What Kind of Apps are You Building?

Someone asked me: What kind of PlayBook apps are you building?

While that's a great question, I think a better one is: What type of problem are you trying to solve with a PlayBook?

I categorize apps into two broad categories:

1. Device intensive
2. Data

Use-cases for Device intensive apps are: camera (still and video), conferencing - and specialized activities like DVD ripping. This category of application represents perhaps 20% of all programs that we use.

The vast majority of applications present data. A good example is my weather site: craigweather.com.  It shows real-time sensor data from measuring equipment on top of my house. It also shows government forecast data that changes every hour.

With this type of app: It is the data that's most valuable.
Remember:  timeliness matters.  

Good web sites often focus on data. More and more 'mobile apps' surround this content with an 'app wrapper' that adds little to no value. I find things like native 'weather apps' to be pretty much useless packaging. Going to a weather web site is almost always better.

Favorites in the browser are a great way to access 'data'.  No downloading.  Up-to-date.  No fuss.  

Take a look at the PlayBook Browser Favorites page. The live thumbnail images
look like native apps. And they are better if the solution is mainly about the data.

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That big elephant in the room has half a million apps. Many should be delivered via web sites. But you can't charge $1.99 for a bookmark can you?