Skyhook Wireless, provider of XPS, the patented hybrid location system, today released a report on trends in location-aware apps from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Marketplace and Blackberry App World.
The study found a great disparity in app cost between the three stores. The average price of a location-aware app in Blackberry App World is $13.60, compared with $3.60 in the iTunes App Store and $0.84 in the Android Marketplace.
The Apple App Store has the greatest number of location-based applications, at over 2,300, and the highest percentage of paid-for LBS apps, at over 75%. Sixty seven percent of Blackberry apps [57 location‐aware apps total] are paid and eighty percent of Android Marketplace apps [300 location‐aware apps total] are free.
After standardizing app types across all three App Stores, this report found 17 different types of apps that use location. The most popular location aware apps are Travel, Navigation, and Social Networking, but new types of apps, like Music, Finance, and Games, are also integrating location in new ways.
“Skyhook’s comparative study of location aware app stores reveals three very different types of stores in key measurements like the average cost of apps, total number of apps and growth over time.” said Kate Imbach, director of marketing and developer programs at Skyhook Wireless, in the press release. “We are excited to release the first in a series of Skyhook Wireless App Store reports to track the evolution of location apps within these app stores.”
Standardizing app types across the three reviewed stores found that the iPhone has the greatest diversity of apps [over 35,000 apps total]. Contrary to expectations, Business & Productivity is not the most popular category on Blackberry and there are far more Blackberry apps [total number of apps not specified] in Travel, Navigation and Utilities. Android apps [ over 3,000 apps] are concentrated in similar areas. Many applications in unexpected categories are also using location – like Music, Finance, Health, Shopping and Games.
Skyhook Wireless provides the patented Wi‐Fi positioning system and XPS, the world’s first hybrid location system. Skyhook’s database includes the location of over 100 million Wi‐Fi access points and 700,000 cell towers. In addition, it supports over 2,300 location-based applications across 50 million devices. This results in over 200 million location requests a day with 15 billion requests in 2008, and 25 billion requests in 2009 to date.
For the Location Aware App Report, Skyhook systematically researches location-aware applications in Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Marketplace and Blackberry’s App World, and will publish the results of this research monthly.
The full free report (.pdf) is here.
Source: Skyhook Wireless
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s see…
Location-aware apps:
• Apple App Store: 2,300+
• Google Android: 300
• BlackBerry App World: 57
Total apps:
• Apple App Store: 35,000+
• Google Android: 3,000+
• BlackBerry App World: not specified
6.57% of Apple App Store apps are location aware. Using the same percentage, BlackBerry’s App World would have a grand total of just 867 apps. It really is a small “World” after all, huh, RIM? 
