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By any measure Apple’s App Store has been a great success, passing the milestone of one billion downloaded applications (apps) in less than ten months, and reaching 1.5 billion downloads in one year.1 Indeed, the availability of a wide choice of apps can be critical to the commercial success of new smartphones. Even as more smartphones are sold, the creation of mobile applications to run on them is constrained by the fragmentation of the market between different platforms.
Mobile apps are add-on software for handheld devices, such as smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDA). Among the most popular are games, social networking, maps, news, business, weather and travel information. All of these leverage at least one of the device’s technical features: communications interfaces (Wi-Fi, WiBro/mobile WiMAX, GSM/EDGE, W-CDMA/UMTS/HSPA and Bluetooth), audio and video processors, camera, sensors or GPS module.
Vendor
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Operating system (OS)
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Programming Language
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Application store (launch date)
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Apple
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iPhone OS
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Objective-C
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iPhone App Store (07/08)
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LiMo Foundation
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LiMo Platform (Linux)
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Java, native (C/C++)
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not yet available
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Microsoft
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Windows Mobile
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Visual C#/C++
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Windows Mobile Marketplace (09/09)
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Open Handset Alliance
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Android (Linux)
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Java
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Android Market (10/08)
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Palm
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Palm OS
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C/C++
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Palm App Catalog (06/09)
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webOS (Linux)
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JavaScript, HTML5
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Qualcomm
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BREW
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C/C++
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Plaza Retail (05/08)
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RIM
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BlackBerry OS
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Java
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BlackBerry App World (04/09)
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Symbian Foundation
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Symbian
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C++
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Nokia Ovi Store (05/09)
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Handset manufacturers, mobile network operators and suppliers of mobile operating systems (see Table 1) are opening storefronts on-line in attempts to capitalize on growing consumer demand. High-end devices that are able to run mobile apps need an attractive and expanding range of these apps if they are to generate hardware sales and network revenues. Between 2008 and 2009, research firm Ovum expects the market for smartphones to grow by 23 per cent, against an overall decline in the total mobile phone market caused by the economic crisis.2 Smartphone shipments are forecast to reach more than 400 million by 2014, nearly all capable of running apps from at least one store.
Table 1: Characteristics of selected mobile platforms
A recent market study by consultant Gravitytank of owners of smartphones revealed that 70 per cent of respondents had purchased and installed one app in the previous month and that users had an average of 21 installed apps.3 A quarter of these were paid apps, with prices starting at around US$1. Many applications are offered free of charge, in order to win new customers for a future paid application, others are for customers of an already existing website or service (see Box 1). For instance, the NY Times app for BlackBerry and iPhone fetches the latest news and displays it proportioned to the screen of the device, with the option to customize the selection of news items.
Box 1: ITUing on your smartphone – Ideas for the first mobile ITU app?
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