“The market for mobile applications, or apps, will become ‘as big as the internet,’ peaking at 10 million apps in 2020, a leading online store says,” Maggie Shiels reports for The BBC. “‘Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet,’ according to Ilja Laurs, chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent application store.”
“While developers rush headlong to create applications for this burgeoning marketplace, Mr Laurs warned that many are simply doomed to fail,” Shiels reports. “‘The reality is that this space is only so big and only able to support so many people. Unfortunately the overhype that goes with [Apple’s] App Store is what has driven so many to rush to develop for the market. It is fashionable to do apps and every media outlet tells you apps are cool. But the economics are a different story. The ratio of those developers who will fail is about 90%; they will simply not make a return on their investment or make a good enough living at this,’ said Mr Laurs.”
“To date, Apple runs the most popular application store with over 65,000 applications. Last week it notched up another milestone with 1.5 billion downloads,” Shiels reports. “Its success was a shock both to Apple and the industry. However, every smartphone company is trying to replicate it, from BlackBerry makers Research in Motion to the world’s biggest mobile phone business, Nokia.”
MacDailyNews Take: That should read: Trying – and failing – to replicate Apple’s App Store. Have Palm managed to break the 50 apps mark, yet?
Shiels continues, “Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said he was not sure the consumer or the industry needed any more application stores.
“The App Store is flawed – right now [it] is just a bucket of apps. You need to get beyond that bucket and give the consumer the opportunity to wander down a really relevant aisle of content and applications that they can get access to. ‘When this problem is solved, the type of application you will see will be about more than an iBeer drinking app or a candle that flickers in different colours. The type of application you will see will help enrich your life in some way.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dirty Pierre le Punk” for the heads up.]
