As mentioned, OSS projects often lack the "unifying cognitive model". I've also found that with iphone apps, users expect a high level of polish on an app. (A little drop-shadow here, a little shine there, move that button 1-pixel to the right, etc.) It's tedious and fiddly work, and I only bother because I don't want to lose a sale. People often say about 80% of the app is interface - with the iphone, i'd say it's closer to 95%.
If OSS projects were able to motivate developers to work on the boring stuff like graphics and layout, the apps would look a lot better and adoption on the desktop would certainly shoot up.
Comments
As mentioned, OSS projects often lack the "unifying cognitive model". I've also found that with iphone apps, users expect a high level of polish on an app. (A little drop-shadow here, a little shine there, move that button 1-pixel to the right, etc.) It's tedious and fiddly work, and I only bother because I don't want to lose a sale. People often say about 80% of the app is interface - with the iphone, i'd say it's closer to 95%.
If OSS projects were able to motivate developers to work on the boring stuff like graphics and layout, the apps would look a lot better and adoption on the desktop would certainly shoot up.