Archive for September, 2009

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Apple’s “Apps for Everything”, will it help?

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Apple just launched a new promotional placement for iPhone applications, called Apps for Everything. It is part of the Apple iPhone website:

Apps for Everything

On the website, several application categories, as displayed above, are defined and each category features a selection of applications. Apple decides on which applications are featured here, similar to the placements in the iTunes Store.

Our questions is whether applications that are featured here see a big spike in downloads. Apps for Everything is not embedded in the App Store on the iPhone, so only consumers that go to the iPhone website will see this. The largest part of these consumers will not have an iPhone (yet), since purchasing one will be the main reason for going to this website.

A couple of months ago, Apple started promoting Apple’s App Store Picks, featuring several applications within the App Store, which had a clear positive influence on application popularity.

We think the impact of Apps for Everything on application popularity will be limited, with the main reason being that it is not actively pushed within the App Store. The main goal seems to be promoting the cool apps on the iPhone to make the device more attractive.

We checked the popularity over time of several applications that are featured in Apps for Everything, but saw no impact yet. We will check back in a few days to see what the impact will be and how important it therefore is for a developer to have applications featured in Apps for Everything.

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Posted in Apple App Store | 1 Comment »

Palm App Catalog goes paid

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

A few days later than announced, Palm just released the new version of its WebOS. One of the new features is support for paid applications in the Palm App Catalog. At this moment, no paid apps are available, and it is a bit unclear when Palm will publish these apps:

In preparation for e-commerce in the App Catalog, to purchase apps, you can enter credit card information by selecting Preferences & Accounts from the application menu in App Catalog. Credit card information is stored with the Palm profile, not on the phone. You can choose whether you need to enter their Palm profile password each time you make a purchase, or for the first purchase in any four-hour window.

Consumers will be able to pay using Credit Card and developers receive a 70% revenue share. In the beta period only a selection of developers will be able to sell applications in the App Catalog. When support for paid applications goes out of beta, developers need to pay a yearly fee of $99 to sell apps.

The Palm App Catalog was launched in beta in June and is now available for Palm users in the US and Canada. App Catalog will be coming to European countries soon, 13 October in Germany and on 16 October in the U.K. and Ireland.

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Posted in Palm App Catalog | 3 Comments »

Windows Marketplace launching next week, but not for current phones

Monday, September 28th, 2009

The launch of Windows Marketplace is getting close. On October 6, the new Windows Mobile 6.5 with Marketplace will go to market. Marketplace is said to launch in 29 countries with minimal 600 available applications.

Microsoft states that the reach of Marketplace will be 30 million consumers worldwide. This is however including current Windows Mobile phones in the market that run the 6.0 or 6.1 version of Windows Mobile. According to Pocketnow, it will take several months before Marketplace will be available on these phones:

How will older devices get Marketplace for Mobile loaded onto their phones? Would there be a CAB install file available?
Additional details on using Windows Marketplace from a phone running Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 will be provided by the end of the year. Stay tuned.

Pocketnow: How will older devices get Marketplace for Mobile loaded onto their phones? Would there be a CAB install file available?

Microsoft response: Additional details on using Windows Marketplace from a phone running Windows Mobile 6.0 or 6.1 will be provided by the end of the year. Stay tuned.

Hence, only consumers who buy a new Windows Mobile phone will get access to Marketplace this year.

Support for older devices will dramatically impact the number of consumers that Marketplace developers will be able to reach. We will keep you posted when more news comes out.

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Posted in Windows Marketplace | 1 Comment »

Recap of this week’s app store news

Saturday, September 26th, 2009
  • The Palm App Catalog gets support for paid applications, with 70% developer revenue share and billing via credit card.
  • The Distimo Report August 2009 is available, covering the Apple App Store and Android Market in the US and UK.
  • After four months, the Nokia Ovi Store now has over 3,000 available content items, of which applications are growing fastest.
  • Intel is launching an app store for Atom-based devices, bringing the app store model to netbooks.
  • Vodafone announced its new suite of internet services, called Vodafone 360 with an app store that will have a strong focus on widgets.

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Posted in Android Market, Apple App Store, Distimo Report, Intel AppUp, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog, Vodafone 360 | No Comments »

Vodafone 360 going for mobile widgets

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Yesterday, Vodafone announced its new suite of internet services called 360. Part of 360 is an app store. Not too many details are announced on the supported content and platforms, but it’s clear that mobile widgets will be in the store.

Vodafone just announced a competition, called App Star, for developers to build the best mobile widget for Vodafone 360:

The mobile widgets to enter this competition need to be based on the JIL platform and support the two upcoming 360 phones by Samsung. These Samsung phones are not running Symbian, Android or Windows Mobile, but the Linux based LiMo operating system.

The Vodafone App Star competition has a combined prize fund of €1,000,000 which will be shared across eight of Vodafone’s largest European operating companies to encourage innovation in the mobile application and widget space. The eight participating countries are: Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

Interested developers can sign up here.

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Posted in Vodafone 360 | 1 Comment »

Vodafone Announces Vodafone 360, with an app store

Thursday, September 24th, 2009
Vodaone 360 phones

Vodaone 360 phones

Vodafone just announced Vodafone 360. “A Suite of Innovative, New Internet Services for Mobile and PC.” According to the press release, 360 covers a lot of services. So what is it?

  • An address book that integrates with social networks.
  • A collection of applications, games, music and maps for mobile phones, PC and Mac.
  • A phone backup service for contacts and other phone content.
  • An app store with around 1,000 applications.

The address book and phone backup service is a result of the acquisition of Zyb by Vodafone.

Samsung is offering two Vodafone tailored phones that are said to offer the best 360 experience. The phone support is not limited to these two Samsung phones; in total 100 different handsets are supported.

The 2009 launch in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the UK will be followed by launches in a number of other countries in 2010, including India, Turkey, South Africa, New Zealand, Romania and France.

For us the most interesting part of course is the app store. There are however very little details enclosed. This is all Vodafone is announcing so far:

a catalogue of over one thousand Apps at launch available to different handsets, downloadable through the Vodafone Shop

Like reported earlier, we have many questions regarding this store. We hope more details will be available soon, and will keep you posted.

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Posted in Vodafone 360 | 3 Comments »

Nokia Ovi Store has over 3,000 items

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

The Nokia Ovi Store has been live for four months. At its launch, 555 items were available in the store, of which 90% was paid.

To see how the available content is developing, we are tracking all items in the store. We made an overview of the number of available content items since its launch:

Nokia Ovi Store content

Nokia Ovi Store content

The store now has 3,239 items available, of which still the largest part paid. For all types of content, the proportion of free and paid items has been stable.

Applications are the fastest growing type of content in the store, with an increase of over 25% in the last month. Games are also showing growth over 20%. The other content types are growing slower, with the amount of Audio & Video items even decreasing.

We will keep tracking the content. Nokia Ovi Store will be added to our Distimo Report in the coming months, and we updated our mobile app store overview incorporating the numbers mentioned above.

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Posted in Nokia Ovi Store | 2 Comments »

Intel Announces Application Store for Atom-based devices

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Intel just announced the launch of their “Intel Atom Processor Developer Program for Mobile Devices”, enabling netbook OEMs and other partners to create application stores through which validated applications can be sold. From their press release:

“We want to fuel the growth of Intel Atom-based products designed for the mobile lifestyle,” said Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager, Intel Software and Services Group. “The netbook has become one of the most popular consumer devices in the market today, but its true potential has been limited by applications that are not optimized for its mobility and smaller screen size. The Intel Atom Developer Program provides a great opportunity for developers to create useful and inventive applications that will unlock a netbook’s potential while opening a new sales and distribution channel.”

To provide a broad choice of applications across platforms, the Developer Program will support multiple OS’s and run-time environments such as Microsoft Silverlight, enabling developers to use a single code base to support multiple device platforms.

Developers will receive 70% of the revenue from every sale from every partner store; Intel will “cover their costs” from the remaining 30%. Interestingly, developers will be able to use some of their revenue for promoting their applications. Another way of making money from the application stores is to develop application components, in exchange for a percentage share of revenue from every application sold that which uses the component.

The SDK will be available soon; today developers can join and become members of the Intel Atom Develop Program. The annual fee will be $99, but right now it is still free for a limited time.

From their press release:
“We want to fuel the growth of Intel Atom-based products designed for the mobile lifestyle,” said Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager, Intel Software and Services Group. “The netbook has become one of the most popular consumer devices in the market today, but its true potential has been limited by applications that are not optimized for its mobility and smaller screen size. The Intel Atom Developer Program provides a great opportunity for developers to create useful and inventive applications that will unlock a netbook’s potential while opening a new sales and distribution channel.”

Posted in Intel AppUp | 1 Comment »

Distimo Report August 2009 – US and UK

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

We publish a monthly report to highlight trends in the different mobile app stores. The Distimo Report August 2009 is now available.

The report covers the Apple App Store and Google Android Market. Two versions of the report are available: one covering the United States, and one covering the United Kingdom.
You can download your free copy of the report here.
If you would like to distribute the report, please use this link.

The report covers the Apple App Store and Google Android Market. Two versions of the report are available: one covering the United States, and one covering the United Kingdom.

You can download the free report here.

New and noteworthy:

  1. On the Apple App Store, Navigation & Travel and Social Networking apps were more popular than on Android Market, while on Android Entertainment and News & Weather applications were more popular.
  2. The overlap between countries is higher for Android Market than for Apple App Store: in the Apple App Store the available content varies more per individual country.
  3. The higher total price of Apple’s Top 100 Reference category was mainly caused by the higher amount of apps priced higher than $20. Android Market had relatively many applications priced between $4 and $10 in this category.
  4. The average price of an app in Apple’s Overall Top 100 was $2.92, compared to $4.16 in Apple’s Reference category.

The UK report was covered by TechCrunch Europe.

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Posted in Android Market, Apple App Store, Distimo Report | 4 Comments »

Vodafone announcing app store this Thursday

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Vodafone worldwide delivers phones with a large range of mobile platforms, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, iPhone and Java supporting phones.Vodafone announcing app store this Thursday
This week, Vodafone will announce the details of its new application service, called Vodafone 360. This service will be a combination of a suite of social networking applications and an app store.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/sep/20/vodafonegroup-telecoms
Last May, Vodafone announced it would be launching a store within 2009, which seems to be getting close now. The 360 app store will supported direct billing to the consumer’s Vodafone bill and is said to offer 70% revenue share for developers. Vodafone has over 315 million customers worldwide that could get access to the store.
http://blog.distimo.com/2009_05_more-on-the-vodafone-app-store/#more-821
The biggest question remains which platforms the store supports. This discussion is fueled by several facts that do not present a clear direction on where this is going:
- Vodafone offers the iPhone with the Apple App Store in 11 countries and Android phones with Android Market in Europe.
- It has a store for mobile widgets based on Opera Widgets in beta in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, South-Africa, Spain and the UK.
http://widget.vodafone.com/uk/?location=%2Fuk%2F
- Vodafone worldwide delivers phones with a large range of mobile platforms, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, iPhone and Java supporting phones.
- Vodafone’s mobile application community Betavine offers developers support for a large range of platforms. http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/home.html
So what kind of store can we expect? There are some signs directing to Vodafone going for the mobile web. We’ll know on Thursday if this will be the case.
http://moconews.net/article/419-mem-vodafone-bets-on-web-widgets-not-apps/T

This week, Vodafone will announce the details of its new application service, called Vodafone 360. This service will be a combination of a suite of social networking applications and an app store.

Last May, Vodafone announced it would launch a store in 2009, which is getting close now. The 360 app store will support direct billing to the consumer’s Vodafone bill and is said to offer 70% revenue share for developers. Vodafone has over 315 million customers worldwide that could get access to the store.

The most important question question remains which platforms the store will support. This discussion is fueled by several facts that do not present a clear direction on where this is going:

  • Vodafone worldwide delivers phones with a large range of mobile platforms, including Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Android, iPhone and Java supporting phones.
  • Vodafone offers the iPhone with the Apple App Store in 11 countries and Android phones with Android Market in Europe.
  • Vodafone has a store for mobile widgets based on Opera Widgets in beta in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, South-Africa, Spain and the UK.
  • Its mobile application community Betavine offers developers support for a large range of platforms.

So what kind of store can we expect? There are some signs directing to Vodafone going for the mobile web instead of native applications. We may know this Thursday.

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Posted in Vodafone 360 | 1 Comment »

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