Apple in one fell swoop sent quite a few startups to the gallows. Apple has integrated the features of these startups into its operating system itself making these apps/startups almost redundant. Instapaper, Readitlater, Remember The Milk (RTM), Dropbox and Whatsapp are the startups in question.
It’s not that these startups were depending on Apple for their payday but their apps found great audience in the iOS crowd. If Apple users do not use these products, that’s a whole section of missing crowd. Apple has integrated Instapaper/readitlater feature in the iOS core. iCloud which makes even the iPhone an accessory is what Dropbox could never be. iOS5’s lists is RTM’s core business. iMessage is a better way of handling what Whatsapp will be handling. Though Whatsapp is a cross-platform thing.
iOS5 is almost a ratification that these startups are doing incredibly well. Someone said, be so good that Steve Jobs will buy your product. Well these products were good, but Steve Jobs decided to build them. This might not be the end of the road for the apps in question as there are more platforms to deal with. But iOS is a significant chunk for all these apps. When Apple does something it makes sure it makes sure that everyone uses it.
Apple’s iCloud is the biggest announcement from the iOS5 releases. All your devices will be synced. Period. iCloud is free which pushes out all the subscription services. And iCloud comes with API’s for developers to access. That means, a whole of app love on the cloud.
It’s hard to put a number on the number of startups that will spring up from iCloud but Ashton Kutcher thinks there will be 5000 startups pivoting on iCloud. I agree.
