How can *anyone* view 100,000 iPhone apps!?!

As a shareholder and iPhone user I’m delighted that there are ~100,000 apps for the iPhone. As a consumer of these apps, I’m overwhelmed with the sheer number of them and there’s not a snowballs-chance-in-Hell I’ll ever see but a fraction of them. With IDC stating there will be 300,000 of them by the end of next year, a paradox of choice problem gets to be unwieldly.

In his book, “The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less” by Barry Schwartz, he argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. I’ve found that to be true again and again especially with my clients: If given too many choices in software solutions, design possibilities or options, anxiety accelerates and they begin to second-guess me, their choices, and sometimes end up not making a choice at all unless only top ones are subsequently provided.

How long would it take to view all 100,000 iPhone apps? Though it would actually take you longer than this, let’s say you took only one minute to view an iPhone application’s screen in either the iTunes Store or from the iPhone itself. 1 minute X 100,000 apps is 1,667 *hours*!  Figuring in 8 hours of sleep per day and 16 hours of awake time in any given 24 hour period, that means it would take you 104 days to look at each one. God forbid you go off on a tangent or download one! This problem is only going to get bigger.

Using that same 16/8 hour formula, once we hit 300,000 apps it would take you nearly ONE YEAR to view all of those iPhone apps.