14 DAY TRIAL // ABI Research has released the results of a study conducted to assess the impact of higher-density displays in Apple’s iDevices, as well as the company’s increased cap for games downloaded over wireless connections. They found that games are now generally much larger than they were only six months ago.
The global average app size across all categories was 23 megabytes in September, a 16% spike compared to March, when ABI presumably conducted a similar study.
For games (the most popular app category), the average size was 60 megabytes, which translates into a six-month increase of 42%, according to ABI Research’s Mobile Application Markets Research Service.
Senior analyst Aapo Markkanen extrapolates that the spike was mainly caused by two factors.
One of them was “Apple’s decision in March to increase the maximum size of 3G/4G-downloadable apps from 20MBs to 50MBs” which, according to Markkanen, “clearly had an unleashing effect on developers.”
“Their games can now be more complex and graphically polished, while still being able to benefit from the instant gratification of cellular downloads,” said the analyst.
Another was the third-generation iPad with its huge Retina display, which requires crisper graphics and much higher resolutions. And, with the iPhone 5 on the scene, universal apps – binaries that install on all iDevices – have ballooned considerably.
Because of this, Markkanen predicts that “consumers with 16GB devices are likely to become more conscious about what apps to keep and what to uninstall, so the developers’ bar to impress will be getting even higher than it is now.”
“This could also speed up the adoption of the mobile cloud as a storage remedy quite significantly,” he says.
Indeed, the newest generations of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch now start at 16GB as the minimum storage capacity. An iPad mini starting at 8GB of NAND Flash is said to launch next week, though such rumors aren’t backed by any hard evidence.