making employees come in for a mysterious overnight shift, covering the windows and collecting everyone’s phone so they don’t ruin the surprise? Like Tom Waits, I just want to know what they’re building in there. Unfortunately I don’t have a mole on the inside of the operation, so unless someone contacts me beforehand, I’ll have to wait it out like the rest of you. And waiting, especially waiting on something involving secret NDAs and zip-drive memos, is arduous. Waiting on something like this can make a day feel like a year.

To help pass the time let’s break down some of the loudest bits of speculation and see if we can’t tire ourselves out at least.

NFC Scanners: I’ve always thought those custom iPhones that the Apple Store uses to check people out were really unique and inventive. I guess If you use them every day they’re probably a lot more boring, so this rumor might be the most fun for Apple Store employees.

Without NFC technology in the iPhone, however, I’m not too sure how it would impact the consumer. Even if that tech arrives in the iPhone 4G or 5 or whatever it will eventually be called, I’m still not sure providing me with a new way to blow large amounts of money in short time is worthy of an NDA.

A standalone NFC-enabled device: This certainly gets the juices flowing a little more, but adds its own set of questions or concerns, at least for me. Apple has already segmented the portable market once, between the iPhone and iPad. Is a third device really a smart business move? What could it possibly accomplish, other than its inclusion of NFC technology, that couldn’t also be done by either the iPhone or iPad?

If we’re talking about something that literally does nothing but act as a mobile NFC-enabled device, that’s still intriguing but wouldn’t it need to be about the size of a credit card to make any sense? While I realize NFC can be used for much more than transactions, that’s its most obvious primary use at the moment. In my mind then, it has to be at least as convenient in size to make me want to stop bringing my wallet everywhere.

A new paint job!: All right, no one has actually mentioned this, but wouldn’t it be the most surprising? What if you walked into the Apple Store on Thursday and saw a rainbow of colors on the walls and the floor? I would not have seen it coming had I not speculated about it right here, first.

Whatever the case, we’ll all find out together tomorrow, but for now I’ll enjoy the speculation and the thought that there are a number of Apple Store executives and employees who are operating on a very 007 frequency right now. It’s hard not to be jealous! If you’ve got your own ideas for what you think the big surprise is, leave them in the comments below.

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The App Store vs. The Android Market (ContributorNetwork)

The Android Market is like Apple's App Store, Google-style. It's where you go to buy apps, if you use a smartphone powered by Google's open-source Android operating system instead of an iPhone. You can't choose to buy apps for one kind of phone from the other's store; and if you switch, you can't use your old apps anymore, unless the app's developer wrote it for both kinds of phones.

I could show you which apps are in each store, but then this would be a catalog instead of an article. In a nutshell, the App Store is known for its polished, "magical," sometimes whimsical iPhone and iPad apps, like Tapbots'. It's also known for having a huge selection of games, including games from big-name publishers like Square-Enix and EA. Meanwhile, the Android Market's selection more or less pales in comparison, except when it comes to tweaks and customization apps. Like a replacement for your home screen, or on-screen keyboard.

The reasons why are complex, but they boil down to the difference between the two companies: To Apple, you're a customer, and it sells you its finest products. To Google, you're a product, and it sells you to advertisers.

Chasing dollar signs

Apple tries its best to deliver a polished, perfect experience, so good that you'll want to pay for it. To keep that perfection, though, it tries its darndest to control everything. You have to pay $99 a year and get Apple's permission to sell your apps on its App Store, and there's no other way to sell iPhone and iPad apps except to people with "jailbroken" devices.

Google's goal is simpler. It wants to make sure lots of people are clicking (or tapping) on ads. So it lets developers basically run wild and do anything, paying a one-time fee of under $50 to put anything they want on the Android Market without asking permission. Instead, each app asks your permission to do things like access your phone records, and you have to decide whether to allow it or not.

This is partly a good thing, since it allows you to do things that would spoil Apple's "experience" -- like install a new 3D home screen. But it also means the Android Market is flooded with tons of junk apps and soundboards, which do their jobs poorly and are crowded with ads.

Perhaps the best example of Google's "anything goes" approach is an app I just bought for my Android phone, called GrooVe IP. It lets you make phone calls using your data plan. But it's tied to your Google Voice account, and its settings menu is complex and poorly-organized. Plus, it crams a garish green icon into the notification bar at the top of your phone's screen, unless you can navigate the menus well enough to figure out how to get rid of it. The only annoying thing it doesn't do is tell you which "partners" sponsored your phone call.

The Upshot

Google seems to be trying, these days, to make the Android Market friendlier to developers who care about writing good apps. It's introduced new ways of finding apps on the Market, which favor the best and the neatest apps. At heart, though, Google does not really know how to sell stuff. It just knows how to sell people.

For a variety of reasons, I'm personally sold on Android. I like how it works, and I understand what I'm getting. But app developers don't like it as much, because it's harder to work with and they're making less money. That's the biggest difference.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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