A currently airing TV commercial with the tag line If it's not an iPhone, it's not an iPhone points up that there are over 1.5 million apps for same.
How is that an incentive to go for an iPhone?
Even if one could view, make an assessment of and then download (not to speak of learning how to use) any given app — let's say in (a wholly unrealistic 10 seconds per app — it would take at least 15 million seconds = 250,000 minutes = 4167 hours = 174 days = ca half a year of nothing but checking out the apps!
Chances are you'd be dead or insane before you could figure out which apps would be appropriate for your purposes. And then what use would your iPhone be or if would even still be current?!
And that doesn't even cover what it'd cost you in the interim.
Good deal? I think not!
Life is too short for an iPhone. (Ambiguity intended.]

There are way too many books for getting a library card to make sense!

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2186156246/realmindblowing.jpg

Bad analogy. If one already knows how to read, then selecting books, either specifically or generically, which intrigue one isn't an insurmountable hassle. Choosing apps, many of which are arcane, is a whole nother kettle of fish.
As an aside: I don't even know and haven't bothered to investigate all the apps which came with my iMac running Lion. From all I can tell, it'd take years to figure how to work them. I ain't interested in wasting my time like that.

There are way too many roads to buy a car and learn how to drive!

Again, IMHO, a bad analogy.
The roads are "known" and "understood", even without a car or knowing how to drive.
Apps ain't ... known, intuitive, etc. (I'm not referring to mindless apps such as Candy Crush and its ilk, which even morons can intuit. But I have no interest in such things.)
And just a casual perusal of these forums indicates that many cognoscenti who've learned how to "drive" them find it hard to comprehend and cope with their "rules of the road."

Not to one whose date of birth renders him or her developmentally incapable of "knowing" and "understanding." In the case of roads, that would be an infant. In the case of apps...maybe the other end of the range?



I agree that a cornucopia of apps is insufficient incentive for one otherwise disinclined to buy an iPhone. I was incentivized (if I may be forgiven that participlation) to buy one to accomplish certain specific functions, the carrying out of which mandated that I slog through the app store offerings in search of appropriate solutions. The same profusion that makes the search so cumbersome is what makes it possible to find, at least in some cases, exactly what you're looking for. The biggest problem is the interface provided for doing so.

Grelber we are getting old and it all too easy to forget that kids entering college today…

• have never licked a postage stamp
• have grown up treating WiFi as an entitlement
• the announcement of someone being the 'First woman" to hold a position has only impressed their parents
• Kyoto has always symbolized inactivity about global climate change
• The Lion King has always been on broadway
• TV has always had such high definition they see the pores of actors and the grimaces of quarterbacks
• the therapeutic use of marijuana has always been legal in a growing number of states
• have avidly joined Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione as they built their reading skills through seven volumes
• Google has always been there, in its founding words, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible.
• Add to that a growing number of young adults are choosing not to own automobiles and neither know nor care about the "rules of the road".

You may not care about 1.5 million apps for the iPhone/iPad or the over 1 million apps for the mac, but you do not represent the target market — they do. A large number of those apps are essential tools used in our modern world. I just had a new lawn sprinkler system controller installed today at my house and there is no way to either control or program it other than through the app on my iPhone/iPad.

I just knew we were on the same side.

I know. I keep bumping into them — more correctly, they keep bumping into me — because they are so absorbed in their mobile devices that they don't pay attention to the world around them.


And this is a real cause for worry. Intellect, not algorithm, should control the world. As I recall, the first story in the first issue of Mad magazine back in the '50s was titled "Hoo hah" and dealt with this problem. Prescience, thy name is satire. {sigh}

Sooner or later, failing to yield the right of way to a distracted texter is going to be criminalized, and resultant damage to a mobile device will likely be a capital (Choose your own definition. ) offense. (Actually, I've found them to be astonishingly good at detecting my presence and getting out of my way before I mow them down.)

A note about iPhone apps... You may not know that many of them are very specific and narrow-purposed...flashlights, train, bus, and ferry schedules, access to radio stations, a gazillion others...not at all what you likely think of as an app, and requiring almost zero skill, knowledge, or intuition to use. Watching others use their iPhones has given me the impression that many "apps" are little more than pre-packaged results of (what would otherwise be) Google searches.

Of course one has to know a priori that such apps exist in order to search for them. Who in their right mind would expect to find an app that turns a phone into a flashlight?!

1. Anyone who's ever noticed that a cellphone whose display is activated in a dark room casts an appreciable glow upon his or her surroundings;
2. Anyone who's ever been with a smartphone owner who has deployed such an app.

That ain't a small group, and the fact that it's grelber-free doesn't make it the exclusive province of idiots. (Unless you're using an exceptionally broad definition of idiot!)

Actually an app is no longer needed in the current versions of iOS. That particular functionality is now built into iOS 8 and 9 and uses the LED that is intended as a "flash" for the camera. Simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the flashlight, camera, calculator, and timer. Flashlight is a frequently used function.

Tho I still keep my Cree 1W in my pocket and use it almost daily

The operant word is expect — not desire or deploy. I might think that such an app (whether needed now or not) would be a desideratum, but I wouldn't a priori guess that such might be available and therefore go looking for such.

You make 10 good points but I think you could add #11. This may be the first generation not to know what it means to be alone with their thoughts.

We grew up knowing what it means to drive a car or go for a walk without a companion, or without inevitable electronic interruption. This generation doesn't and I'm not sure this is a particularly good development.

It can be argued that they could just "turn it off" but, from what I've witnessed, most young people would view the off status as unimaginable.

How well organized the 1,500,000 iPhone apps are in the App Store is arguable, but Apple does a good job of identifying and highlighting new useful apps. I have found at least a couple that I did not know I needed and I was not looking for until Apple highlighted them on the App Store and have since become absolutely invaluable to me.

The most obvious example of such an app is Evernote®. I did not know I needed it. I could not even envision how I might use it. Now it is the key element in my workflow and records management.

I hate when people verbize nouns!

I think the phrase "there's an app for that" is quite pervasive and true. Pretty much anything one can think of probably has an app related to, derived from and/or associated with it.

Of course this does not mean they are all quality apps, let alone needed apps. But my point is, you can a priori guess that such might be available.

Truer than you think. How about sleep deprivation? There's a nap for that.

Induced, no doubt, by one of the dozens of calming background sound generating apps...

The point of an app store with millions of apps is that the store is a buffet. You're not required to take one of everything; if you don't like pork, you don't have to sample any of the pork dishes on offer.

The point is there is such a rich collection of apps available that any time you find yourself wondering if you can get your phone to do some task, the odds are good the answer is "yes." Instead of searching through the store looking at every program, you say "huh, I wish I had an app to log mileage on my car for work, wonder if it exists?" And you go onto the app store, search for "mileage logger," and sure enough, the answer is "yes."

Cool.

Good points ... as long as the available apps are generically searchable, which apparently they are.

I've long been convinced that so many people are constantly distracted from what's going on inside their own heads because they can't stand to hear what's going on inside their own heads.

For many, iPods were, remain, and will always be the greatest invention EVER.

My Watch does everything the iPod did/does plus a whole lot more and I don't need earbuds.

I'll stick with my ukulele for entertainment.

Perhaps you remember the mnemonic for tuning same: My dog has fleas.
That's all the more interesting since I just found out that:
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Hawaiian, literally 'jumping flea.'

Nope! You can't blast music inside your head without earbuds, so your Watch can't save you from your own thoughts a la iPod; it's useless in the context I described. (Edit: See my post # 35773)

(Can you actually listen to music with your watch, but without earbuds, and hear anything worth listening to?)

On the other hand, though, even excluding music, perhaps the multitude of ways to distract you from what's going on inside your head with which your Watch provides you makes it your personal panacea if, in fact, you need one.

Bluetooth headphones.

Then I stand corrected.

But buying a Watch and Bluetooth headphones simply to avoid earbuds doesn't strike me as much of an investment at all (particularly) for somebody who has no need for anything more than music.

And, of course, you can't run a Watch without also running an iPhone, so hiding from reality gets awfully costly when you go beyond a basic iPod that fills the bill quite nicely, thank you.

Yup. Definitely the reality version of No Country for Old Men — but without the friend-o (maybe).

NO BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES ARE REQUIRED! There is actually a speaker in the Watch. The fidelity is voice grade — about like AM radio. More than adequate for telephone calls but just okay for music. Also there is only a limited amount of storage on the Watch for audio content but it is enough to be usable.

Full disclosure: I connect my bluetooth headphones either to the iPhone or iPad, not the Watch. In fact I am not sure I can connect anything to the watch via bluetooth but the iPhone and that is all controlled by a built-in iPhone app in iOS 8 and 9. I use the speaker and microphone in the Watch primarily to make and receive phone calls without having to dig the iPhone out of my pocket or find where it is buried on my desk. For those of you who are old enough to remember this, using the watch to make phone calls reminds me of Dick Tracy's wrist radio only a lot smaller and more powerful. The only time I actually played music from the Watch was simply to prove to myself it could be done — it can .

Use Bluetooth headphones with your Apple Watch

Thanks for that information, I am obviously still learning about the Watch. I still prefer to connect my earphones to the iPhone. (It just dawned on me I have noise cancelling earphones and not headphones — no microphone 😝) Besides that the iPhone has many times more storage capacity for audio content and I always have it within 30 feet or so (bluetooth range) when wearing the Watch.

iPhones have only been around for eight years. I find that fact stunning. They seem so ubiquitous.

"only" 8 years? Seems like a long time to me?

Not if you're over 50 or 60.

44 as of TODAY, actually

Have a happy!

1971 – The year Steve Jobs met Steve Wozniak.
Happy Birthday to you.

what were the circumstances? (I didn't read the book / see the movie)

Considering the year, I could imagine it being a seedy basement of a hippie bar with a wide selection of substances being consumed in various ways...

I believe they were neighborhood teenagers who were introduced by a mutual friend. Seedy hippie bars were the 60's. Lava lamps and such, no chipsets.

Have never 'dialed' a phone...

Speaking of which, I think the two Steves were big fans of phone-phreaking. it was a big thing with weird publications like '2600' and secret meeting spots.