Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note, starts things off by talking through the Marzipan rumors and then Craig Federighi’s famous “No.” slide, followed by the details of the Marzipan announcement.
All good, but what I really liked was when Jean-Louis turned to the numbers:
By some measure, there are approximately 2.1M iOS apps in Apple’s App Store. By contrast, macOS apps number in the low thousands — a slightly misleading measure since some Mac apps are available independent of the regulated App Store. But with that caveat, iOS apps certainly outnumber macOS apps by at least an order of magnitude — a ratio that parallels the macOS vs iOS revenue and unit numbers.
He follows that with a slide that lists revenues for the 2017 Xmas quarter, AKA, 3Q2017:
- iOS revenue: $68 billion
- Mac revenue: $6.9 billion
- iOS units sold: 90.4 million
- Mac units sold: 5.1 million
And this conclusion:
The iOS-macOS UIKit bridge will pump new blood into the (relatively) anemic Mac app world. The arrangement will benefit everyone: iOS developers will find new customers on the Mac, customers who pay multiples of $10 vs single digits for iOS apps; Mac users will be given a wider choice of apps; and Apple gets a livelier macOS store.
Well said, Jean-Louis. Per usual.
“iOS apps certainly outnumber macOS apps by at least an order of magnitude ”
By *two* orders of magnitude.
customers who pay multiples of $10 vs single digits for iOS apps
Eh … I’ll pay $60 for a AAA game.
But “it runs on a Mac now!!!!” won’t make an iOS app worth more than it is already.
(I’ll also pay more than single-digit money for things like Pixelmator on iOS, note.)
There are no AAA games on iOS. And yeah. some apps will be worth more on the Mac because they’re in a class that, on the Mac is more valued. Most iOS apps will make poor Mac apps. but he lawny of large numbers plays into that.
The problem with the iOS app count is that no one needs 2m apps. St aside that many are crap or very tiny apps etc. Even then I would be heavily that most of those apps see no traffic or downloads. After all, how many apps do you have on your iOS device? How many have you tried over the years? A few hundred?
Fortnite?
Free, but good point
I have 1,999,999 apps installed on my iPhone Plus. That’s why I bought the bigger phone.
There are many apps designed for the iPhone that work sub-optimally on the iPad, and vice versa. This problem will only be exacerbated with UIKit.