A Flood of iApps?
Bloomberg considers the effect of the new Apple iPhone OS 3.0 on the apps store and predicts more apps and fiercer competition amongst developers. Read the full story here. See the apps store here.
Now, I do not have an iPhone and wouldn’t get one on a bet. I don’t like Apple’s walled garden. (Heck, if I had my way, I’d ditch my son’s iPod, just to get iTunes off the Windows box.)
I do have a Windows Smartphone (thanks to the economy, I can’t get that Android yet) which I am quite happy with, and I have purchased some apps for it, most of them via Handango.
Stick-in-the-mud that I am, the apps I’ve gotten include an ebook reader (great for airports and waiting rooms), a decent file manager, an office suite, an RSS aggregator, a decent timer/stopwatch, and, of course, Opera Mobile. There are a couple of others, but those are the ones I actually use regularly.
(Aside: I can’t imagine putting something like this on my phone–or anywhere else, for that matter.)
An excerpt from the Bloomberg story:
- “The new iPhone OS 3.0 will enable developers to create even more compelling apps,” said Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman.
- The trick is keeping customers engaged. IPhone owners use each of their apps about 20 times on average before it loses their attention, according to Greystripe Inc., which culled the data from its software that sells ads on mobile phones.
- “The competition on the App Store now is rather fierce — if you get a bad review, you’re headed for obscurity,” said Mike Westby, founder of TimeStream Software in Portland, Oregon, which has sold thousands of travel-planning guides for Disney theme parks. “If someone believes they can develop a shallow, yet flashy app, post it to the App Store and then sit back and wait for revenue to roll in, they’re in for a surprise.”