@iano made an interesting point: the lack of 4G in NYC is holding back app developers because less data hampers activity and word-of-mouth growth.

The Foursquare app is wickedly fast but it still takes me 5 seconds to check-in because of 3G. And if someone tells me about an awesome app over a cab ride, I can't quickly download it to check it out.

Everyone here is building (or has built) iOS apps in NYC, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts!

Also, free free to invite others who might have a unique perspective.

It's not the lack of 4g coverage for me (is that even true?), it's more the reliability and coverage of existing 3g networks – in midtown, it's impossible to get a decent connection of any type. added on to that, most of us spend 1-2 hours every day in the labyrinthine subway system, where there's nearly no coverage at all. the MTA's starting to add service in some stations, but i feel like we're at least a few years away from complete coverage underground.

I'm trying to remember last time I gave up on an app because of download speed.

I think more often than not I don't install apps from word-of-mouth because I feel like the effort to open the App Store, search, type my iTunes password, wait for download, wait for it to launch, then probably need to sign up and so on.

I'm just a datapoint though. Curious to hear other people's opinions.

Coverage feels worse here than SF but only incrementally. Cell coverage in the subway feels far off. Google wifi currently covers just as many (few) stations. I'd love to see stats on abandoned app installs. My hunch is that if you have a compelling app people will find a way to get it?

Being in the subway for hours every day definitely accentuates the lack of cell data coverage a bit here in nyc, but I feel like it's spotty everywhere I go around the country. I have no idea if there is or will be a practical solution to that anytime soon. The real problem is that way too few apps support any meaningful offline interaction. This thing in my pocket is a computer, not a dumb terminal that should have to be tethered to be useful.

It's "holding back" app devs in the same way that the graphics performance characteristics of mobile devices are holding back game developers. Even if we had consistently reliable wifi available to us everywhere in the city (including underground), it won't make or break a user's usage of an app. Until recently, Facebook's app was absolutely awful even on wifi but people used it anyway. I use Flipboard all the time and Cover Stories is dog slow even on wifi. Lack of a fast connection may hamper activity in a superficial sense, but it's a facile argument that covers up the real problem: that your product just doesn't bring me high enough value for me to use or tell people about it.

Google has solid data though on how speed definitely influences usage of websites. I think that trumps your anecdotal evidence.

And what percentage of Google's products outside of Search have been amazingly successful?

That warrants a different branch. :-) Maps, GMail, Chrome, Google Docs, Android, Youtube. All amazingly successful.

Yah, get a room, guys! :)

EJ, I want to like/favorite/retweet this line ten times:

"This thing in my pocket is a computer, not a dumb terminal that should have to be tethered to be useful."

If coverage/data isn't a problem, do you think the lack of density of tech early adopters is a significant barrier to entry then? NYC has more people but less Uber-loving nerds? Or no?

Trying to play devils advocate here. There are 10 million people and lot's of iPhones in this city. You'd think we'd see more apps and app developers.

more bandwidth would always be better, but Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest (usually) work fine for me on Verizon 3G in NYC. All of those are very media-intensive and users (myself included) are still happy to use them.

The one area where I can see this being legitimately problematic is video, but until my mobile device has a projector in it, I have only a fleeting interest in mobile video.

Content discovery, scarcity of engineering talent, and draconian copyright and IP laws are more significantly problematic than mobile bandwidth, in my honest opinion. I already have more content than I can consume. I don't want more.

Josh: Cell network coverage is definitely a problem, just not one I understand or want to tackle and not one I think is unique to NYC.

The number of apps coming out of NYC doesn't feel disproportionately small when comparing the size of our tech community vs silicon valley+SF's in general. I haven't seen any meaningful data on that, and it's definitely grown exponentially since I was here four years ago, but it still feels like a fraction of the number of engineers, vc's, etc. that are out there. That probably tracks with the number of early adopters too, although I feel like we might have a slight edge on word-of-mouth growth beyond early adopters because of the density of the city.