From: arne@vajhoej.dk   
      
   On 10/30/2025 6:26 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   > On Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:52:07 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:   
   >> Developers are important for an OS!   
   >   
   > Users attract developers, not so much the other way round.   
      
   No applications mean no users. Nobody is interested in a platform   
   with no applications.   
      
   If a platform attract enough developers to get enough applications   
   that it sell well, then it becomes much easier to get even more   
   developers, because they face a bigger market.   
      
   Success create more success. But there is an initial hurdle.   
      
   > Look at Iphone versus Android: Apple’s platform was seen as way cooler,   
   > and attracted more of the cool developers. So it got more apps. But   
   > Android offered a wider range of choice and out-of-the-box functionality.   
   > That attracted the users. It took years for Android to close the app gap,   
   > nevertheless that wasn’t enough to keep Iphone dominant.   
      
   It took some years before Android got more millions of apps   
   than iOS.   
      
   But having most millions of apps does not matter. What matters   
   is that the platform has the apps that are important.   
      
   And it did not take long before most of the important   
   apps supported both Android and iOS.   
      
   > Remember Windows Phone? Microsoft was actually paying developers to put   
   > apps on its platform. But in its user experience it was trying too much to   
   > ape Apple, which is why it lost out to Android.   
      
   There were multiple reasons for WP's failure. But the most   
   important was probably lack of apps.   
      
   Lots of of people did buy a WP device. Sales topped around 35   
   million/year. Still way behind Android and iOS, but not bad.   
   Problem was that they switched back to iOS and Android after   
   1 or 2 WP devices.   
      
   Reason was rarely that they did not like the UI. They had seen   
   that and tried it before they bought the device. The reason was   
   typical that they were missing the important apps.   
      
   Companies decided to support iOS and Android. And when WP   
   arrived there were little appetite to add a third. Each   
   platform cost money (cross platform like Cordova etc. never   
   really caught on) and a frequent opinion was that   
   2 was OK but 3-10 was too much.   
      
   So WP was either missing, had a third party unsupported app   
   utilizing API reverse engineered from Android/iOS or the   
   company did provide it but a few months later than   
   Android/iOS.   
      
   People got tired of that. Even if they liked the phone   
   as such.   
      
   Arne   
      
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