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Does anyone buy this analysis? No, not the idea that someday there may be more apps in Google's app store than Apple's, but the drawing straight line projection

by edw 15y ago

Does anyone buy this analysis? No, not the idea that someday there may be more apps in Google's app store than Apple's, but the drawing straight line projections and marking a circle around the intersection and looking at the date axis and saying "OK, that's the day!" Shouldn't there maybe be an obligation to think about the data you're analyzing. Like, maybe some of those Android apps represent apps that were available for iOS? Maybe the "researchers" should look into the percentage of Android-only apps and iOS-only apps and try to see in which categories there are growing or shrinking leads for one platform or another? This "finding" seems more like a typical attention-whoring move. It's like, in 1998, posting a poll asking whether Sun or Microsoft or Yahoo was going to buy Apple. It's designed to gin up outrage and therefore attention. Don't feed the troll.

watty 15y ago
It's not scientific but I still think it has value. Two different firms have forecasted a month that they believe the Android app store will overtake the Apple app store in numbers. This metric has value and it's what research firms are paid to do.
- edw 15y ago
  What is the value of the metric? And what metric? App submissions per unit time? I suppose that metric has some value. The projected date that the Google app store will have more apps than Apple's iOS app store is not a metric: it's a naive extrapolation. What value do research firms deliver? For whom? In the past, many people have accused various research firms of shilling for various industry players, e.g. Gartner for Microsoft. I've never heard of a research firm providing insightful, actionable, accurate, non-trivial analysis. ("Sun will rise tomorrow!") The only people who I know of who cite research firms' reports are people in large corporations who are out of touch with reality or sales people or people at companies that have an interest in having others believe what a research firm is saying. Market research can be scientific in that it can reflect a basic intellectual honesty and be the result of critical reflecting on findings and asking whether they make even the least amount of sense. When people use the term "scientific" the way you did, it often appears to be a defensive move, a way to say, "Of course this isn't a repeatable double-blind controlled clinical trial!" But there's much more to science than that. Most of what we know we know through the application of scientific methods (perhaps better-called habits of mind) in situations where gold-plated studies are impractical or impossible. --- ADDENDUM I am being harsh because research firms contribute little or no value. They're little better than web content farms in terms of the volume and value of information they produce. They feed pointless speculation. They flatten complex issues into simple-minded horse races. I am far more supportive of people doing real work that turns out to be spectacularly wrong. Research firms produce thick, black, sooty smoke that pollutes the marketplace, both the literal marketplace and the marketplace of ideas.
  - watty 15y ago
    "attention-whoring", "troll", "naive", etc. Why are you getting so offensive about this article? I agree that this metric has little value. Quality of apps, average sales per app and exclusives are all more important. However, this is still a metric used by marketing and I believe some consumers do care about "the biggest app store". I think Apple has used app numbers in various commercials. This article doesn't conclude which app store is better (and actually says smaller is better for sales). It is simply stating that based on the current trends, Android will have more apps.

by edw 15y ago

watty 15y ago

It's not scientific but I still think it has value. Two different firms have forecasted a month that they believe the Android app store will overtake the Apple app store in numbers. This metric has value and it's what research firms are paid to do.

edw 15y ago
What is the value of the metric? And what metric? App submissions per unit time? I suppose that metric has some value. The projected date that the Google app store will have more apps than Apple's iOS app store is not a metric: it's a naive extrapolation. What value do research firms deliver? For whom? In the past, many people have accused various research firms of shilling for various industry players, e.g. Gartner for Microsoft. I've never heard of a research firm providing insightful, actionable, accurate, non-trivial analysis. ("Sun will rise tomorrow!") The only people who I know of who cite research firms' reports are people in large corporations who are out of touch with reality or sales people or people at companies that have an interest in having others believe what a research firm is saying. Market research can be scientific in that it can reflect a basic intellectual honesty and be the result of critical reflecting on findings and asking whether they make even the least amount of sense. When people use the term "scientific" the way you did, it often appears to be a defensive move, a way to say, "Of course this isn't a repeatable double-blind controlled clinical trial!" But there's much more to science than that. Most of what we know we know through the application of scientific methods (perhaps better-called habits of mind) in situations where gold-plated studies are impractical or impossible. --- ADDENDUM I am being harsh because research firms contribute little or no value. They're little better than web content farms in terms of the volume and value of information they produce. They feed pointless speculation. They flatten complex issues into simple-minded horse races. I am far more supportive of people doing real work that turns out to be spectacularly wrong. Research firms produce thick, black, sooty smoke that pollutes the marketplace, both the literal marketplace and the marketplace of ideas.
- watty 15y ago
  "attention-whoring", "troll", "naive", etc. Why are you getting so offensive about this article? I agree that this metric has little value. Quality of apps, average sales per app and exclusives are all more important. However, this is still a metric used by marketing and I believe some consumers do care about "the biggest app store". I think Apple has used app numbers in various commercials. This article doesn't conclude which app store is better (and actually says smaller is better for sales). It is simply stating that based on the current trends, Android will have more apps.