iPad anticipation lights new fire under iPhone apps

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iPad anticipation lights new fire under iPhone apps

Record increase in new developments for Apple's devices reported with more than 1,600 new iPhone OS apps in January

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 17 March, 2010

READ MORE: Apple | Applications | iPhone | Tablet

The iPad may have received more mixed reviews than Apple is used to, but it has certainly had a powerful impact on the iPhone's developer community - just when this seemed to be losing some momentum to Android and others. According to mobile analytics firm Flurry, developers initiated more than 1,600 new iPhone OS apps in January in anticipation of the tablet device, tripling the figure for December 2009 and setting the largest single-month increase ever.

The tablet will run all the same apps as the iPhone, so the imminent release of the iPad has given developers a welcome new target platform and user base - one better adapted than a phone to certain types of software, such as high end games or ebooks. This week, Flurry updated its figures and reported that initiations of iPhone OS apps have leapt 185% since the iPad was unveiled on January 27.

"A large proportion of the applications we are seeing are custom ports of existing applications tailored for the iPad," the firm said. "With over 140,000 applications in the App Store, developers who modify, or build from the ground up, their applications early on for the iPad may have the opportunity to establish an early presence on this new device and drive more downloads."

When the tablet ships in the US on April 3, the App Store will feature a new dedicated section for apps that are specifically tailored to the new product. It will also see the opening of the iBookstore, which will split titles into 150 sub-categories to aid discovery.

Other Flurry statistics indicate that over 35,000 companies have released apps for the iPhone since the App Store opened in mid-2008, and 20% of the App Store developer community consists of start-ups created specifically to build apps for the platform. The developer base also contains large numbers of players from the videogames sector (19% of the total), from traditional media brands (17%) and traditional retailers or manufacturers (17%). Programmers who ported their apps across from other mobile OSs like BlackBerry or Brew only account for 5% of the base.