THE ABILITY to load additional software onto a mobile phone is nothing new. But, before the launch of Apple’s AppStore, it was something that relatively few outside the techno-elite had ever bothered doing.
As it approaches its first birthday, the AppStore has shown that if you can make buying, downloading and installing new iPhone software as easy as buying digital music for your iPod, there is a massive demand for it. Over one billion apps have been downloaded, although exactly how much money this has generated for Apple and its software developer partners is a closely guarded secret.
Industry experts claimed that developers would never buy into Apple’s business model; the iPhone maker keeps 30 per cent of all revenues. What they didn’t foresee was that, by Apple looking after hosting, distribution and payments, they were providing the infrastructure for solo and small teams of programmers to reach a global market.
Nokia’s response has been Ovi Store and the N97 is the first phone that comes with the store pre-loaded on the phone.
Nokia is trumpeting the fact that it has 9,000 apps after just two weeks of Ovi store (Apple claims 50,000 programs). But this ignores the fact that developers have been producing software for Nokia phones for years. While purchases through the AppStore require an iTunes account (and hence a credit card), Ovi purchases in Ireland can be added to your phone bill.
Palm’s offering is the App Catalog which has relatively few apps due to the newness of Palm’s Web OS. With much less fanfare RIM’s BlackBerry App World has also built up a useful library.
