The Distimo report is a monthly report that shows current trends in the mobile application development marketplace. It takes into account all the handset manufacturers’ different stores through which they distribute applications on their devices. Here are some of the interesting developments:
– Mobile apps are cheap, or free. More than half of apps are below $2. So developers who charge high prices, remember, the large group of users out there should make you worry less about profit per sale.
– The iPad’s current application seems to cost a bit more than the iPhone. This can be attributed to increased development costs, but I have to commend developers who write universal apps. Universal apps you purchase once, and they run on both the iPhone and the iPad. Dont make me pay twice for two devices.
– The Android market is made up of more than 57% free apps. Why? Is it because Android users are less likely to buy apps than on other platforms? Or is it because the free apps are good enough?
– Games are still by far the most popular apps. Out of the top 10 paid for apps on the iPhone, 8 was games.
– Amazon’s Kindle app seems to be under fire. Apple’s iBooks app is the number one app on the Appstore. But its still great that Amazon is making their platform available to other platforms as well. After using the iPad, I have to say my Kindle has become neglected. And with good reason.
What is interesting is seeing how the appstore ecosystem is changing. iPhone still seems to be the one that has the monetary edge, but that might change soon enough. With the number of Android handsets being released, there is plenty of oppurtunities for developers. The number of free apps on Android might sound great, but this does not take into account the quality of these apps. Whereas the iPhone Appstore is verified by Apple on a app for app basis, Google’s marketplace has no such process.
The disadvatange to this is of course that low-quality or poorly designed apps get in there as well. While people criticize Apple’s quality control, there are just as many postive aspects as well.I really reckon Google can do with a similiar process – not to replace the current marketplace, but a “Google Verified” section for apps that Google does approve of. That way you have the best of both worlds.
That way you cater for both developers who want to quickly and easily want to get into the marketplace, but end users who want high quality apps can find them as well. Tools like AppBrain does address this somewhat, but what I am talking about is a official source of apps. Maybe Google should have a chat with AppBrain?
You can download the full Distimo report here.
