iPhones, netbooks, and the age of the invisible PC [Video]

The usage models of computing are changing. Can the software development community keep up?

Credit: Ground Picture / Shutterstock

I can’t help but hear echoes of the past when developers wax ebullient about all the money to be made in iPhone apps. If you believe the hype, even an app that does absolutely nothing can net thousands.

Given the economic misery that dominates the headlines these days, what developer wouldn’t be lured by that? But it’s fool’s gold — of course it is — just like the Web boom of the late 1990s and the multimedia CD-ROM gold rush before that.

Still, there’s something intriguing about Apple’s App Store and the curious ecosystem it has created. Bubble it may be, but consumers have never bought software like this before. A recent study by Pinch Media showed that most iPhone users rarely use an app more than a few times — and yet they keep downloading them anyway. Often …