14 DAY TRIAL // Two words you hear almost every day: Facebook and iPhone. And it’s no wonder! The two platforms are definitely the hottest borderline in gaming at the moment. Facebook brings a gigantic user base to the table and iPhone offers an extra-terrestrial access and a ready-made market place.
But, somehow, the Apple Store seems to have taken the lead. As a Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse report says, both platforms are growing, but the iPhone’s grows faster due to the so-called “monetization possibilities.” This trick of Apple’s inventive guys makes the reason for which the App Store is carrying twice as many applications as the Facebook platform, the unofficial Apple weblog, Tuaw relates.
Another interesting result from the Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse report is made on the background of the iPhone developers, more like their DNA. Therefore, they come from a good mix of places. Some of them have traditional development backgrounds, but up to 20% of the developer base is made of individuals with no past experience. So, Apple has open-minded guys in their sailing-through-tech-market boat.
The soon-to-be-released iPad will most probably be a big driver in application development. Even before its official release on the market, Flurry discovered that the number of “in development” software project apps started every month had reached 185 percent.
The App Store is already the biggest application platform of the past few years and is thought to grow even bigger this year connected to the iPad’s launch.
“Despite the fact that the App Store is now maturing, reaching its two year anniversary this summer, we are encouraged that native iPhone application developers are still relevant, representing 20% of the heritage pie, the second largest category. This means that the barrier to entry is still low enough for start-ups to enter and innovation to flourish. However, those days may be numbered as "discoverability" has become a significant issue, and now "marketing muscle" is starting to count more in the App Store. This favors brands and larger companies with resources to spend their way in. We are seeing signs that big brands are becoming more active, now perceiving that the iPhone has reached critical mass. With iPhone and iPod Touch now exceeding 70 million units world-wide, we expect 2010 to be the year of brands entering the iPhone. Going forward, we will especially see more movement by established brands from media, retail and CPG. In particular, traditional media (News, Books, TV, Film, Music, etc.) growth will accelerate aggressively with the introduction of the iPad,” the official report underlines.