Killer application

[2][3] Although the term was coined in the late 1980s[4][5] one of the first retroactively recognized examples of a killer application is the VisiCalc spreadsheet, released in 1979 for the Apple II.

[8] The co-creator of WordStar, Seymour Rubinstein, argued that the honor of the first killer app should go to that popular word processor, given that it came out a year before VisiCalc and that it gave a reason for people to buy a computer.

[11] However, whereas WordStar could be considered an incremental improvement (albeit a large one) over smart typewriters like the IBM Electronic Selectric Composer,[12] VisiCalc, with its ability to instantly recalculate rows and columns, introduced an entirely new paradigm and capability.

One mark of a good computer is the appearance of a piece of software specifically written for that machine that does something that, for a while at least, can only be done on that machine.The earliest recorded use of the term in print is in the May 24, 1988 issue of PC Week: "Everybody has only one killer application.

"[15][16] The definition of "killer app" came up during the deposition of Bill Gates in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust case.

[18] Reviewing the iPhone's first decade, David Pierce for Wired wrote that although Jobs prioritized a good experience making calls in the phone's development, other features of the phone soon became more important, such as its data connectivity and ability to install third-party software (which was added later).