Submitted by eWeek’s Peter Coffee has compiled his idea of the 25 killer applications of all time. “Microsoft’s Vista has widely inspired the ‘Why do I need that?’ question, which past ‘killer applications’ have answered in different ways for different platforms during three decades of personal computing.”
I suppose you could disagree with some of these, but overall, pretty good.
Yes, I think WordPerfect was more of a killer app than Word, and Quattro Pro more than Excel. I still remember all people were using Quattro and WordPerfect, and then Microsoft wiped them with its office suite. It wasn’t better, but it came with all things included. The market is unfair.
Personally, Word 6 was my killer app. Microsoft’s Jensen Harris has an excellent blog post on the history of office here http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/03/29/563938.aspx
The thing that makes me laugh is when he says “with MacPaint and MacWrite, the Mac didn’t need anything else,” and then goes on to praise DTP apps as the Mac’s salvation.
Sorry, but if MacPaint and MacWrite had been enough for Mac’s salvation, the Amiga would still be around, and NotParker would making jokes about the 0.36% marketshare of Macs.
I agree that WordPerfect 4.0/4.1 was a killer-app for DOS, though unfortunately it lost its enormous lead by failing to come out with a suitable Windows version and Word 6.0 killed it. Unfortunate.
Actually, I found myself using only 1 of the killer app (and version, that is) which is firefox, though I’ve also used windows, ie, netscape navig, word and excel’s later versions.
However, there are some that are really out-of-place. Things like Turbo Pascal??? Why should it be considered a killer app? Its an app to *make* apps, not a real one by itself! If that is included, I cannot understand why MS’s compiler suite isn’t in there (hey: the suite is by far the best-selling compilers) and why isn’t Borland’s C compiler not in too?
Its very visual, and the layout is alright. however, its meant to be a powerpoint presentation, not for the web. Nonetheless, its a good overview. And twenex’s view is pretty accurate.
However, there are some that are really out-of-place. Things like Turbo Pascal??? Why should it be considered a killer app? Its an app to *make* apps, not a real one by itself! If that is included, I cannot understand why MS’s compiler suite isn’t in there (hey: the suite is by far the best-selling compilers) and why isn’t Borland’s C compiler not in too?
Turbo Pascal was one of the greatest and most used apps of all times. Most people who were learning “computers” in the early nineties like I did started to develop their first small programs with Turbo Pascal.
Not to mention that it was the first programming language that delivered an Integrated Development Environment that was easy and very pleasing to use.
Back then, if you had to create a database application, it was either DBase III Plus or Clipper. Otherwise, most people would go with Turbo Pascal.
Funny thing is that I never liked Pascal that much and don’t remember anything of it anymore. I’m more of a C person but I still remember fondly the Pascal classes that I had in high school.
Looking wider than the PC itself, I would say that the various versions of BASIC on the home computers of the 80s, plus Pascal and C, would qualify as killer apps too.
Edited 2006-12-16 17:55
People still code for the C64 even today
Why ?
you could do it quicker, and get better results on a ZX Spectrum :p
Yes, but on a Speccy you don’t get to beautify your code with inverse heart characters! 😉
‘eh, I don’t know a lot about this. But didn’t smalltalk offer an IDE long before turbo pascal? Same with LISP Machines.
Yes, but not in numbers that made it “a killer app”.
Same with XENIX. It might have achieved the kind of market penetration Linux has now (in relation to the smaller userbase of the time), though I doubt it. For this reason, it’s not imho a killer app. It may have been the first “killer UNIX” however.
Erm, on second thoughts, V7 was first, BSD second. So XENIX, if it takes a place on the podium takes third.
Edited 2006-12-16 20:13
Clipper was cool. Wrote my first serious database application with it.
Another very versatile, easy to use, and fairly powerful database application of the time was RapidFile. I don’t think they ever came out with a Windows version and it’s long gone these days. It had a lot of the functionality of MS Access but was easier to use (IMO). I’ve never seen something quite so user-friendly since.
A killer app is one that drives people to upgrade or switch platforms. It’s a measure of impact, not quality.
People switched from older systems to IBM PC compatibles because they wanted to run Turbo Pascal. Borland C was wildly popular for people who were already using DOS or Windows. Few people bought new computers so that they could run Borland C; decent C compilers were available for whatever platform they already had. But they did switch to DOS so they could run Turbo Pascal.
No one switches to Windows as a development platform because of Microsoft’s development tools. They switch to Windows as a development platform because they are developing for Windows. That’s not a slam on Visual Studio, just an observation that Windows drives the use of VS, rather than VS driving the use of Windows.
That’s also why WordStar and Word for Windows are on the list, and WordPerfect and Word 6 aren’t. Both WordStar and Word for Windows drove adoption of the platforms that they ran on. WordPerfect and Word 6 were arguably better, but they replaced other products on the same platform. Great apps, not killer apps.
The list is good overall yes. But the only app you used out of the list (firefox) should not be in the rankings as something revolutionary. Netscape was revolutionary and worked flawlessly on all web content on all systems (Windows, AIX, SUN) Mozilla could have kept the Mozilla name, and no one would have likened the improvements in firefox as killer.
I actually used Turbo Pascal in HS and am glad to see it make a list which somewhat validates this list.
I think that Firefox should have been replaced by Desqview, or QEMM. Without these add ons, PC users would have been lost until Windows 3.0 was released.
Another good candidate would have been Stacker. Heck I recall we had Stacker running on our 250 meg fileserver and thats when we first had a 1 gigabyte filesystem (compressed)at school.
xmosaic was revolutionary, by definition netscape is evolutionary.
It doesn’t matter that Pascal is an app to make apps. It is still an application in it’s own right. There’s a lot to be said for a nimble, fast compiler. Just try to use MS Visual Studio 2005 – an absolute dog of an application.
I don’t know anyone in IT of my generation that didn’t learn to program using Turbo Pascal.
Yes, I guess each person will have its own choices, but one I miss is Dreamweaver. It allowed thousands of people to build their web pages easily and have their place in the WWW before the blog era.
Edited 2006-12-16 17:37
It also helped* pave the way for IE-only sites, proprietry Microsoft tags / activeX, and flagrant lack of standards compliance.
* as did netscape4 by being equally as flagrant as IE
Dreamweaver? It certainly has its quirks, but I’ve never noticed it to generate particularly browser-dependent code. In fact, it includes tools to remove that sort of stuff – E.g., the “Cleanup Word-Generated HTML” wizard.
While the list may be subjective…and what makes a killer app is subjective….I think Dreamweaver does not qualify as it is a professinal app (see the price tag), it is not installed on all that many computers. Don’t get me wrong…Dreamweaver and Photoshop are killer apps to me…but together, they cost more than most computers.
killer apps in my opinion are those that redefined how a computer is used.
wofenstein/doom <– EVERYONE wanted THESE apps! and they made a computer somthing you could use for fun and not just buisness
quicktime <– watch movies on a computer
napster <– although obviously illigal, it helped make computers home music systems
It also lulled people into using tables-only designs…
Ummm…
Ditto!
One that I think deserves an honourable mention should be iDVD. Apple really worked hard to make it possible for the consumer to take DV footage, edit it (in iMovie), and then burn it to a DVD. Sounds simple now, but back in 2001, this was nothing short of revolutionary, and Windows was miles behind (and mostly still is).
IIS and its precursors.
When Netscape was trying to make money off of its webserver, Microsoft gave one away one that worked on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.
Which they then left to rot until v7. Wait, I’ve seen that pattern somewhere else…
Ah. THAT’s why they took ages to cotton onto the InterRot.
Well, then you’d have to let Apache in, too.
It’s an interesting article but perhaps his points would have been less contentious if he had named application classes rather than specific applications. For example, the ‘WIMP GUI driven WP’ or the ‘desktop PC DTP’.
Windows and Mac are listed as killer apps while Linux is not even mentioned.. LOL
Windows and Mac are listed as killer apps while Linux is not even mentioned.. LOL
Windows is the platform 95% of the world’s desktops uses, the Mac is basically what started the PC revolution. Linux is impressive, but it has not achieved any of the above.
A ‘Killer App’ usually creates unequivical demand (e.g. Visicalc); an app that people suddenly realise they must have. Linux started out as a FOSS clone of Minix. There’s never really been unprecidented demand for Linux; the same tasks can be achieved on other systems, though at a greater price. Linux is more of a proponent of a wider evolution of the software industry into open standards and software.
Oh, I disagree that the Mac started the PC revolution…the Mac started the GUI revolution, for sure, but the IBM PC is what started the PC revolution – which is why, incidentally, it’s called the PC revolution!
(Historical note from an old fart: before the PC, people talked of Personal Computers as “microcomputers”, as opposed to “minicomputers”, which were as big as a desk, and “computers”, which took over spaceships and killed their crews while en route to Jupiter.)
As for Windows’ market share…could we please not bring numbers into this, and just say that Windows is on the “vast majority” of PCs? I just don’t want anyone to start bandying web stats around again.
Edited 2006-12-16 18:33
I think you could say that Apple started a PC revolution, but with the Apple II. The Mac arrived on the scene when the CLI PC revolution was already over, and reignited it for a whole segment of the population for whom typing cryptic characters into a command line was scary and unnatural. Then Windows came along ended that revolution.
As we’ve hinted, this list is a personal view (they always are).
In my view, and this will come as no surprise to you, Linux IS a killer app, whereas Windows could be described in the same terms the author describes dBase/Mac.
YMMV.
I would say that Apache is a killer app, not Linux.
[/i]I would say that Apache is a killer app[/i]
That too.
(Besides, if Linux weren’t a killer app then people wouldn’t be deploying it, even to run Apache – since Apache, unlike IIS, is cross-platform.)
the Mac is basically what started the PC revolution. Linux is impressive, but it has not achieved any of the above.
Thom, OSX, not the Mac is listed and whatever one might think about OSX, it certainly didn’t start the PC revolution.
And arguing that Linux achieved as much as OSX wouldn’t be all that hard now, would it?
Anyway, as with all those lists, the choices are of course subjective and while I might not agree with all of them, it was still a fun read.
Sorry, the honor of starting the PC revolution goes to the IBM PC or Apple II.
Well, I supposed Linux never pretended to be revolutionary (in the technical sense) — the goal was to produce a free Unix clone rather than something significantly new. Of course, the original Unix implementation and X11 were/are killer apps. They enabled the Unix workstation revolution of the late 80s and early 1990s when many of todays high-end apps that have been killers in their fields (e.g. Maya) saw the light of day, in addition to Unix being the foundation of Mac OS X and the inspiration for Linux.
It’s revolutionary in that it’s the first implementation of Linux or any FOSS software to gain as much traction.
It’s revolutionary in that it’s the first implementation of Linux or any FOSS software to gain as much traction.
Xenix.
“Xenix was Microsoft’s version of Unix intended for use on microcomputers; since Microsoft was not able to license the “UNIX” name itself, they gave it an original name. The -ix ending follows a convention used by many other Unix-like operating systems.
Microsoft purchased a license for Version 7 Unix from AT&T in 1979, and announced on August 25, 1980 that it would make it available for the 16-bit microcomputer market.
Xenix varied from its 7th Edition origins by incorporating elements from BSD, and soon possessed the most widely installed base of any Unix flavour due to the popularity of the inexpensive x86 processor”
XENIX isn’t FOSS. It’s proprietary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix
And All-Powerful Oz (sorry, Microsoft) soon left it out in the cold.
Edited 2006-12-16 18:52
XENIX isn’t FOSS
Except for the BSD parts.
And SCO now owns its IP.
Edited 2006-12-16 18:59
Funny, but hardly something to make it into Roald Dahl adult fiction.
So, what do you guys think is the killer app of the future? [reply here]
Some shoot-outs of mine:
* The RSS aggregator (who was first?)
* Parallels
Why Parallels? Why not VMWare workstation? If only a small minority of a small minority of users use it, can you still call it a killer app?
Because Parallels is selling a lot of Macs on its own. Odd, but that does define it as a Killer App. I certainly bought a Mac to be able to run Windows, when I needed to. You don’t buy a Mac only Windows
Where is Solitaire?
The only thing that killed is your productivity! :3
Windows 3.0 – Nobody liked it, until 3.11 came out. This one was definitely a killer app though, although it wasn’t anything new, but for the PC.
Internet Explorer 1.0 – Nobody even knew it. Even 3.0 was hardly used. 4.0 was the first “killing” one, but only due to it’s deep integration with Windows.
Even 3.0 was hardly used. 4.0 was the first “killing” one, but only due to it’s deep integration with Windows.
IE4 was released *before* Win98, which was the first release to included it integrated. It gained users because it was the first release of IE that was on par with the contemporary Netscape release. It also didn’t hurt MS that Netscape’s quality went into a long downward spiral following the 4.0 release.
If you ever wanted to install some decent software from MS under Windows 95, it miracally always depended on MSIE 4.
But basically, you’re right, IE4 was “on par”, despite many render bugs and the “most security holes ever in a single piece of software award”, and NS4 was crap, sadly enough…
How about changing “Internet Explorer 1.0” for “mIRC”?
IMHO it’s far a better software not saying that it has become an Internet legend 😉
That list is useless, then. 🙂
Hey they forgot vi 🙁
First thing I thought. I Can’t understand why they forgot VI. IF they’re talking “desktop killer apps”, then I can understand but hey… it WAS a killer app back in late ’70s
…
I’m sad.
How does one define a killer app?
I think it’s important to have a common reference point so the discussion makes sense. From reading some comments, I’m starting to see how unique everyone’s impressions of what a killer app entails
That being said, it’s hard to think of a few.
MS Word, love it or hate it, is definitely a killer app.I would argue WP is ALSO a killer app, and Word just appealed to a broader and different audience.
Netscape (Would you say 3 or so?)
Zonealarm when it comes to software firewalls
Hmm…
Windows NT 4.0.
Rock solid compared to Win95. Yet had the Win95 interface.
Great for business usage.
Helped kill off Novell’s Netware by being easier to use. (having been an NT 4.0 and Netware administrator at the time)
Set the stage for Windows 2000 and XP.
speaking of NT4… NT 4 sp6 would run FOREVER until you decided to reboot it
We had an old server running NT4 doing something that I cannot think of right now. It’s uptime was like 4 years. We had to move buildings and when I restarted it, the entire WNNT dir was corrupted!
I guess you could blame that on old hardware.. But still amusing
This is about “killer apps”…I’m not sure an OS can be considered an “app” in this sense.
If so, then DOS should also be considered…and UNIX for that matter. And of course Linux. 🙂
Lists such as these are in fact very subjective…one could also have added Softimage, who helped spark the 3D graphics revolution, or Avid, who brought non-linear editing to the mainstream (so much that now linear editing is all but dead), or Cubase, which has revolutionized musix and SFX mixing…they’re not any more specialized than, say, Mathematica.
Edited 2006-12-16 19:11
“This is about “killer apps”…I’m not sure an OS can be considered an “app” in this sense.
I agree. At least the author recognized “Windows 3.0” and MacOS being operating systems and not applications. 🙂
“If so, then DOS should also be considered…and UNIX for that matter. And of course Linux. :-)”
No, I have to disagree. DOS – if you talk about MS-DOS – is hardly to be considered an operating system because it lacks essential funcionalities every OS has to offer (at least according to standard DIN 44300): proper control of program execution, tools for hardware and software maintenance and for error detection. MS-DOS does not offer these.
“Lists such as these are in fact very subjective…one could also have added […] Cubase, which has revolutionized musix and SFX mixing…they’re not any more specialized than, say, Mathematica. “
Special solutions such as Mathematica you’ll find in educational contexts and research only. Even “Internet Explorer 1.0” isn’t that famous it should be mentioned here. But it’s the authors (very subjective) list, so I won’t complain about what he considers to be a killer app – even if nobody knows it or it’s an OS. 🙂
No, I have to disagree. DOS – if you talk about MS-DOS – is hardly to be considered an operating system because it lacks essential funcionalities every OS has to offer[…]
True, but it did hold the crown as the most prevalent PC “Disk Operating System” for quite a few years (considering that Windows sat on top of it until Win95). So it may not have been a true OS, but if OS can be included in the killer app list (which, as I said, still seems dubious to me), then MS-DOS should also be considered, for all its faults.
Contestant: Alex, I’ll take morons for 1000.
Alex Trebek: What kind of people mod a post suggesting Xenix be considered a killer app down to -2?
Contestant: Alex, I’ll take people with no sense of humor for 1000.
Alex Trebek: What kind of people mod a comment to -5 when it was mocking the morons who modded a comment suggesting Xenix be considered a killer app down to -2?
Edited 2006-12-16 19:25
hmm… I can’t think of any programs that kill people off the top of my head..
Ever used Windows ME preloaded onto a compaq presario?
Well, I guess I did survive…But it was one of my early computing experiences….
To quote..
“One of only two operating systems on this list, Microsoft Windows 3.0 was far from being as capable as the Mac–but looked good enough to prevent major Mac gains while Windows matured.”
hehe, it bugs me when people put Win 3.x in the OS catagory.. it wasn’t an OS, and credibility imho is damaged when reviewers dont even get that simple fact straight.
And I cannot see how on earth one can list Win3.x and NOT have OS/2 which is everything Win3.x was ++
But, what surprises me more is that there is no mention of WinZIP or WinRAR, You simply cant do without these apps now in the WWW world ( Windows users only of course
) 
hahaha that was so funny!
Contestant: Alex, I’ll take people with no sense of humor for 1000.
Alex Trebek: What kind of people mod a comment to -5 when it was mocking the morons who modded a comment suggesting Xenix be considered a killer app down to -2?
Contestant: Who are emotionaly unstable and needing of several psychotherapy sessions?
Definitely,… Doom. When it came out it changed perspective on gaming. Beside the fact that there was tons of killing (one could even call that overkill), which couldn’t be said for one of the named apps:)
Edited 2006-12-16 19:58
You can’t have Netscape as a killer app without mentioning Mosaic.
But then it would be hard to avoid mentioning Spyglass or WorldWideWeb (the program)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass
I don’t know anyone who made a purchase so that they could run Mosaic. The article isn’t about important applications, or innovations, or leading applications.
It’s about killer apps, which is phrase that was coined to describe an application that would cause someone to buy a computer. An application that required a given platform, killing any other platform from consideration.
Games are killer apps for Windows. You can edit documents, browse the web, or send email with a Mac, Linux, or Windows. But if you want that particular game, then you need Windows. That game is a killer app; if you buy that game you will also buy Windows. You may prefer a Mac for everything else, but if you bought a Windows system instead of a Mac just so that you could play a game, the game is a killer app.
The killer app game isn’t better than other games. What makes it a killer app is that you want it enough to let it determine which OS, which graphics card, which Internet access you choose.
Gaming consoles live and die by killer apps. People do not buy consoles because they have better technology, they buy the console that has the games that they want.
Mosaic struck me to, but you’re right, it’s one that drove innovation rather than had people clammering to get it running.
However, I literally know of no one who went seeking Internet Explorer – how that one figured in there, I don’t know. By the same tokem, Firefox runs on most/all platforms, and is fairly lightweight, can’t see many people upgrading hardware for it.
Good call on AutoCAD though, it’s why I keep windows around lol
ICQ: Sure, IRC had been around for ages, but ICQ practically started the whole IM craze.
Napster: Where P2P was born, or at least when I first spotted it
Microsoft Outlook: Before this, did we really have a PIM which integrated with some sort of groupware solution in such a way that pretty much made it ubiquitous in so many businesses? Perhaps Lotus Notes deserves this honor, but I’m not well versed in the history of these apps, so maybe somebody can clue us in.
7th Guest: As long as we’re including games, why not include the one that turbo-charged the CD-ROM drive industry ?
When you talk about killer apps, I don’t think you can say “which app had ‘xyz’ first”, because that really doesn’t matter. What matters is which app put ‘xyz’ on the map? Killer apps are not always about originality. An analogy could be used in the video game world – people might say that ‘Street Fighter’ was a ‘killer app’, because it practically created the 5-6 button fighting game genre, but it wasn’t until Street Fighter II that it really took off.
Edited 2006-12-16 21:06
Definitely.
It’s embarrassing that P2P software was not mentioned.
And unlike operating systems, these *are* ‘apps’.
Things like Napster (I was too young to have seen that come up
) and Bittorrent were/are killer ‘apps’. File sharing is a potential entertainment industry revenue killer (I’d say an opportunity, but they haven’t figured that out yet), but also a great tool for universal access to information that “disappears” from websites.
I mean, they may take all youtube and whatever sites off line to prevent people from watching, say, 9/11 videos, but there’s no way to ever stop these from being spread as torrents, even with very limited bandwidth.
Great tool for democracy, right of information, and freedom of speech.
this things a joke, how can they be serious when they dont include Dpaint that inspired most artists of its time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluxe_Paint
how can they ignore LightWave that made more contributions to your film and tv tech than any other app , or the toaster etc that made it all happen at a time no other product could come close at the price.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightWave
genlocking was another vast profit and innovation….
what about Blitz basic , without which the world would have lost lemmings and its generations of inspired games profits….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC
there far more to this present days markets that stand on these and other unnamed apps that are far more werthy to be remembered than that biased list, has everyone forgotten the past?.
Yes, why ignore lightwave?.It was one of the first 3D apps and was the killer app that make sell a lot of Amiga 4000 and video toasters.And was/is used for make special effects of tons of movies and TV series.Remember that back in the days of first lightwave you needed a ultra expensive (millionarie) Silicon graphics to archive equal results and PC was out of the questions for this tasks
what is not Amiga mentioned? after all it was the first multimedia computer and the first consumer OS that had real multitasking
And in other order why are mentioned the OSs at all? the OS are not apps so it can not be killer apps.The killer apps are for the OSs
@Fransexy
I agree. Not including AmigaOS on that list was a major mistake. The Amiga perfected the “desktop” as we know it. Everything else was stuck in black&white or horrid cyan&magenta colours.
Not including AmigaOS on that list was a major mistake.
Yes! Exactly! I loved that thing.
Ah, the Amiga…I have fond memories of my Amiga 2000 system. I should never have sold it…
I know it continued being used in Video shops for quite a while after it had been displaced by PCs and Macs…these were really awesome machines.
Nothing has cemented Windows on home PC’s like games. I agree with others that mentioned Doom. Not only was it a killer app that drove home PC sales it also changed PC’s to have a 3D card. Not many things on the list can say that.
I also say the Office versions from the late 90’s. It was easy to take home from the office and put on the home machine. It is the reason 95% of all documents are in Word format. MS can cry all they want about piracy, it was still part of what built their empire. As they make it harder to pirate you can expect to see people looking for a cheaper solution.
If you define a killer app as one you actually went out and bought hardware specifically to be able to run it. Then for me the only app that was a killer app was Locoscript, way back in the dim and distant dark ages of computing.
But I guess only those who were in the UK in the early eighties will remember it.
Who is Peter Coffee?
you got to be kidding me?
What did actually iTunes bring to the market at all? Nothing, pretty much all features has been widely available on so many different players long time before. Winamp would’ve made sense, but iTunes is just a question of Macifying layout.
You have to go back to 2001 when iTunes came out. The main competititors were Real, MusicMatch and WinAMP. All of these had crippled functionality that you had to pay for, (encoding/burning) and all of them had insane bloated interfaces. iTunes gave all their features for free, and in an easier package. The MP3 revolution may have already started and was well underway, but iTunes took it mainstream; nuff said.
Furthermore the iTunes clean interface approach, with the 3 panes, LIVE search and smart playlists, expanded in others software genres, from Apple and not, including finder.
I’d be more inclined to agree if not for the fact that iTunes came very late to the party on PC scene, which accounts for the majority of “computer” users.
I use iTunes when I’m using Windows and I like it a lot but Amarok runs circles around it any day of the week and I wish that I could use it on Windows, too (hint: KDE 4.0 :-))
I work on the IT industry and just in the site where I am there are like 5000 users or so and I can count in the fingers of one hand how many use iTunes (including me). And the only reason that they know iTunes at all is that they own an iPod and don’t know anything better.
I still can see some people using Real software (masochists, I guess :-)) and some using Winamp but almost everybody and their dogs uses Windows Media Player.
I think that Apple’s biggest achievement with iTunes was to integrate it tightly with the iPod but I hardly call that a “killer app”. Maybe people noticed MP3 more after iPod arrived but that is due to Apple’s know-how in marketing.
Edited 2006-12-17 19:07
Wow, this list makes me feel old.
From reading the posts here, I think there seems to be a couple of alternative opinions on what constitutes a “killer app”, and I suspect it is related to a generational shift in computing.
Used to be that a killer app was one that justified a shift in computing.
WordStar led to companies using relatively cheap CP/M machines for word processing instead of typewriters or expensive IBM et al. solutions.
Visicalc made Apple II’s legitimate business machines, and it was probably the first killer app (even more so than the word processor) because it was the first app that gave computers a unique function and capability in business.
Lotus 123 extended what Visicalc did, but it was effective enough that it validated the IBM PC and caused a monumental shift from CP/M and Apple II use in business and led to the IBM PC-based systems as becoming de facto standards.
PageMaker / PhotoShop were apps that defined the Mac in terms of design capability and virtually created the concept of Desktop Publishing.
I would also consider Navigator to be a killer app because it brought the web to the masses and while it may not have effected a paradigm shift in terms of computing platforms, it certainly heralded the introduction of the internet as a global communication medium for Joe Average.
But now we have a generation that has been brought up on a world where computers are taken for granted, and many people have never touched any of these apps or even around when they first appeared. So we’re going to have to start re-defining the concept of a killer app as being one that simply changes the way we compute or adds something new that we haven’t done before.
Personally I would hesitate to consider things like gaming or net-services to be “killer apps” but that’s only in the context of seeing the big shifts that happened in the past. Computing is commoditized now, so I guess it’s time to adjust my perspective from “what led to computing” to what we do with computers. In that context, I’d certainly agree that apps like Napster, or Wolfenstein, or cc:Mail et al. are killer apps.
For those claiming linux, I wouldn’t agree. I think the thing lacking from linux right now is it’s own killer app… Once linux has that, it’s success is guaranteed…
Just my 2c…
If freedom is the main differentiator for Linux, the BSDs, and other Free software, then that eliminates killer apps.
Seriously. A killer app is one that locks you into a particular platform. One aspect of software freedom is that you aren’t locked in.
So the killer app for Linux is freedom from the downside of killer apps.
I’ve got a killer-app for losethos, my operating system — Godtalk. It’s a timer based random number generator which can be used to make gibberish, songs or pick random passages from text. I might get one of those mock nobel prizes.
For on-line support, talk to God. It’s got God on tap.
Here’s God, now…
TAKES UNCERTAINTY OBLIGATIONS GIRLS
BLESS FOLLOW PLANTS STRETCHED CONFIRMING
HOPE CHAMBERS DISTANT CAPITOL NON
APPROVED UNPRECEDENTED PEOPLE STUDENTS
ASSASSINATED WHERE CALLED DEBATE PROVIDING
FOUNDED DURING RECTOR LIBERTY REFUSED
GIRL BOLDLY DISCUSS WHY QUESTION YOUR
DISPLACED BAD HANDS ITS PLACE RYAN
By the way–there’s no effort to make the gibberish sensable, just straight unweighted random words.
It works good for naming songs and supplying theme for compositions you need to write.
There are seriously beautiful songs generated randomly. I think the hardest part of writing a song is getting every other song out of your head.
Download LoseThos for the songs–they’re cool. http://www.losethos.com You can run the songs from the live CD if you boot to it.
“Killer” is a superlative?
-missing-
“mission”? Why did I type that? Must have been distracted by the TV.
A fairly good list, but an important one is missing.
I used to love Pagemaker, and tried many times unsuccessfully to get my boss to use Pagemaker rather than Word (as a final document prep) because of its superior publishing capabilities.
However, considering the DTP apps listed, I think that Adobe Illustrator had a far greater impact than them. It is, as far as my poor opinion is worth, the main reason Macs became such important DTP machines. It is basically the “Postscript editor.”
And I am glad they included Wordstar. Although it is long gone, a lot of programs still use concepts started by Wordstar. In fact, when you type onto your bash command line, the editing is likely being done in “Wordstar mode.” Try hitting some Wordstar keystrokes and see, like ^A for “next word.”
Edited 2006-12-17 17:58
I didn’t know AutoCAD was so old…
Yet I can’t find any substitute that even comes close….
I’ve never used AutoCAD or either of these, so I don’t really know if they come close, but here are two packages that attempt to be substitutes for AutoCAD. Neither is free software (but then neither is AutoCAD).
http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html
http://www.bricscad.com/
1. Quark
2. Indesign
3. apache
4. linux
and IE should NOT be on the list! netscape… yes… and firefox 1.0 …. yes… but IE…. bullsh*t!
I found the list fascinating, though I agree with many of the comments here.
But I hate web sites that change while I’m reading them. Once you click on any of the links, it starts cycling you through the list until you find the on-screen controls to stop. Very annoying.