Don’t Annoy Users

Virtual Pants:

It’s easy to figure out why Apple doesn’t want default third-party apps. It would cede control of the iOS experience to third-parties. Imagine a Google user with an iPhone replacing most of the core apps with Google counterparts. An iPhone home screen with Chrome, Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, Contacts, Music, Maps, Listen, Now, and Google+ is Apple’s worst nightmare. Unhappy iPhone users who would like to use Google services in a more integrated manner and can’t are also Apple’s worst nightmare.

No, Apple’s worst nightmare is someone buying an Android phone instead of an iPhone. If you buy an iPhone, Apple wins, that’s all there is to it. Every iOS user who chooses to use a third-party app as their preferred client for web browsing, email, calendaring, etc. is annoyed every single time they click a web/email/event URL and are taken to an iOS system app that they don’t want to use.

“Don’t annoy users” is a good rule of thumb, and the inability to specify third-party apps as default handlers for these things is annoying.

If Apple does not want iOS users to use Chrome (to name one example), they should not have allowed it into the App Store. If they allowed it into the App Store, then they should allow it to be specified as the default browser.

★ Friday, 29 June 2012