QOTD: Third Party Software?

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Shaun

toughtsHow important is third party software to you when deciding which mobile platform to use? Many people seem to have 2 or 3 pieces of software which they ‘must’ be able to use and this seems to influence their purchasing decisions greatly. Also, which titles must you have on a smartphone?

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4 Responses to QOTD: Third Party Software?

  1. Philippa says:
    May 15, 2009 at 7:48 am

    I’d like to say not important, but I don’t know of any smartphone that has everything out of the box. I always want a few games or notepad. There’s no software I can’t live without though.

  2. James M. says:
    May 15, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    Sometimes what was once 3rd-party becomes part of the platform. I’ve stuck with my Palm OS Treo 650 for so long because there is such a magnificent array of 3rd-party solutions for foreign-language character entry and interface conversion (in my case, Paragon Software’s PiLoc for Russian). iPhone and BlackBerry have both made foreign language support and character entry part of their platforms out of the box. Solutions for the Palm OS are still superior, but not by much. Ironically, not knowing whether webOS will have ANY foreign language functionality is the single biggest software-related factor that’s driving me to the iPhone.

  3. vboelema says:
    May 16, 2009 at 10:31 am

    For me personally 3rd party software is important to a point. I don’t mind if I can’t find the exact same piece of software, but as long as there’s something which can perform a similar task.

  4. JLP says:
    May 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm

    I need the PIM apps, plus a password keeper if I’m going to use the phone like a PDA, so 3rd party apps are essential to me. Of course, the draw of the smartphone is email, internet, and maps, so now that I’ve gotten used to that, if one did not have that, I’d be lost (no pun intended). But who would release a smartphone without email/internet/maps??? I have been lost w/out a proper todo list on my iPhone, but that’s solved with a decent 3rd party app now, so now I’m relatively adjusted to the move from Palm. I don’t think I’d go to a platform without 3rd party apps tho–even if the phone included everything I needed. It’s important to be able to expand thru software.