Gmail Adds OAuth support

So Gmail has added OAuth support to POP/IMAP access, which is awesome. And Gizmodo has written that they think this will usher in a flood of amazing new third party Gmail apps.

Ok, that’s the part I don’t quite understand. I understand that OAuth support is a major advantage in protecting users from rogue applications. More importantly, as a practical matter it allows users to more seamlessly change their Gmail passwords, something we should all do more regularly. But this all does come at some expense to app developers; just look at how many Twitter apps still don’t support OAuth.

But Gizmodo and others seems to be implying that OAuth will enable application capabilities that are not possible today. Can anyone think of any examples of this?

Or are people just thinking that better security will lead to more people adopting more third party apps? I don’t know about that, since most users still don’t know or care about OAuth, and the OAuth experience for native mobile apps still leaves much to be desired.

So what am I missing?