A Web Of Apps. It is remarkable to think that we’re in the early days of the app era, when there are already close to 600,000 iOS applications and nearly 400,000 on Android (source: Distimo). The growth of these app ecosystems has been rapid, exponential and shows no signs of slowing down. As well it shouldn’t: the untapped, addressable market for mobile apps involves hundreds of millions of users.
And yet, app discovery remains a challenge. Whether in an app store, on the device itself, or via a third-party service. Whoever cracks the nut of app discovery will have the potential to be the next Google: the search engine of the modern age. App discovery is a key focus for a number of startups. While that’s a rich topic for examination, it’s not one that can be summed up in a single post. Why do I keep referring to a web of apps?
Perhaps not yet. Apps can launch other apps. It’s still somewhat rare to see this in action, but it’s starting to happen. Clever. Infographic Of The Day: All About The Mobile App Market. Everything you hear about these days is mobile-app this and mobile-app that.
But what does the mobile-app market look like? What do people want from apps? And what does the competitive landscape look like when you compare iPhone to Windows to Android? Lucky for you, we have answers, thanks to James West of GDS Infographics, who created this superb collection of facts and figures for the iStrategy conference. Let’s dive in. Games are obviously the killer app of the mobile market--64% of people who pay for an app also download a game; other popular ones include social networking, weather, entertainment, and banking: [Click to view larger] But the really astounding stat lies at the bottom of that chart: Despite all the noise about Android owning more market share than Apple, Apple has 300,000 apps available compared to Android’s truly pitiful 25,000. Moving onto the next chunk of insights. But again, pay attention to the bottommost charts in that panel (above).
It's Like a Big iPad! Look for 2012 to Be the Year of the TV App. InShare18 What's the opportunity in TV apps for marketers?
Part one in a two-part series. The child of one of our staff members was in our LA office the other day and saw some TV app design work for a cable company on a conference room screen. Her initial reaction was to assume it was a blown-up version of her favorite Apple device and she started touching it to make stuff happen. Not quite yet, kiddo, and you're getting fingerprints on my screen. A Little History Consumers have been promised the "year of the interactive TV" for about two decades now. Yeah, not so much; and that was 11 years ago. Why not? Technology The research report I mentioned above posited that companies with existing "living room" relationships were in the best position to take advantage of interactive TV. That's not surprising. User Behavior Faced with consumer apathy toward bad products, the industry did the most obvious thing: pointed the finger at the consumer. Enter Second Screen and iOS Today Time Warner Cable.
Spotify, Android, Apple TV, And The New Appathy. Apps are coming at us from all directions, and they're getting both more sophisticated and simpler--the app economy is booming.
But as everyone and their dog makes something they deem fit to call an "app," the supply will arrive like a flood. Then what will we do as a consumer society--wallow, sink, or swim? And if everyone's building an app, do we ever need to buy one? Last week Spotify added a powerful gateway into its system by enabling third-party apps to work inside its streaming music system.
It's a response, Spotify says, to many customer requests for it to add this or that additional facility...and instead of doing this piecemeal, the company has decided to let third-party developers build them. The thing is, writing an app for Spotify isn't necessarily a very tricky thing. The definition of an app itself may be expanding, too, as apps arrive on more platforms.
Then there's the Android app marketplace--with apps showing up for every flavor of Android device. This is confusing.