Is the tech press needed anymore? (how Apple iPhone apps take off now) — Scobleizer

Datapoint one: John Gruber is noting that Android doesn’t have very many of the industry’s best apps.

Datapoint two. Starbucks CIO says that he’s forced to use HTML 5 to support Apple iOS users, because they represent the majority of folks using mobile devices in their stores.

Datapoint three. SlideRocket is forced into HTML5 land (they used to be all Flash) because of pressure from iOS users.

Datapoint four. Instagram got 100,000 users in less than a week (now rumors are that they’ve gotten more than a million users in first month).

Datapoint five. Mobile app developer HighFive Labs (they’ve built 15 apps, including Mario Batali Cooks) tells me they are staying iPhone only for a while.

Datapoint six. Just yesterday Sam Feuer, CEO of MindSmack, told me his app, FastMall, was just put to the top of Apple’s iTunes store and is getting overwhelming demand. When I interviewed him a few weeks ago he told me he already had 250,000 downloads just because he was included in the featured list on the store.

–>