Archive for the ‘BlackBerry App World’ Category

Adobe’s Platform To Deliver Apps Across All Phones

Monday, February 15th, 2010
Air Logo

Air Logo

Today Adobe announced at the Mobile World Congress that they are going to extend their AIR platform to mobile devices, helping out many mobile developers facing problems with deployment on multiple platforms.

AIR runtime lets developers use web technologies to build rich Internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Adobe will, according to their press release, announce the extension of AIR to mobile devices, starting with Android and Blackberry OS by 2010. Developers can now develop applications for Android and deploy the application at the same time to desktop environments like Windows, Mac and Linux or, by using the iPhone Flash package, to the iPhone.

With support for mobile devices Adobe AIR includes specific functionality offered by mobile operating systems and devices such as multi-touch, gesture inputs, accelerometers, geolocation and screen orientation. The AIR team already worked with several developers of applications currently available in the Apple App Store to get their apps running on AIR Android, including Southpark Avatar Creator and many games.

There is more to be announced the coming days at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona; we will keep you informed. Distimo is present at the congress as well. If you want to meet, please contact us!

Distimo Report – December 2009

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
It is our pleasure to release our monthly Distimo Report, based on December 2009 data. Distimo Report Logo
This report covers five application stores: Apple App Store, BlackBerry App World, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

This month’s most important findings are:

  • In Google Android Market, 65% of the publishers are located in the United States, 12% in the United Kingdom, 20% in Europe and 3% in Japan.
  • Publishers located in Europe price their applications highest with an average of $4.42, which is 49% higher than publishers located in the United States.
  • Applications in Apple App Store, Google Android Market and Nokia Ovi Store are priced at around $3.50. Windows Marketplace for Mobile and BlackBerry App World are more expensive, averaging $6.99 and $8.26 respectively.
  • Because of Microsoft’s market validation guidelines and additional fees for distributing applications in more than one country, the number of applications available in some countries is only a small percentage (<5%) of applications available worldwide.

You can download the report here.

This report was covered on TechCrunch here.

BlackBerry App World Adds Themes Category

Monday, December 7th, 2009
App World Themes

September 5th Google added, among other categories, the Themes category to Android Market. A few days ago we reported on BlackBerry adding the Test Center category to App World; and just today we noticed that BlackBerry App World added a Themes category as well. Right now the Themes category contains the following subcategories:

  • Abstract
  • Holiday
  • Movies & TV
  • Nature
  • People
  • Sports Themes
  • Technology
  • Transportation

The Themes category already contains 152 applications, compared to only three applications (MySpace, eBay and Role Call Reminder) in the Test Center category, while that category was launched about two weeks ago. The average price is $6.15, with a small percentage of apps being free.

Besides Google Android Market and BlackBerry App World, Nokia Ovi Store has a Themes category as well. The Apple App Store and Windows Marketplace for Mobile lack a similar category.

BlackBerry App World Gets Test Center

Friday, December 4th, 2009

BlackBerry App World has been around since April this year and quite a lot happened since then:

  • After launching in only the US, Canada and UK, App World is now available in 19 countries;
  • A webstore was launched to browse the full content from a PC;
  • The store now contains 3,500 Applications and Games;
  • Next to Applications and Games, Themes and Widgets are coming to the store early next year;
  • More monetization options for developers; In-App Purchasing is coming in 2010;
  • Next to billing via PayPal, carrier billing that will allow consumers to buy content with just one click is on its way.

Now Research In Motion announced the launch of Test Center. This is a special category within App World that contains applications in beta. This allows developers to get early feedback on their applications before launcing a final version in App World:

App World Test Center

App World Test Center

Today, Test Center contains 3 applications; MySpace, eBay and Role Call Reminders. Developers that want to have their applications in Test Center can submit them to BlackBerry for review, just like for the normal application categories.

AppJam Presentation Wrapup and Slides

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

AppJam

Last Monday, we went to AppJam in London, a European focused meet-up to share knowledge and learn more about developments from the major app stores. I was keynote speaker at the event and gave a presentation about application store stats, which you can find embedded below. The major findings in this presentation were:

  • Apple App Store leads the pack in terms of amount of applications, having about a 100,000 applications available, compared to Android Market (14,000) and BlackBerry App World (3,300).
  • Increase of amount of applications on Android Market and BlackBerry App World however will be driven by the amount of devices coming available with these stores pre-installed, and additional country support.
  • Android Market has significant more free applications available, which may be caused by Google’s less strict approval process and the necessity to use Google Checkout for payments
  • BlackBerry applications are about 3 times as expensive as Android’s and Apple’s. Cross-store publishers also charge higher prices for their apps on App World.
  • Apple’s popularity ranking system favours cheap applications, however, most revenue is made by the more expensive applications, in spite of having less downloads than the cheap applications. The average price for the most popular applications was $2,58 in October, and $10.30 for the most grossing applications.
  • When it comes to in-app purchasing, Games are most succesful at making revenue. Read more about this on TechCrunch.
  • Succesful apps get more exposure on Android and App World than on Apple App Store. The average amount of days in the top 100 for the Apple App Store was only 14, while for Android and BlackBerry this was 26 and 20 respectively (October).

I would like to thank the organizers, Laurence and Tania, for the great event! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in mobile apps!

If you have any questions, please contact .

BlackBerry App World: In-App Purchasing And More

Friday, November 13th, 2009

This week, the BlackBerry Developer Conference was held. During the conference some interesting announcements on BlackBerry App World were made:

(via IntoMobile)

(via IntoMobile)

In-App Purchasing

Apple was the first store supporting In-App Purchasing, allowing developers to monetize both free and paid applications in various new ways. See more in our latest report. Good news for BlackBerry developers, App World will also start supporting In-App Purchasing in 2010. It is not yet clear if this will be available for both free and paid applications.

Carrier billing

Right now, consumers that purchase an application in App World, pay using PayPal. In 2010, carrier billing will also be supported. This will make it a lot easier to purchase an application, where the amount will end up on the user’s monthly phone bill. Carriers and countries that will have carrier billing are yet to be announced.

Themes and Widgets

Like previously announced, more content is coming to App World. Themes will now also be available in the store. A new type of content, Widgets, will also be supported. For the user, there will be no notable difference between the current applications and new added widgets in App World. Both Themes and Widgets are today not yet available in the store, but are coming soon.

Distimo Report October 2009: In-App Purchasing And Cross-Store Developers

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Every month we publish a report highlighting trends in the different mobile app stores. Distimo Report for October 2009 is now available.

The report covers the Apple App Store, Google Android Market and RIM’s BlackBerry App World.

You can download the free report here.

New and noteworthy:

  1. Developers publishing applications in multiple application stores price their applications lowest on Apple’s App Store.
  2. The same application titles are priced significantly higher on BlackBerry App World and Google Android Market than on the Apple App Store.
  3. On the Apple App Store, Games and Social Networking applications have benefited most from in-app purchasing for free applications.
  4. BlackBerry App World prices have been increasing since mid-October, from $5.11 to $5.60 (+9.6%), while pricing on the Apple App Store and Google Android Market have remained fairly stable.
Developpublishing applications in multiple application stores price their applications lowest on Apple’s App Store.
The same application titles are priced significantly higher on BlackBerry App World and Google Android Market than on the Apple
App Store.
On the Apple App Store, Games and Social Networking applications have benefited most from in-app purchasing for free applications.
BlackBerry App World prices have been increasing since mid-October, from $5.11 to $5.60 (+9.6%), while pricing on the Apple App
Store and Google Android Market have remained fairly stable

The report was covered by TechCrunch here.

BlackBerry App World Live In India

Monday, November 9th, 2009

BlackBerry App World has been available for consumers in 18 different countries since the end of August. After adding support for Latin American countries, App World has now entered India:

The on-device application store brings together a wide range of free personal and business applications for users to discover, including applications specifically built for the Indian Market.

India-specific applications available at launch include Hungama MyPlay, CNBS TV18, Moneycontrol, Mundu Radio and Arrow matics.

According the latest AdMob Mobile Metrics report, which measures traffic among 15,000 mobile websites that display AdMob advertising, India is the number 2 country in terms of traffic, directly behind the United States:

Though India is the second largest country in terms of AdMob’s traffic, the share of BlackBerry phones is very limited:

Smartphone requests by manufacturer

Smartphone requests by manufacturer

Where BlackBerry has a 14% share in smartphone ad requests in the US, in India AdMob sees less than 2% BlackBerry devices among smartphones. This data is very dependent on the AdMob mobile website inventory in India. Considering the fact that over 6% of total AdMob ad requests comes from India, it is however a nice presentation of the differences in BlackBerry share between countries. Although BlackBerry has very limited presence in India, the total amount of mobile subscribers in this country is stull huge: 400 million. It will be interesting to see how large the App World will grow in India, and what content will be available.

The BlackBerry App World launch in India has been added to our mobile app store overview.

BlackBerry App World to offer more than apps?

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
Blackberry App World

Blackberry App World

BlackBerry App World has been live since April this year and is available in 18 countries. The store now contains 2,998 applications. For an overview of the most popular content and pricing, see our latest free report. In the store applications in the common application categories are available. Now several rumors point to support for more than applications.

BlackBerry App World is rumored to support themes from November 9th. Nokia is already offering more content than applications and games in its store. From the Ovi Store launch, personalization items such as themes and ringtones, and audio & video have been filling half the store. Will the same happen for BlackBerry?

BlackBerry App World goes Latin America and has 2,300 apps

Monday, August 31st, 2009

Research in Motion is continuing the worldwide roll-out of BlackBerry App World. Initially, App World was only available in the US, UK and Canada. At the end of last month, 10 European countries got access as well. Now App World has also launched in five Latin American countries, with more to follow soon. The first five countries are Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela.

In total, consumers from 18 different countries can now download App World to their BlackBerry and start downloading and purchasing applications. Developers that want to publish applications in App World for consumers in these countries can submit applications here.

This is the content that is available today in App World:

In total 2,310 application are available in App World today. Surprisingly for a business oriented phone, 30% of these are Games. Other large categories are Utilities, Reference & eBooks, Entertainment and Productivity.