[m463]

I think a lot of their apps seem to be "placeholders" for some more comprehensive app someone else will make.

Maybe it is just a ploy to get people to find a replacement app in the app store, and get apple 30%.

or maybe "you're not the target market"... more complete apps are more complicated and might not be apple-like enough to create. Apple aligns more with simple than pro-user.

I wonder, does every apple user eventually become sophisticated enough to be "not the target market"??

sigh.

[caycep]

granted, I think the intended or unintended effect of being stripped down creates a lot of unexpected "perfect apps".

See Michael Tsai's (I think?) professed love for TextEdit

or how pretty much every celebrity/creative with an iPhone posts letters to their fans/followers on Notes app screenshots

[throw310822]

I've also given some thoughts to why Microsoft ships (shipped?) for decades stuff like notepad instead of some advanced text editor. My hunch was that as a platform provider you don't want to occupy the ground that should be left to third party developers- you need them to fill your platform with applications. So you provide the absolute basic and let others compete to produce the advanced apps.

[m463]

I think at some point apple prevents app store developers from "duplicating functionality" or something like that.