Is the iPhone app store doomed?

The success of the iPod has been largely attributed to ease of access and management of new and existing music via iTunes. Would it be fair to assume that Apple has taken the same winning formula and applied it to the iPhone?

Initially I thought the iPhone was an amazing device and that the app store was the key to its success. Using the same concept as the iPod/iTunes combo Apple has made it incredibly easy to download thousands of games and apps. Great move Apple.

But wait a minute. After downloading many apps and recently reading many angry stories of apps getting rejected from the store I’m beginning to think the app store could actually be doing more damage than good and here’s why.

1. App bloat. So many apps get downloaded, used once and forgotten and after downloading 3-4+ iPhone menu pages worth of apps the current menu system starts to become unusable. I’m sure the smart folk at Apple can solve this usability problem but right now it stands and there doesn’t seem to be any great answers on the horizon yet.  I have also heard many reports and seen some first hand of the iPhone slowing down once a large number of apps have been installed.
2. Backlash from key influences. With Apple stifling innovation in the app stored many early adopters are hanging up the iPhone in protest. While I don’t believe the majority of current iPhone users are likely to follow suit I do think this has the potential to slow down new sales.

Overall I think there are certain apps and especially games that have a place in the app store but realistically I think we will see Apple driving more developers to create iPhone targeted web apps rather than native apps.  It would also make sense for Apple to expose some of the location and accelerometer data to Safari using a Javascript interface. This  way many of the location aware apps that get downloaded could instead be accessed directly through the browser. It will also cut out a lot of the pain for developers, allow more innovation and decrease native app bloat.

It will be interesting to see how the app store problems unfold but ultimately I think feature rich web apps will become more popular and the iPhone matures.