More Than 10,000 Apps for Android Tablets

Archos, the French device maker, says it has more than 10,000 Android apps available via its AppsLibs store, positioned as an alternative to Android Market.

Archos offers a range of its own Android media devices with screens from 2.8" to 10.1". The manufacturer has proven to be a durable and innovative maker of mobile multimedia devices and its initiative in apps is one more proof of its market savvy.

Maybe because its empathy to device makers, its app store has less painful hardware requirements than Android Market e.g.,devices without GPS or integrated cameras are supported without prejudice). AppsLib also supports products with better-spec CPUs, graphics hardware, and memory than standard Android smartphones. It offers payment by PayPal, so apps can be purchased in more than 20 currencies. It supports apps written for tablets with larger displays and screen resolutions.

Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:14 pm  

Top 10 Most Downloaded Apps

1. Deezer (Multimedia)
2. Bluetooth File Transfer (Communication)
3. Talking Tom Cat (Entertainment)
4. Super Mario (Games)
5. Solitaire (Games)
6. YouTube Downloader - VideoBox (Multimedia)
7. eBuddy Messenger (Communication)
8. Aldiko Book Reader (Reference)
9. antivirus (Communication)
10. Little Metal Ball Lite (Games)

Go AppsLib

You Can Develop Brand Apps for Coca-Cola

The GSMA is now accepting entries for its Brand App Challenge, a competition in which mobile application developers create “brand apps” for a select group of global consumer brands, including Coca-Cola (with its Coca-Cola, Coke Zero and Diet Coke brands).

Winners of the Brand App Challenge will be named at the GSMA Mobile World Congress, which will be held 14-17 February, 2011 in Barcelona.

It's a clever way for GSMA to get sponsorship money but an interesting opportunity for developers who want recognition and a calling card to bigger clients.

“The Brand App Challenge will create networking and business opportunities which benefit the brands, application developers and the broader mobile ecosystem,” says Michael O’Hara, CMO at GSMA. “This competition taps the creativity and capabilities of the mobile application developer community to address brand and industry challenges, and we are thrilled to be working with Coca-Cola to help them maximise the power of mobile.”

Developers will compete by creating customised mobile apps for the participating brand sponsors based on the objectives and guidance provided by the individual brands. The apps will address a wide range of mobile operating systems including Android, Apple iOs, BlackBerry OS 6, HP webOS, Symbian and Windows Phone 7.

“With the smartphone revolution, app developers stand at the vanguard of mobile innovation,” said Tom Daly, Group Manager, Strategy & Planning, Global Interactive Marketing Group at The Coca-Cola Company. “Coca-Cola is proud to sponsor the App Challenge and we look forward to seeing how the world's developers leverage the happiness our brands inspire via novel and powerful apps.”

Developers can sign up for the Brand App Challenge via an online portal and then upload a brief video demonstrating their proposed brand app. Each brand will select five finalists who will then compete to become the ultimate winner for the respective brands. Submissions for the Brand App Challenge will be accepted until 10 January and the finalists will be named approximately one month before Mobile World Congress 2011. The Brand App Challenge winners will be announced as part of the Mobile World Congress conference programme and will receive cash awards for their winning efforts.

Go Brand App Challenge

What 2400 App Developers Really Think

Taken September 14-16, the Appcelerator/IDC Q4 Mobile Developer Report shows while Apple leads in iPhone/iPad interest, developers favor Android in the long-term.

•72% of developers say Android “is best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future,” (compared to 25% for iOS).  59% of developers now favor Android’s long-term outlook, vs. 35% for iOS (this gap has widened 10 points since a survey last June).

•Yet Apple iOS continues to dominate in all categories relating to market/revenue opportunity and current devices. iPhone continues to lead overall developer sentiment with 91% saying they are “very interested” in developing for the device (compared to 82% for Android phones).

•Developers show enthusiasm for connected TVs, with 44% saying they are ‘very interested’ in developing for Google TV vs. 40% for Apple TV.

•Android tablets are poised for developer lift-off with 62% expressing strong interest, Android has similar enthusiasm to the iPad at a similar point in time (last January showed iPad at 58%).

•Research shows webOS and BlackBerry tablets currently have little interest from developers (16% for both)...

Developers make significant use of third-party APIs. The study reveals the battles going on behind-the-scenes between these popular developer plug-ins (% of respondents say they currently use or will soon use the following APIs in a mobile application):

•Social: Facebook slightly leading Twitter 65% to 60%, with Foursquare trailing at 22%.

•Commerce: iOS in-app purchasing and PayPal payments are also locked 49% to 48% in a head-to-head battle for mobile commerce leadership. Of note, PayPal is nearly as popular as Google Checkout (33%) and Amazon (18%) combined. PayPal also leads iOS in developer popularity in Europe and Asia.

•Media: Use of the camera (58%) far exceeds use of popular photo sharing services Flickr (21%) and TwitPic (19%). Stronger interest in using the camera for barcode scanning (31%) and augmented reality (41%) shows developers have bigger plans for mobile phones than simple photo sharing.•Advertising: iAd (52%) leads AdMob (36%) with developers noting a preference for iAd’s richer ad units and higher click-through rates, even as fill rate remains an issue.

•Analytics: Application analytics (54%) is currently the most popular form of analytics, however there is strong interest in transaction (42%) and geo-analytics (35%) as location and commerce take center stage in mobile.

Four out of five developers say their users prefer native applications to mobile websites because of user experience expectations. When ranking features needed for their apps, developers prioritize native features as most important (% of developers using or planning to use feature):

1.Native user interface (91%)
2.Local database (81%)
3.Push notifications (74%)
4.Web services/Internet connectivity (72%)
5.Geo-location (69%)
6.Facebook integration (65%)
7.Google maps (62%)
8.Twitter integration (60%)
 9.Camera support (58%)
10.Filesystem (56%)
11.Application analytics (54%)
12.iAd (52%)
13.Audio/Video playback (50%)
14.iOS in-app payments (49%)
15.PayPal payments (48%)

Go Appcelerator/IDC Study

Amazon Enters the App Store Jungle

It's a no-brainer: Amazon will open an Android app-store business. Press reports say the company has already sent welcome kits to tempt some developers.

Their main competition would be Google’s Android market (about 90,000 apps) and others such as AndSpot and SlideMe who already offer an independent Android app store. 

Unlike Apple's App Store (with 250,000 apps), Google allows multiple app stores with Android OS. Independent app stores will compete against each other, using distinct search and user interfaces, greater availability, international appeal and better fiscal deals for developers.

Most app developers will sign up to any distribution channel that can increase the visibility (and sales!) of its apps.

Amazon is not yet revealing much, but (unlike many of the new independents) Amazon brings to the table a huge database of existing customers. It's instant success if Amazon controls this first part of its plan: woo the right developers, and control which apps join to ensure Amazon App Store comes out of the start-up box with an attractive offering.

According to reports, developers will have to pay $100 to sign up, just like the Apple app store requires. And they will want developers of paid apps to give Amazon customers the best deal possible. Like Wal-Mart squeezing hardware vendors, Amazon won't let their customers pay suppliers any sort of premium. It's a volume marketplace and the King of Volume wants low prices (or at least the same price as anywhere else, never higher.)

Amazon could bring value-added features already known to Amazon customers:  recommendations, wish lists and deals.

You can bet your Kindle that Amazon will need deals with device makers to get its app store into smartphones, tablets and connected TVs.

This could also create a whole new era for smartphones: an era of bloatware like PCs that come bundled with multiple software trials as many emerging app stores "bribe" hardware vendors with promises, visibility, and...yes, even cash.

No one has yet mentioned Amazon Web Services who already offer a cluster computing service to provide high-performance applications for enterprises that don’t want to build their own. So Amazon's own infrastructure folks already know how to deliver apps via cloud. Not a mass market service but Amazon has B2B apps on one side-- and a mass market business selling books, software and more on the other. 

In between the two, Amazon should manage very well in the App Store business.

Go Amazon to Open App Store

Move Over Antennagate: Now We Have "AppGate"

Researchers from Duke University, Penn State University and Intel Labs created a tool called Taintdroid to monitor smartphone applications and their behaviour.

The researchers looked at 30 randomly selected applications and found 66% used sensitive data suspiciously.
TaintDroid revealed 15 of 30 will send users' geographic location to remote advertisement servers. None of the fifteen applications mentions such data collection practice in the user license agreements, if present at all.

The study also found 7of the 30 send a unique phone (hardware) identifier, and, in some cases, the phone number and SIM card serial number to developers.


Go Taintdroid

Most Popular Paid Applications in Q3, Says Distimo

Distrimo reports the most popular paid applications in Q3 2010 were:

• Pages (Apple App Store for iPad, by Apple Inc.)
• Angry Birds (Apple App Store for iPhone, by Clickgamer.com)
• BeBuzz – LED Colors and Audible Reminders (BlackBerry App World, by Bellshare GmbH)
• Beautiful Widgets (Google Android Market, by LevelUp Studio)
• ToonWarz (Nokia Ovi Store, by Polarbit)
• mCraig – Mobile Craigslist Browser (Palm App Catalog, by SplashData Inc)
• Meon (Windows Marketplace for Mobile, by Manbolo).

Go Distimo

Ovi's Global Expansion in Numbers

For developers creating apps for Ovi Store (taking a shot at that $10 million in prizes), take note: 70 developers have each passed 1 million or more downloads on Ovi Store. Herocraft, (of Farm Frenzy fame) has seen over 10 million downloads from Ovi Store and Offscreen (a range of touchscreen apps) has already seen more than 45 million downloads.

With the number of active Nokia service users now approaching 140 million users worldwide, Ovi says it is making good progress: more, 200,000 new users are signing up to Ovi daily and Ovi Store downloads are now topping 2.3 million per day (that’s 300k more than a couple of weeks ago).

Ovi is now available in 190 countries around the worlds. In India, China and Indonesia, more than 4.7 million people now subscribe to Ovi Life Tools. Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat now have more than 17 million users and Ovi Music packs 11 million tracks across 38 countries.

Go Ovi Global

What Are the Top Business Apps?

According to GetApp and their September ranking, the Top 10 would be...

1. NetSuite - Business Management Suite
2. SurveyGizmo - Online Surveys
3. WorkBooks - CRM
4. Net Atlantic - Email Automation
5. PipeJump - CRM
6. HyperOffice - Collaboration
7. WORKetc - CRM & Billing
8. LiveBall - Website Optimization
9. CompensationXL - HR & Compensation
10. RevX Advanced Billing & Customer Care - Billing & Customer Care

You can see the next 10 on their list by using the link below.

The GetApp.com Top 20 Business Apps  is based on a composite algorithm that incorporates several criteria, including listing popularity on GetApp.com, number of reviews and comments, social media presence such as Twitter and FaceBook followers, volume and quality of integration points, and input from analyst reports. The ranking is updated monthly.

OK, whenever you try to balance quantitative and qualitative factors, you do get a subjective result. But at least this is a list you can start from and decide for yourself.

Go GetApps Top 20 Business Apps

AT&T for Nokia Developers at CTIA

Nokia and AT&T create a $10 million cash and prize competition for mobile developers. The 2010 Calling All Innovators – No. America developer contest is open to worldwide developers to create apps and games for the Nokia N8 and other Nokia devicesfor No. American consumers.

Finalists for each of the 17 categories will be put forward to a judges from AT&T and Nokia who select 3 winners in each category. Category prize winners will walk away with $150,000 each and grand prize winners will pick up an additional $100,000 and the equivalent $6 million of marketing promotion.

Judges will be looking for new apps which take advantage of the new Symbian OS, the Nokia N8 hardware and the APIs available. There will be six different gaming categories alongside 11 different app categories, including business, entertainment, video and imaging, social networks and location.

Go AT&T and Nokia contest

Going to CTIA in USA this week? Go "AT&T for Nokia Developer Day" free at CTIA attendees.

Having Apps and Using Apps are Not Synonymous

The latest PEW research in USA (you can download a summary via the link) says clearly: having apps and using apps are not synonymous.

Of US adults who have apps on their phones, only about two-thirds of this group (68%) actually use that software. This means that 24% of U.S. adults are active apps users.

Older adult cell phone users in particular do not use the apps that are on their phones, and 1 in 10 adults with a cell phone (11%) are not even sure if their phone is equipped with apps.

Reading the headlines, the media has distorted this report by emphasing only the lack of use of apps. But the report is called THE RISE OF APP CULTURE.

And its conclusion is apps users are younger, more educated, and more affluent than other cell phone users. The apps user population skews male, and is much younger, more affluent, and more educated than other adults. (In USA, the apps-using population also skews slightly Hispanic when compared with other adult cell phone users.)

Those who download apps do so frequently: 53% say their most recent download was in the past 30 days ( and 33% say their last download was in the past week). Looking at all cell phone-using adults in the study, that equals 15% who downloaded apps in the past month and 10% who have downloaded apps in the past week. When you look at cell phone users under age 30, 20% downloaded an app in the past week.

While its US-based research, this free report is worth reading. There is so much to digest that we'll be using it for several news items.

Go PEW INTERNET

More Apps, Less Music Downloads at iTunes

Finnish analyst Asymco says download rates for iOS apps on iTunes will surpass music downloads. Based on data from the updated Music and App Store, the total number of app downloads has already reached the same level as that of songs in less than half the time.

Asymco concludes it took roughly 2.2 years for the App Store to serve 6.3 billion apps. It took about 5 years for the Music Store to reach that level.

Asymco thinks app downloads will overtake song downloads by year’s end as music downloads continue to slow. Asymco says iOS users are currently downloading 17.6 million apps compared to roughly 7.5 million songs per day, on average.

Great research and a clear chart but my favorite bit is in the comment section where it reports "... when the first fart app arrived it was an epiphany for me." lol

Go Asymco

Intel Launches AppUp to Play Catch-Up

Intel launches its own app store to help developers validate and distribute consumer software for devices built on Intel processors, whether they're smartphones, netbooks or tablet computers.

Renée James, senior VP/GM Intel Software and Services Group, says the store will distribute free and paid applications... from gaming to productivity-for-netbooks.

Intel will take a 30% cut of the revenues from app sales. Consumers will have a 24-hour test period before paying for an app.

James announced deals with Best Buy, Dixons and India's Croma to put Intel's AppUp service on netbooks sold through their outlets. Asus will put its own verson of AppUp on its netbooks in October.

Adobe Flash Platform Services, spurned by Apple recently, signed up 300 publishers for Intel and 100 already completed apps for the new Apps Up outlet.

Apple's mobile devices may rely on ARM but Intel is going for a whole handful of Apps here...

Bear in mind Intel's JV with Nokia to create MeeGo, mobile Linux... The first tablet using MeeGo, from Berlin the WeTab was launched this month.

How Much Apple REALLY Makes On An App

Apple app sales continue to rise, but last time analyst Piper Jaffray looked in June 2010, sales had reached $1.43 billion. Apple grosses about 30%, or $429 million. Subtract cost (credit card costs, storage, delivery etc) and Apple's gross profit is $189 million.

The App Store represents only 1% of Apple's overall profits since the App Store opened in June 2008, according to Piper Jaffray. That's not much compared to Apple's total turnover, but the App Store is supposed to sell more iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads. And so far, you would have to admit it's working well.

Piper Jaffray estimated 81% of apps downloaded were free as of June 2010, and the average price for a Top 50 paid app is $1.49.

On that basis, from the $1.49, Piper Jaffray says Apple takes home $0.23 or 14% of the sale.

The credit card companies do equally as well as Apple on each sale. Processing costs about $0.02 and the Developer (as it should be) is the real winner at $1.04, about 70%.

(Note: Apps on the iPad are more expensive, with ASP of the Top 30 averaging $4.66.)

More Apple App Developers Charge...While Android Developers Don't

According to Royal Pingdom, their research shows only 30% of the apps in Apple's store are free, while 65% of the apps in the Android Market are free.

Why? Pingdom thinks maybe more Google developers are hobbyists who can't get their app in Apple's store because they can't easily get past Apple's gate keepers. Another reason: Google only supports paid apps in 13 countries.

They even suggest: It's so much easier to install pirated software on Android phones than it is Apple phones so that perhaps discourages sales.

Business philosphy? Google gives away Android. Apple does not give away anything.

Or just plain corporate religion: Don't do evil.

TV Apps Will Reach $1.9 Billion by 2015

As we're coming up to IFA BERLIN, it's worth noting TV apps will soon be standard as revenues rocket from $10 million in 2010 to $1.9 billion by 2015.

According to a new report from GigaOM Pro, growth in revenue will come from a growing number of households that will have networked TVs. By 2015, 6 in 10 TVs shipped worldwide will have a network connection (Ethernet, Wi-Fi or both) and 70% of those will come with an embedded app platform and app store.

And that's before Apple announces a revamped Apple iTV strategy...

RIM Buys App Store Company

Research In Motion makes another acquisition as it battles iPhone and Android for the high end smartphone market.

Cellmania, founded in 1999, does a bunch of mobile infrastructure stuff, such as App Store infrastructure, letting mobile operators control the home screens of their customers' phones, and a content distribution network.

Analysts say RIM's real prize is Dr. Ronjon Nag, Cellmania's cofounder and CEO-- if he stays around.

Recent headlines regarding RIM's prospects against Apple and Google read, "RIM, the next Palm..."

Novell Launches SUSE Gallery, Linux App Store

Novell launches an app store called SUSE Gallery,with SUSE Linux software appliances for specific business needs.

The gallery provides “a storefront for end users to access more than 415,000 appliances,” according to Novell.

SUSE Gallery arrives one year after Novell launched the SUSE Appliance Program to help ISVs develop turnkey apps for SUSE Linux.

SUSE Linux suffers from Lack of ISV support (most business-Linux ISVs focus first on Red Hat).

The SUSE Appliance Program has attracted 82,000 users and nearly 3 million downloads since launch.

Go SUSE Gallery

Google DIY App Creation Software Tool for Android Platform

Google now offers a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ (DIY) app creation software tool for the Android platform.

App Inventor for Android encourages programmers, non-programmers, professionals and students to create mobile apps for Android-powered devices.

The tool enables DIY developers to drag code for different functions and rop them into a template. Consumers with no knowledge of Java (Android’s app programming language) could become first-time app creators.

Fortune's Seth Weintraub calculates if only 1% of Android phone buyers create an application, Android’s application store would grow by 1600 apps every day. That’s well over half a million additional apps created every year; more than five times the total number of apps available at present in Android Market.

Go App Inventor for Android

Dynamics Marketplace, Part of Microsoft's CRM 2011

Microsoft plans to follow Salesforce.com by releasing CRM 2011 with a marketplace site where partners can sell complementary applications.

CRM 2011 will be available in Beta form in September. The Dynamics Marketplace, which echoes Salesforce.com's AppExchange, will go live then, too.

Microsoft will also expand CRM Online to 40 new markets by end of the year, adding Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Cyprus, Peru, Trinidad, and Tobago to the list.

Samsung Thinking Games, Video Apps

World No.2 handset maker Samsung triples the size of its application store in many of its major European markets-- and expects even more growth from Wave, its first smartphone with Bada OS.

Samsung apps were inaugurated in September 2009 and accessible by mobile phone and PC.

Germany has experienced a 100% increase while the number of applications available in the United Kingdom, France and Italy has more than tripled in just only eight months.

Associated Press, Electronic Arts, Gameloft, Handmark, MySpace, Namco Bandai, Twitter, Universal Pictures and Zagat Survey are some of the  app providers.

Omar Khan, Samsung's chief strategy officer, told LightReading the core mobile applications that users turn to most often tend to the same old web applications -- ESPN, Weather Channel, for instance. Khan inists no one buys a smartphone from Samsung just to get ESPN.

But the Strategy Officer thinks buyers might go to Samsung if the Android-based Galaxy S gets a reputation, say, for intense gaming graphics taking advantage of the Super AMOLED display.

What's in it for Samsung is, obviously, a proprietary app. "While the breadth of the applications out there is tremendous, the usage that's occurring is limited to a very small set of applications," says Khan.

What kinds of special applications does Samsung have in mind? One example would be Media Hub to put videos onto the Galaxy S, and advanced, super-cool games to take advantage of the AMOLED screen.

Go LightReading

Apps Clearly in "Freefall," Says Analyst

Although paid apps have increased substantially in volume with the emergence of app stores, free apps have really boomed, creating a potentially serious problem for network operators hoping to create new revenue by selling apps to mobile users, according to a recent report from Pyramid Research.

Pyramid estimates that the total download volume (free and paid) will increase 7X between 2009 and 2014 from 5.7 billion to 41.1 billion.

Including operator portals, the proportion of free downloads increased from around 30% in 2008 to 54% in 2009, and it is expected to stabilize at around 80% in 2014. "This is a key trend, and it will drive new revenue streams, namely from advertising," say Pyramid Research analysts.

"Attracting developers is perhaps the most difficult challenge for operators given the lead the vendors have established, platform fragmentation and limited adoption of devices with operator stores enabled. In regions where the vendors are already well established, such as the U.S., it will be difficult for operators to establish their own stores. In other regions, vendors have yet to establish themselves, giving operators the opportunity to take the initiative."

Go Mobile App Stores: A New Mobile Web?, Pyramid Research's Research Report