WWDC 2011: Third-party apps Apple left in its wake
San Francisco -- Apple announced that an impressive 200 new user features are coming to iOS 5 and 250 more are coming to Mac OS X Lion. That's great for end-users but Apple's created a fair amount of roadkill in the process.
Here's a list of some of the third-party apps that Apple left in its wake at WWDC 2011.
The Dead -> The Killer
- Instapaper/Read It Later - Reading List (Safari for Lion)
- Zinio - Newsstand (Mobile Safari)
- Flickr - Photo Stream
- OpenFeint - Game Center
- Blackberry Messenger (plus SMS apps) -iMessage
- Third-party SMS apps -iMessage
- Third-party web browsers - Mobile Safari
- Third-party Twitter clients - Twitter
- Third-party list apps - Reminders
- Third-party photo editing apps - Photos
- Third-party camera apps - Camera
Obviously there are varying degrees to which third-party apps will be affected, but you see where I'm going.
Developers are being forced to innovate or die. Bad apps will wither and good ones will use the new Apple features as a validation of their efforts. The best will improve upon those ideas to go beyond what Apple offers. Marco Arment, developer of the amazing Instapaper, says it best:
If Reading List gets widely adopted and millions of people start saving pages for later reading, a portion of those people will be interested in upgrading to a dedicated, deluxe app and service to serve their needs better. And they’ll quickly find Instapaper in the App Store.
What are your thoughts on Apple's swipe at its developers? Par for the course or predatory? Which apps did I miss?