In the backdrop of Steve Jobs introduction of the iCloud and iOS 5.0 at the WWDC 2011 conference it is interesting to see the feature set of iOS 5 in the context of the Appstore developer community and the Appstore market.
The primary features of the iOS 5 are, Notification Center, iMessage, Newsstand and Reminders.
Notification center essentially lets you see all the recent notifications pertaining to calls, sms, email all on a single interface and thereby direct access to the respective application. Also twitter messages can be invoked in any interface of the iOS and does not require you to cut and paste the content to the twitter app. Newsstand is a repository of books, papers and magazines wherein registered magazines are seamlessly and automatically downloaded to the Newstand for easy reading. Reminders can be set on tasks which are based on time, place and context and moreover location based reminders can be set using the sensory system of the phone. iMessage gives opportunity to do free messaging across iphone, ipad etc. simlar to Blackberry Mobileme service.
These are some of the 200 odd features of the iOS 5 and further illustration of the features can be seen at the Apple website http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/gallery.html
All well and good...however as I observe these features or similar type of applications are developed by the Appstore developer community. Eg. ibooks, foursquare and many other messaging and productivity apps. On the one hand Apple kindles the innovativeness by promoting the Appstore and developer eco-system, on the other Apple embeds similar features in the iOS to be in step with the market as illustrated above - thereby stifling innovation. Clearly the iOS has to be a lean and an agile framework, and more importantly Apple should attempt to promote their products and services by leveraging and promoting their best in class apps found in the Appstore. Undoubtedly the 80:20 rule should play in the Appstore market where 20% of the Apps are generating 80% of the revenue.
