iPhone App Store: Eliminating the Competition

I think the very first icon I clicked on my iPhone was the one for the App Store. After all the hype for the App Store, I wanted to know exactly what ELSE I could be doing with the phone besides what Apple intended.

Available through both the iPhone as well as the iTunes Store, the apps are sorted into categories for easier browsing, as well as other lists such as most recently added and most downloaded. Prices are clearly marked, and each app is shown with a brief description and screenshot. Unfortunately, there are no video demos, which would be more useful for making a purchase decision. I don't mind making a mistake with a free app, but I find myself unwilling to pay for something without a video demo or trial period (something the App Store might want to think about implementing).

There are some familiar web apps in the App Store, and some of them even got added to my phone. One that I never expected to download was Pandora, but I did so at my husband's suggestion, and find I'm now using it more than last.fm, which has been my all-time favorite for finding music online. However, Pandora has an iPhone app in the store. last.fm does not.

Both apps do something of the same thing, helping me find music based on my interests. Pandora lacks all the social aspects of last.fm that I love, yet it does just as good, if not better, a job of suggesting music that I like. The simple fact that I can run it on my iPhone natively, however, has quickly made it my default suggestion app, even though if I were asked to choose between the two, I'd have chosen last.fm every time. The iPhone version is a very simple app: set up your "stations" by entering artists that you like, and Pandora will select songs it thinks you might like and stream them. Add more than one artist and you can do a "Quick Mix" that varies the genres more. Once you are streaming, the controls are as simple as possible: thumbs up or thumbs down, an arrow to bookmark the song or artist, or purchase the song on iTunes, a pause button, and a fast-forward button. You get a back button to return to you station list and an info button that tells you why the song was selected for you, and a volume control. The rest of the screen is filled with either an album image or a note image if Pandora doesn't have an album image. It doesn't get much more basic than this.

And yet, while I can't speak for the millions of iPhone users, I do have to wonder how much of an impact the App Store is going to have on the many Web 2.0 apps that are out there. People are generally lazy, and will opt for the easiest and most convenient choice, as I did with Pandora. And Twitteriffic for my Twitter client. And Evernote for information storage. Will the App store ultimately help to decide which apps survive?