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Mobile app stores compared, what will be the future?

Max — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:26:51 +0000

Scott Janousek posted his slides from Multi–Mania 2009 conference that was recently held in Belgium. The slides are very well organized and are full with useful information very well laid out and presented in concise and very intuitive manner. I recommend everyone interested in mobile trends and developments (especially infomation regarding mobile markets to flip through the presentations).

I unfortunately could not attend the presentation itself, I really wish I could though…

The App Store Revolution Craze

OVI store to have 20.000 applications on day one?!

OVI store to have 20.000 applications on day one?!

Max — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:07:41 +0000

Reportedly, the OVI store from Nokia, will have about 20.000 application on the day one launch. Although this number may seem overwhelming, this is only about 50% of the applications available from App Store – the iPhone marketplace. But the App Store was kicking for some time now, and it actually started with much less than 20.000 applications on day one.

Android market pales in comparison. It had only about 50 (!!!) applications on day one and about 100 after the first week when google were rapidly adding more and more. After they opened the gates for developers though, the flood of the applications followed almost immediately. Unfortunately, not necessarily quality ones. There are apparently not so many very quality applications on Android market, but fortunately this ration is rapidly changing with more and more talented developers flocking to the platform.

Ease of development is comparable to iPhone and there are many more Java developers that can easily leverage their existing skill than there are Objective C developers out there. However there are still much more developers for iPhone than there are for Android. This however will probably change when the platform will become “more sexy out of the box”. Support for multiple platforms will also contribute to popularity of developers. Surprisingly as it sounds, many developers just can’t afford a Mac to start develop for an iPhone.

I am advocating and will keep advocate that out of the box ease of development is a key factor in drawing more developers and creating a vibrant community of developers and enthusiasts around the platform, which is what eventually created the success of the platform as a whole. RIM – fails short both on ease of the development and support for multiple platforms, so no surprise there whatsoever. It is on the right track, but it keeps moving very slow and still has a lot to learn here.

Blackbery soon to open appstore and is accepting application submissions

Max — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:05:12 +0000

There’s no doubt that Apple is definitely contributing BIG innovations. One of the recent ones which was not directly celebrated by the customers, but which opened a lot of new possibilities and directions is the appstore.The idea is simple and yet genius – let’s give people instant access to the content specialized for their OS and device with convenient method for finding just the right content and zero effort installation process. The result – great success.

The Android adopted the idea and has its own Android Market. Google have learned from some of the mistakes Apple did with its appstore and introduced some new ones. Microsoft is rumored to be developing its own version of the applications market.

But wait, let’s get back to the mobile world. RIM (the developers of Blackberry devices) has been long rumored to be also developing its own version of the market. It is hard to say what is exact market share of Blackberry/Apple/Android/Windows Mobile/Others, but most of the experts and sources agree that the Blackberry market share is very close to the Apple’s iPhone and some reports show slightly larger market share. Te real problem with the Blackberry is the lack of cool applications. There are obviously reasons for that – the business model of RIM is very different from the model Apple has for its phones and yet this is the cause of the “problem” but there ought to be a solution nevertheless. And it seems like finally there will be a solution to shortage from RIM’s side.

RIM called for participation in developing applications for its phones some time ago (official press release). Recently they have announced that they will start to receive applications for evaluation to appear on its storefront (that’s basically how they call their version of applications market).

That’s definitely great news for companies and developers alike who are developing for Blackberry . The competition will be tough . Let the best prevail!