But while I don’t find much of interest there, many other consumers do. And that library drives sales. Apps have become a major factor when consumers select a smart phone. All of the other companies are building apps libraries, but none of them match Apple yet. The whole thing reminds me of the PC software bonanza of the 1980s and 1990s.

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Even though it only has about 7000 apps for its BlackBerry, RIM is focused on building an apps library. But RIM faces a difficult development environment that has to support widely varying processing power and user interfaces for the diversity of different BlackBerry models. Only a few models offer touch, for example. Anyway, don’t rule RIM out. BlackBerry is still the smart phone of choice of big companies. And it might just have the right app for you.

Finally, malware is cropping up more and more on smart phones. A lack of security in the phones themselves is one problem, but apps provide the ideal way for software bad guys to get their tricky and dangerous routines into your phone. Both Apple and RIM do vet their software, so that helps, but nothing is perfect. This problem is only going to get worse as more apps become available. And heaven help us when the ads arrive. They are on the way.