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iTunes, Mac OS X on 25 Killer Apps List

by , 5:00 PM EST, December 22nd, 2006

eWeek's Peter Coffee has compiled a list of what he considers to be the 25 killer applications of all time. Apple-related products, including iTunes and Mac OS X, are there along with other applications that focused on the Mac community.

The list starts in 1976 with a classic application called Electric Pencil, and MacWrite and MacPaint show up in 1984 - the same year the Mac was released.

1985 saw the release of Excel for the Mac, as well as Aldus PageMaker. PageMaker was instrumental in launching the desktop publishing revolution. Eventually it was purchased by Adobe after QuarkXPress became the dominant page layout application.

1987 brought us dBase for the Mac, and in 1990 we first saw Adobe Photoshop. And finally, 2001 ushered in Mac OS X and iTunes.

Other applications to make the list include Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Windows 3.0.

Thanks to TMO reader Bryan Carter for the heads up.

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Observer Comments

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Close Name:mchampag Posts: 13 Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Sat Dec 23, 2006 1:08 am Subject: MacWrite, MacPaint, Macintosh

It's no coincidence that MacWrite and MacPaint were released the same year as the Macintosh (128k); if I recall correctly, they were bundled with it to provide functionality to the hardware and for the Macintosh evangelists to show off to potential developers as canonical examples of Macintosh "human interface guidelines."

-Matt


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Close Name:Guest
Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:10 pm Subject: Some of the "Killer Apps" Should be KILLED!

Although I agree with Peter's list up to a point I believe that Internet Explorer should have been excluded from the killer apps list. It is the most unstable, insecure, dog piece of software ever...on any platform. iTunes, although a great piece of software, violates EVERYONES right to "fair use" with all the DRM built in and should be excluded simply because of this. Other wise it's a great piece of software. All the other software was a welcome addition to the mac platform and I can't even imagine working without my suite of adobe apps.


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Close Name:Mikuro Posts: 457 Joined: 15 Jun 2002
Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:53 pm Subject: Missing the point

Quote
Guest wrote:
Although I agree with Peter's list up to a point I believe that Internet Explorer should have been excluded from the killer apps list. It is the most unstable, insecure, dog piece of software ever...on any platform. iTunes, although a great piece of software, violates EVERYONES right to "fair use" with all the DRM built in and should be excluded simply because of this. Other wise it's a great piece of software. All the other software was a welcome addition to the mac platform and I can't even imagine working without my suite of adobe apps.

You seem to be confusing "killer app" with "great app". When people refer to "killer apps/products", they're talking about market success. These are by no means the 25 best apps or even the most influential. He even admits in the blurbs that some are inferior to the competitors of the time (see Windows 3).

So this is not a list of cool, useful or great products. It's a list of products that sold big (either themselves or accompanying products). Considered as such, I think it's pretty solid.

And you're also confusing iTunes with the iTunes Store. iTunes does not have any "built in" DRM.


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