Tositek » Gadgets

Android Breaks 50,000 Apps, Where Are The Others?

Tositek — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:37:51 +0000

Google’s Android broke 50,000 apps in April 2010. While this is only a quarter of the apps Apple has with approx 200,000, it sure makes these two platforms the leaders. When looking at the smartphone market leader RIM Blackberry who only has approx 6500 apps and then last decades leader Palm with only 2000 apps. We can see who the new giants will be. Of course having even 100 apps on your smartphone seems overkill, but it sure is crazy cool to look through 1000s of apps. These new computer platforms are the new laptops just in miniature form.

When we look at the market share, RIM Blackberry owns 44%* of the U.S. smartphone market making them the leader in the US (Nokia is #1 in the world market). Apple only has a 19% share, Motorola 13%, HTC 12%, while Palm is down at 5%. This should be interesting to see how it plays out.

Apple's iPhone and Google Android, where is the Palm and Blackberry?

Even though the Blackberry sold 10.5 million to Apple’s 8 million units within the last four months. Apple is crushing RIM in app downloads, with Apple being at about 15 million daily downloads to RIM’s 1 million.

Either RIM needs to make big changes quickly or look to Android as there new operating system. If not, RIM at this time next year will be taking a nose dive while Apple and Android powered phones will take the lead.

My recommendation if you are looking for a new cell phone is first look at Apple’s iPhone and make it your benchmark, then cell phones running open-source Android, just because of the vast amount of apps that are available. Features were nice but large amounts of small apps are today’s game changer.

So where is Microsoft in this? Surely they should have been fighting for a piece of this pie.

*Research In Motion took to the stage at its Wireless Enterprise Symposium event to share information about the company. The company threw out a lot of numbers. Most of the RIM numbers came from that event.

Hearst Jumps Into the Apps Business

Tositek — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:56:59 +0000

Media Giant Plans to Crank Out Scores of iPhone Applications, Hoping 99-Cent Sales Add Up

Hearst, best known as a publisher of magazines and newspapers, is jumping into the business of developing software applications, or “apps,” for use on Apple Inc.’s iPhone. Hearst is focusing its apps on what it knows best: information, mainly in the realms of sports teams, players and celebrities, but also hobbies and topics, like coffee, Barbie and cupcakes.

Hearst eventually expects to offer thousands of apps that pull together news and photos about narrow slices of information. Dozens of applications already are available from Apple, with more expected to roll out over the next year. The apps sell for 99 cents and up for fans of the New York Yankees, Red Sox and other ball clubs, as well as for Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Coldplay and other musicians.

Sourced from WSJ

Only 10% iPod Apps Are Ready For iPad

Tositek — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:36:29 +0000

The AppSlice Web site reports that just 16,700 of the more than 140,000 applications that developers have created for the iPhone and iPod touch have been certified as iPad-compatible so far.