The Evolution of the Mobile Industry

By: Hillel Fuld

If you have been paying attention or even if you have not, you have undoubtedly heard the mobile app topic discussed in one context or another. The mobile industry made a complete 180 degree turn when it comes to what is deemed important to consumers in the mobile space.

It was not too long ago when Motorola introduced the world to their “revolutionary” RAZR device that packed “so much” into such a thin package. I say that with sarcasm of course, but there should be no misunderstanding, when I first laid eyes on Motorola’s RAZR, I fell in love and had to have one, and so I did within a month. Unfortunately, I did not listen in school the day my teacher taught the class to not judge a book by its cover, since beyond the RAZR’s initial sexiness, the experience it offered was a disaster.

The RAZR’s success lead to other mobile giants such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and eventually Nokia following in Motorola’s footsteps with their own RAZR-like devices. It became a game that is sadly very similar to the modeling industry, who has the smallest waistline? The phones released over the next year or so, focused on size, with some phones packing features into a 8mm thick body.

Today, I carry around a BlackBerry Bold, one of the biggest mobile devices on the market, and the biggest one I have ever owned, and I love it. Today, the mobile space does not care (not as much at least) about hardware, software is where the money is. Today, the first question you ask when buying a new mobile phone is, how is its software? Is its OS user-friendly? Lastly, the most important and common question asked by consumers today is “How many apps are available for this phone?”

There really is no debating who the crown goes to when it comes to apps. Apple this week announced that they have surpassed 100,000 approved apps for the iPhone. Do you understand what 100,000 apps available for your mobile phone means? It means your phone is primarily not a phone anymore, it is so much more. It is for this reason that you will generally not see an iPhone ad focusing on the iPhone’s many advanced features, Apple likes to show off its software accomplishments with its famous “There’s an app for that” campaign. You can see an example in the video below.

There is of course an ongoing debate about the future of Apple’s dominance in the app space. Android is being adopted by all the big names, and its App Market is growing accordingly. Of course, there is also the issue of Android being open and much easier to develop for, not to mention Apple’s ridiculous rules about approving apps for the App Store. The Android App Market has well over 10,000 apps available to download, I know that is not 100,000 but it is still a nice number.

There is life, however, outside of iPhone and Android with the other mobile platforms jumping on the “App Bandwagon” as well. The Windows Mobile marketplace and the Palm catalogue are also starting to increase their numbers, which are still in the hundreds, although nearing the 1,000 mark each.

Another staggering statistic about Apple’s App Store is the 2 billion downloads. If you stop and think about it, you will realize how amazing it is that this “new” concept of an App Store, which did not exist 5 years ago, has generated 2 billion downloads. Statistics also point to the fact that iPhone users spend an average of $5 a month on paid apps from the App store, are you doing the math? Supposedly, there are $200 million worth of apps sold in the App Store every month, while the Android App Market brings in $5 million a month, also a pretty significant number.

Clearly, this is the direction in which the mobile space is going. Who has the best apps, who offers them for the most competitive prices, and of course who offers the best experience when it comes to downloading and installing new apps on my mobile device?

Robert Scoble wrote a very interesting piece the other day about why he is sticking with his iPhone, while the market is filled with hundreds of devices that on paper, exceed the iPhone’s capabilities. The name of the article is “85,000 Reasons Apple’s iPhone isn’t Going To Be Disrupted”. Of course, there are now over 100,000 reasons, but the article explains that even though new phones like the HTC HD2 for example, might offer a bigger screen, or a faster processor, every iPhone user has his/her combination of their favorite apps, and until you can duplicate those apps on a different platform, these people are not leaving their iPhone for a different device. The article also states that the Apple employee who runs the Apple app team told Robert that he approves hundreds of new apps every day, which confirms the statistics that by year end 2010, the App store will host 250,000 apps, a mind blowing number.

Another very interesting concept regarding Apple’s mobile philosophy is that Apple is to Android what Mac is to PC. What that means and is explained perfectly in a TechCrunch article called The Problem with iPhone Killers, is that while Apple’s iPhone is a monotheistic religion, that believes in one device, both in terms or usability of apps and in terms of development, Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and even Palm are all Pagan religions with their platform customized differently for the tens of devices on which you can find the OS.

This distinction is a very important one, and explains why Android might win the numbers game, with the OS finding its way to tens and eventually hundreds of devices, but in terms of quality and simplicity, both for users and developers, they have a long way to go. Each app developed for iPhone is developed for iPhone, while each Android app has to be customized either for the G1, HTC Magic, Samsung Galaxy, and many more like them.

While the Pagan belief might work for some, the numbers are showing that people prefer the monotheistic one. It offers consumers a lack of confusion, they know what they are getting with the iPhone, they know all about its OS, its advantages and disadvantages, and combine that with a 2 billion downloads mark, you got yourself a winning team.

It seems that apps are not only dominating the mobile space, the Web is starting to pick up on this trend as well, with Google’s open Wave platform hinting at a future online Web store for Wave applications. Looks like Google is paying close attention to the App Store numbers and are interested in replicating that model with their Wave platform, smart move, I guess that is what makes them Google.

In conclusion, there is no debate over the fact that software is becoming increasingly important to consumers, and app developers are seeing the numbers, irrelevant of the platform for which they develop. Experts predict that this mobile app trend is not going anywhere any time soon. Now the name of the game is making the development, approval, and distribution process easy and simple, something we try to accomplish here at Appboy.

Please let us know in the comments or on Twitter (tweet me here) what you think the future will bring for the mobile and Web spaces! Here is a little spoof on the Apple campaign for your viewing pleasure!

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Hillel Fuld

Hillel is a tech blogger at TechNmarketing.com as well as an active Twitter personality @hilzfuld. He writes for many other sites including Mashable.com, Bitrebels.com, and works as the Content Manager of Dailyforex.com.