What is your most important parameter of a mobile platform?
I forgot the detail of which site I read that question or even if the question is about mobile phone platform, mobile phone, or even digital camera (which is totally unrelated).
But for mobile platform, I guess I summed it up as
- How many first party apps and big name 3rd party apps are available.
- How often those apps are updated.
The size of the catalogue itself is not that important IMO. It’s those names that matter, which is important. Besides, having thousands of single-site RSS reader and fart apps is more of a liability rather than strength because it flooded the marketplace and make the really interesting apps invisible.
Moreover, bigger developers would need the man-hour allocation in their most likely very efficiency-demanding management. The commitment to build and maintain applications for a platform thus reflect how they put their trust, more than those doing it for hobby. There’s bigger stake involved.
But well, I think most applications are publish-and-forget.
