"platform" entries

Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn't Mac vs Windows

Competitive lessons from the PC era don't always apply to mobile

It's human nature to look to the past to predict the future. That's why it's unsurprising to see knee-jerk conclusion that Apple iPhone vs Google Android will mirror the PC wars. Here's five reasons why this time, it's different.

The missing link in Twitter's ad program

A future version of Promoted Tweets needs to include the user base

It's early and I'm undoubtedly jumping the gun, but Twitter's clever Promoted Tweets program is missing one key component: the user base. If Twitter really wants to emulate Google's ad success, it'll need to empower users and developers.

The Most Efficient iPhone Developers

Last week marked the first time the U.S. iTunes store had over 150,000 apps available. Close to 31,000 different developers (or “sellers”) were responsible for those apps, with many offering one to five apps, while a few offered over a hundred different apps. Which developers consistently produce top-selling apps? I examined the percentage of apps produced by a developer that became best-sellers.

Is Facebook a Brand that You Can Trust?

In light of the company's past consumer-unfriendly initiatives, Facebook's recent 'privacy' settings change should serve as a wake up call to its 350M users that they are entrusting a Fox to guard the Hen House; a truth that is destined to erupt into a crisis for the company.

Apps Per Seller Across the US iTunes Categories

Measured in terms of number of unique apps, the Top 5 categories in the U.S. app store have been Games, Books, Entertainment, Travel and Utilities. But comparing categories in terms of number of apps doesn’t capture the challenge of developing applications in different categories. As I noted in an earlier post, it’s much easier to develop a Book app than an interactive game. One crude measure for the relative complexity of developing apps across categories is to compare the number of apps per seller.

Games Top the Charts in the iPhone and Android App Markets

While it might be true that the number of Book apps is growing at a faster rate, Games continue to dominate the list of popular U.S. iTunes Apps. Games accounted for about a fifth of all iTunes apps over the past week, but the category continued to have a disproportionate share of the Top 100 charts, accounting for 52% of the Top Grossing, 56% of the Top Paid, and 50% of the Top Free apps.

The iPhone as a Gaming Platform: Share of Top Apps By Category

As a follow-up to my recent post on the Top Grossing Apps list on iTunes, I examined three lists highlighted in the app store: the Top Paid, Top Free, and Top Grossing Apps. Believing that many users scan these lists, developers covet a spot on any of these Top 100 charts. In my previous posts, I’ve highlighted that Games is the largest category, accounting for about 20% of unique apps. Let’s take a fresh look at the numbers.

The Price of The Top Grossing iTunes Apps

In response to developer complaints that more expensive apps were getting buried at the bottom of popularity rankings, Apple recently introduced a separate ranking based on revenue. (The Top 100 Paid apps ranks apps are based on number of downloads.) In this post, I’ll validate that compared to downloads, the Top 100 ranking based on revenues does contain pricier apps.

The Most Popular iTunes Apps Aren't Always The Cheapest

While the most popular aren't always the cheapest, on average, the Top 10 Paid apps† tend to be cheaper than less popular ones (those ranked 45 to 55 or 91 to 100): The situation varies across categories and in this post I'll briefly examine a few of the larger ones. In both the Books and Games categories, the mean price…

The iTunes App Store Rolls with the Travel Season

Sometime last week, the iTunes app store passed 70,000 unique apps (70K apps have appeared in the app store since it launched). One of the fastest-growing categories in the U.S. iTunes app store has been Travel, displacing Education to move into the top 5 largest categories. Welcome to summer vacation!