We started a series a while back on Navigating the Mobile Ecosystem that we have not been that good at keeping current. As you know by now a major element (albeit a new one) in the mobile ecosystem is the application store. Essentially an [mobile] application store is a distribution channel for mobile applications.
At the About Mobility Blog Enrique Ortiz has written an analysis on the Google App Market (PDF download is also available). Enrique warns us that the paper is based on his personal view and is therefore unscientific. He may be a little hard on himself because it does have some interesting insights that you might benefit from. Following are the first few paragraphs so you can get an idea what he writes about:
There are like ten thousand applications on the Android Market while the iPhone App Store has many, MANY times that. Everyone knows that the Google App Market is not doing as great as the iPhone App Store. Even when trying to compare oranges-to-oranges, this is, for example, the number of apps and apps-downloaded and paid-for on a given/same period of time or the same age-period of the store themselves, for some reason the iPhone has clearly done a much better job.
It is a very interesting problem. There are so many variables involved in this problem, starting with the human-factor variable, that makes this nut so hard to crack. Bring on the human-factors experts! Bring the designers and engineers. And let’s not forget the marketers! This problem is way beyond pure engineering — I’ve always said that the iPhone was created by designers and marketers and engineers, while the Android was made by engineers.
Why such big differences between both stores?
* Are iPhone users really unique/different?
* Are Android apps “sucky” or are Android users cheap?
* Are the reported store/market numbers skewed?
* Does it have to do with “critical mass”?
* Or is it all due to user-experience — the experience finding, buying and downloading applications?
There you have it. Please head over there for the entire paper and a better understanding of the mobile ecosystem… which as we have said before – understanding it will help you navigate it. Navigating it is a big part of your mobile strategy.
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