I did look at your link and it is also worth a read!

If you are back and following the conversation I’d like to understand a little more about your definition and criteria for ‘real applications.’

Before starting to progress mobile development I encourage businesses to answer three core questions: ’how’ are you going to approach? ’why’ is your offer relevant? and ’what’ do you expect a consumer to do?

This helps to define:
1. Presence – supported devices, (Logical, relevant and trustable)
2. Engagement – utility and features (attractive, functional and Easy to use)
3. Discovery – distribution (accessible, compatible and performant)
4. Revenue – must deliver value first (relevant, influencing and actionable)

Mobile comes with a whole set of new rules. The challenge is that many businesses have not yet figured out these new rules. Most try to adapt what they understand from existing media and simply move it to the next. This will not work. Understand these new rules and the channel can deliver real returns.

The winners will be those not simply with content but those who can recognise and deliver a contextual, relevant tailored offering to a mobile consumer. It will be the ones that ‘get mobile’; those that deliver to the device capabilities, present the expected features, use location well, support social and viral capabilities, add value through marketing and advertising.

http://www.indigo102.com/archives/521

Martin Wilson
CEO
Indigo102

1) Applications: Includes: Front-ends to SaaS applications; Games; Toys (funny sounds, wallpapers, etc.); Utilities; Device Emulators; And real applications. I would bet that real applications is a small percentage of the app in the app store.

2) Free vs paid: Many applications are free because tiny (1 person part-time ISVs) are using “free” for viral marketing. Others are free because they are really front-ends to SaaS or content portals, or ad based back-ends, etc. The front-ends may be more interesting one to watch, as there are many monetization models evolving here.

The Games category has great potential. Game SW is already a huge and growing market, despite the recession. While ad budgets and branding will increasingly dominate this category (following the overall trend in entertainment), the iPhone opens the door to disruptive gaming innovators.

Utiltities may be a sleeper. We have seen PC utilities, eg anti-virus, help Symantec grow to giant size. Let’s watch this.

Device Emulators: The iPhone can simulate or emulate other devices, eg an HP scientific calculator or navigational devices. These applications can command good prices because they emulate devices that cost $100′s. However the sales volumes may be so small that statistics discussed above don’t show this.

Real applications: This is early days. Other impacts are low price expectations by users; small screen, lack of keyboard.

Thanks for showing your work while crunching the numbers. Not many analysts are comfortable letting everyone see how they make their sausage. Frankly, it makes the analysis more useful because we know what we’re getting.

At this point in the mobile application market, I think it’s important to use both qualitative (like user interviews) and quantitative data (like these stats). The entire market is in flux, as are user habits. There’s not much of this out there.

I suspect that these numbers will vary wildly by category. Game users will likely churn through applications far faster than a business user.

Speaking from personal experience, my kids download more games than I can count. They try them, play with them and delete them when they get tired of them. On the other hand, I (a business user) only occasionally download apps, but if they’re useful I keep them and use them as often as necessary (e.g. when I’m traveling, etc.). Obviously that’s just a single family perspective.

-David

David Eads
Mobile Strategy Partners LLC
http://www.mobilestrategypartners.com

Thanks,

Stephen

I loved the quote in the above blog: “Don’t ignore the end user! Or your application will be dropped like a hot potato!” … 1 star reviews in app storefronts will kill your revenue growth. Of course, what everyone also knows is that it’s difficult to access users in-market, as well as accessing hundreds of different types of handsets for testing … that’s what Mob4Hire solves. I offer this link to a .jpg of “User Feedback in the 10 Steps of the Mobile Development Cycle” for those wanting more info: http://tinyurl.com/yfrhfch

Thanks for readin’

Stephen King, CEO
http://www.Mob4Hire.com
http://www.mob4hire.blogspot.com