Statistiche su App Store, Android Market e App World: sempre più applicazioni gratuite

Come ogni mese o quasi, con cadenza regolare, Distimo fornisce il suo report gratuito dove si analizzano i trends dei principali application store in campo mobile. Nel penultimo report di ottobre si poteva osservare come prezzi più alti, permettevano ad un prodotto (software o gioco) di riscuotete maggior successo.

Anche in quest’ultimo c’è una panoramica ai prezzi ma, ancor più interessante, vi sono le stime circa le percentuali di contenuti gratuiti contro quelli a pagamento. La tendenza si è quasi invertita: su App Store ha la percentuale più alta di contenuti a pagamento con ben il57% del catalogo, contro App World (Blackberry) con il 49% ed, infine, Google con il suo Android Market ed il 21% di prodotti a pagamento.

Se prima era risaputo che App World fosse il più caro in assoluto, Distimo ha rilevato un leggero calo di prezzi per le applicazioni di navigazione satellitare (le più vendute) di oltre il 14% in meno. Sempre riguardo questa categoria, Android Market ha visto un sensibile aumento dei prezzi intorno al mese di Novembre. Come al solito, il report è disponibile gratuitamente e previa registrazione, al seguente indirizzo.

fonte: mobileblog

Intel to apply Apple’s App Store strategy with netbooks

ntel this week released a beta software development kit to create applications for an iPhone App Store-like service, one that will come preinstalled on future Atom-powered netbooks.

Intel’s product will reportedly follow the same business model as Apple’s own App Store, leaving 70 percent of sales with the developer, and Intel taking a 30 percent cut to cover the costs associated with operations and partnerships, according to CNet. The Atom Developer Program SDK allows developers to build software for netbooks powered by Intel’s Atom chip, whether they are running Windows or Intel’s Moblin operating system.

“Consumer adoption of mobile computing and Atom-based netbooks is growing rapidly, and there is an immediate opportunity for developers to capitalize on the popularity of these small form-factor, on-the-go devices,” said Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager with Intel’s Software and Services Group. “We are excited about the innovation and energy from developers around creating applications and unlocking new uses for Atom platforms.”

Much like Apple’s App Store approval process, software created for Intel’s Atom marketplace must be submitted for validation. Intel will then serve software for download to users of Atom-powered netbooks.

Given the extraordinary success of the iPhone App Store, producing more than 2 billion downloads through September, numerous competitors have looked to replicate Apple’s success across a variety of business types. Intel is the latest in a line of companies in the “app store” business:

• TV manufacturers and companies like Yahoo, Adobe and Roku hope to have cross-platform applications available for use on a variety of different sets. Currently, the Yahoo Widget Engine offers around 20 applications included with TV sets from a variety of manufacturers.
• While not nearly as successful as Apple’s App Store thus far, Google has offered the Android Marketplace on its Android-powered devices since the platform debuted, and the number of applications has been rapidly growing.
• Microsoft introduced the Windows Marketplace for Mobile with the launch of Windows Mobile 6.5 in October. It debuted with 246 applications. In addition, Palm’s WebOS and Nokia’s Symbian Horizon are other competing options.
• The largest wireless carrier in the U.S., Verizon, plans to create its own mandated application store for use on handsets that access its wireless network. The download destination would be run and maintained by Verizon itself.

fonte: appleinsider

Applicazioni mobile per il trasferimento di denaro e i pagamenti saranno le più importanti entro il 2012

I Trasferimenti di denaro e pagamenti saranno tra le prime 10 più importanti applicazioni di telefonia mobile entro il 2012: è la previsione della società di ricerche di mercato Gartner.

I trasferimenti di denaro sono in cima alla lista, battendo anche i servizi location-based, di ricerca e navigazione.

“E ‘un modo per gli utenti che non hanno un conto in banca di ottenere l’accesso ai servizi finanziari”, ha affermato Sandy Shen, di Gartner.

fonte: iphoneland

How Palm Lost (Like Apple in the ’80s)

The Droid, and Android 2.0 as a whole, isn’t going to kill the iPhone. That’s ridiculous. Teamed with the iPhone, though, it just straight up murdered Palm—the same way that Microsoft brought Apple to its knees decades ago.

Reviews aren’t even hitting yet, but the early consensus is clear: Android 2.0 is the first version of Google’s OS that’s really grown-up. And now, with hardware like the Droid and the Hero, it’s not just a technological triumph, it’s the kind of thing that people—and not just leery, jaded tech blog readers—can connect with, and actually use. This is huge for Android.

iPhone OS is already a superpower with massive adoption, a huge app store and a bright future. They’re not going anywhere. They learned their lessons about the importance of volume and apps when I was still a kid. But what about the other two smartphone players that consumers really love? You know, Google vs Palm? Think Apple vs Microsoft, circa the late 80s.

Hear me out: With version 2.0, Android is sitting on the cusp of greatness. And Palm? They’ve got a nice OS, but with just two handsets and a tiny user base they’re up against a wall. Google is old Microsoft: They’ve got a open development platform, tons of hardware partners. They’re going to start having problems with this strategy—you know, fragmentation, device support issues, etc—but as with Microsoft, it’s going to serve them well, and make them huge. Palm is old Apple: With inhouse hardware and iffy developer support, they’re just insular. What that means:

• Hardware partners: Who isn’t developing an Android phone nowadays? Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, and HTC dwarf Palm’s hardware partner list, which consists of “Palm.” Don’t get me wrong, the Pre and Pixi are nice pieces of hardware—like Apple always had—but it’s tough to compete with such a broad lineup with just two devices, both of which are somewhat polarizing. Android is the new Windows Mobile, but in a good way.

• Apps: Apple learned from their past mistakes, and actively courted developers from the start. Android’s start was slower and more organic, but seems to so far correlate with handset adoption, meaning it’s growing, and it’s about to grow a lot more. More apps=a better user experience=joy for Google. Palm has introduced paid apps, but it’s not clear why anyone would want to invest in development for such a small userbase. (The first paid app, if you remember, was an air hockey game.)

• Apps, again: Android came before webOS, and likewise the Android SDKs came well before mojoSDK. But no matter how far into the future you look, Google has Palm beaten from a developer standpoint. If Android handset sales start to approach iPhone territory—tens of millions—the combination of a huge potential market and powerful development tools, especially SDK 2.0, will make the choice for developers obvious: Go with Apple, or go with Google. Palm won’t even register.

• Resources: Google can dedicate tremendous amounts of money and time to developing Android, as their pastry-themed release schedule can attest to; Palm is hanging by a thread, and they haven’t issued a truly major update to their OS since it came out. Google can lose money on Android for as long as it wants—they’ve got Microsoft-level buoyancy, those guys—while Palm has to turn fast profit by building and selling phones, lest their nervous investors jump ship.

• Google is an app development powerhouse: Their apps are becoming more and more central to the general smartphone experience. Apple and Palm both use Google’s maps and search, but naturally, Android always has a later, greater version of both. It helps for the company behind a platform to supply a few killers apps for it too—just look at Office and Window 2.0.

And take what happened yesterday, with Google Navigation for Maps. Google can just will a free turn-by-turn navigation app into existence. Palm can’t do this. They can license Google’s technology, sure, but that leaves them at the mercy of a competitor.

BlackBerry handsets are safe in their own way—suits need their keyboards, and familiarity is worth a lot—and Windows Mobile is on a fixed heading for total irrelevance, as evidenced by their once-strongest ally, HTC, talking about the OS like it’s in hospice care. But there are just three true consumer smartphone OSes out there—the ones that don’t feel like complicated smartphones, but which do all the same tricks.

And assuming Apple’s is safe—and it is—that leaves two. Like Microsoft once was in the desktop computing space, Google is poised for a meteoric rise, and like Apple, Palm should be bracing themselves for hard times. For all the similarities, though, there’s one difference: Palm probably won’t be able to pull through.

fonte: gizmodo

Recap of this week’s app store news

• Apple sold 7.4 million iPhones in its 4th Quarter (ending Sept. 26), and since the App Store’s launch, 2 billion apps were downloaded
• The Palm App Catalog is now -partly- accessible in your browser
• Free apps have entered the Top Grossing ranking lists on Apple’s App Store because of in-app purchasing now being possible for these apps
• BlackBerry App World is rumored to support themes, from November 9th

fonte: www.distimo.com

Palm App Catalog gets a website

Previously, the Palm App Catalog was only accessible from the Palm Pre and Pixi. Now however, a part of the Catalog is also accessible from the web, right here. It is a feature page, introducing people to the kind of apps that are available on the Catalog.

The website is purely a showcase of apps, it is not possible to download or purchase applications from the site. About 1/3rd of the apps on this page are Games, with a total of 85 apps being shown.

The Palm App Catalog is gaining significance: last weekend, 40 apps were added, and about a month ago they released its new version of the Catalog with support for paid apps. Additionally, more and more countries are supported, increasing the amount of consumers being able to access the Catalog.

fonte: www.distimo.com

App Store, Android Market e App World. I principali Store a confronto in un report

La società Distimo, si è occupata di analizzare i trend dei principali e ben avviati Store digiochi ed applicazioni per Smarphone. Nel report di questo mese, riferito al Settembre 2009, emergono le interessanti tendenze riferite agli utenti dei dispositivi con sistema operativo: iPhone OS, Android, Blackberry.

Il report si apre con i dati di maggior rilievo, come il principale dato di fatto: i prezzo medi dei contenuti per Blackberry rispetto agli altri confrontati sono fino a tre volte tanto più cari. Dato evidente in quanto il prezzo minimo, imposto nello Store di RIM, è di $2,99. I prodotti più cari sia su App Store che App World sono i navigatori satellitari; mentre, per Android Marketsono i programmi nella categoria Consultazione/Riferimento.

Naturalmente, i prezzi dei navigatori presenti su App World sono più alti rispetto agli altri due Store presi in analisi, mentre, sono più “economici” quelli presenti sul catalogo di Google. Interessantissimo il successo che un software riscuote in base al prezzo: i più popolari su App Store hanno prezzo $0,99 ma i più remunerativi sono quelli collocati nella fascia $9,90. Ultimo dato sullo store della Mela, per quelle che sono le applicazioni più remunerative in assoluto hanno prezzo medio intorno ai $50. Il report è visionabile gratuitamente, previa registrazione, al seguente indirizzo.

fonte: http://www.mobileblog.it

Mobile, al via i marketplace di Palm e MS

Windows Mobile e WebOS a singolar tenzone con AppStore. Ma prima di sconfiggere la concorrenza, dovranno lavorare sull’offerta ai consumatori:

Roma – In vista dell’imminente lancio dei Windows Phone, Microsoft ha tolto i veli al suo contenitore online di applicazioni per smartphone. Windows Marketplace è online, pronto a elargire software dietro pagamento a tutti gli utenti che prossimamente si doteranno di un telefonino equipaggiato con Windows Mobile 6.5.

Alcuni grandi nome dell’industria di settore hanno già svelato i propri dispositivi, preparati apposta per l’occasione: HTC, Toshiba, Sony-Ericsson e Samsung saranno tra le prime aziende a produrre smartphone pronti per essere marchiati a fuoco con il logo di Microsoft.

L’app store di BigM andrà ad affiancarsi all’omologo di Apple in un mercato adesso più frizzante anche a grazie al contemporaneo esordio di App Catalog, il distributore ufficiale di applicazioni per Palm Pre che secondo alcuni fatica a decollare a causa dei pochi programmi disponibili.

Palm appare in ogni caso fiduciosa e starebbe sondando vie alternative per attirare l’attenzione degli sviluppatori, consentendo l’installazione dei programmi anche se scaricati da piattaforme diverse da App Catalog.

fonte: http://www.punto-informatico.it

Palm is “Paying Companies to Write Apps for the Pre”

Above, TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy Interviews the founders of CitySourced, who are developing an App for the Palm Pre that allows you to report the nasty things in your city directly to the guv’mint.  Very cool app, but that’s not what’s making headlines about them.

What she reports is this: Palm actively comissisoned CitySourced to bring their app to the Palm Pre.

Palm is really paying companies to write apps for the Pre? Yes. How much? All I got despite truly obnoxious questioning was “under $500,000.”

Does it make sense that Palm is laying down some green to ensure that their App Catalog is getting enough play? Yes. Does it sting those developers who aren’t getting in on thelucre incentives? We’re betting yes.

fonte: http://www.precentral.net

New App Catalog for 1.2 Previewed

Kesne in our forums as well as several email tipsters (thanks everybody!) has pointed us to ShifyEyezz’s photbucket gallery showing off the new features of the App Catalog coming along with 1.2. These come as the early-installers of 1.2 suddenly have an operational App Catalog for the first time (Hooray!).

New features include the nicer screenshot stack you see above, buttons to share via text and email, an improved category listing, and a single-screen that lets you manage your apps — deleting them or updating them within the App Store instead of heading into the Updates app.

Still no clear word on when webOS 1.2 will land or when the Official App Catalog will offer paid apps – but we’re hearing “Any Day Now” for the former and possibly September 24th for the latter.

fonte: http://www.precentral.net