"If Apple has so much to benefit from app discovery, why has it taken so long?"
Because it's a hard problem to solve? Because app vendors are excellent at gaming any system for competitive advantage?
Curating apps is tough, whether it's delivered via an app store, or whether it's a publicly available app.
There's a reason it was easier to find apps in the PC era; there weren't that many quality apps. There were 1-2 word processors worth a damn, a few spreadsheets, and a few databases. Development costs were high because the apps were difficult to create, and distribution costs prevented developers from monetizing them easily.
Compare that with today's apps; small, easier coding, far easier distribution. You end up with millions of apps for Android and iOS. And there's no hallowed authority like BYTE or PC Magazine to bless your app;
Somewhere out there, someone is thinking along the lines of Page and Brin, thinking out of the box about how to make app discovery work; and when they do, we'll all slap our heads and think "why didn't we think of that?" And then the SEO guys will slowly adapt and app discovery will end up like web discovery.
Because it's a hard problem to solve? Because app vendors are excellent at gaming any system for competitive advantage?
Curating apps is tough, whether it's delivered via an app store, or whether it's a publicly available app.
There's a reason it was easier to find apps in the PC era; there weren't that many quality apps. There were 1-2 word processors worth a damn, a few spreadsheets, and a few databases. Development costs were high because the apps were difficult to create, and distribution costs prevented developers from monetizing them easily.
Compare that with today's apps; small, easier coding, far easier distribution. You end up with millions of apps for Android and iOS. And there's no hallowed authority like BYTE or PC Magazine to bless your app;
Somewhere out there, someone is thinking along the lines of Page and Brin, thinking out of the box about how to make app discovery work; and when they do, we'll all slap our heads and think "why didn't we think of that?" And then the SEO guys will slowly adapt and app discovery will end up like web discovery.