Eideard

It’s no secret that the rise of smartphones, tablets and social networking has fostered an entirely new market for app developers, but a freshly released study has now attempted to quantify this impact, in terms of real jobs.

According to TechNet, a bipartisan network of tech execs, the so-called “App Economy” has created an estimated 466,000 jobs since 2007, when the iPhone was first unveiled.

The report specifies that this estimate includes all jobs at Facebook-focused companies like Zynga, as well as dev gigs at Amazon, AT&T and Electronic Arts, in addition to the obvious heavyweights, Apple and Google.

As far as geography goes, California leads the way as the most app-friendly state, though New York City tops the list of metropolitan areas. It’s not an entirely bi-coastal affair, though, with some two-thirds of all app-related jobs located outside of California and New York.

TechNet acknowledges that the App Economy “is only four years old and extremely fluid,” so it’s likely that these numbers will fluctuate in the years to come, though the organization says these numbers underscore a fundamental principle: “Innovation creates jobs, and in this case, lots of them.”

You can read the full report at technet.org.

And don’t get your shorts bunched figuring the numbers are going to diminish or decline. When it comes to the predominance of the mobile web – you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

The FBI released its first app for Apple’s iPhone on Friday, called Child ID.

The app can store photos and information on a child, such as height, weight, date of birth, gender, ethnicity, hair and eye color and whether or not they have pierced ears.

“Using a special tab on the app, you can also quickly and easily e-mail the information to authorities with a few clicks” in case a child goes missing or in other emergencies, the FBI said in announcing the app’s release.

Parents and guardians of a child can also call 911 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from within the app. Child ID also has a list of safety tips for parents and a checklist of things to do if an emergency arises.

The phone can store multiple entries for multiple children, but filing out information about a child doesn’t automatically send it to the FBI. Everything entered using the app stays on a parent’s device running Apple’s iOS software – which includes the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

The only time the information is shared with law enforcement is when a user emails an entry on a child to police or the FBI.

There is a flaw or two in the software. The concept is in the right part of our social lives.

It’s worth considering for all geeky parents – though I guess the iOS devices are now mainstream enough, I can leave off the geeky part.

Apple has expanded its efforts to curtail the unchecked expansion of shovelware and scamware in the iOS App Store, focusing on keeping the store’s library attractive rather than simply aiming to maintain the biggest store in terms of raw numbers.

The company’s latest effort at curation has banned the practice of “incentivized app installs,” a gimmick used by some game makers to induce players to install specific other apps in order to continue playing. The practice is similar to “offer walls” promoted by free web games that ask players to participate in offers (such as buying a product or signing up for a trial service subscription) in order to obtain in-game currency required to continue game play.

Apple has banned the practice to prevent companies from artificially distorting the popularity of apps that are only being downloaded because of the incentives…With incentivized installs, one developer pays another an install fee (usually through a middleman pay-per-install network) to induce its users to download other apps. This is used to rapidly promote a new title into iTunes’ App Store rankings, a coveted position that results in exceptional visibility and exponentially higher sales…

While Apple initially advertised downloads and library size milestones for the App Store to note how fast it was growing and how far it was ahead of competing app markets, the company has already begun talking about other competitive metrics, particularly the billions of dollars it has paid out to developers…

Actual performance figures of mobile software stores demonstrate that the revenues earned by developers are not necessarily tied to the overall quantity of the devices running a platform (the installed base or market share), nor the raw number of downloads or library size…

Not only does this make sound business sense – it fits in well with Apple’s overall marketing style. If I was selling apps, it’s the way I would approach consumers. Short-term and in the long run.

Apple has launched its online Apple Store for China alongside a Simplified Chinese-language version of the App Store, as part of its efforts to strengthen its brand in the Chinese market…Despite having four successful retail stores in China, the Chinese Apple website, apple.com.cn, had lacked a digital storefront…

With free shipping, personalized engraving, and a gift wrapping option, the China online Apple store is ready for the holiday season. The store will also “let eligible students and faculty members take advantage of special education pricing on Apple products…”

Customers can now directly purchase the iPhone online, instead of having to first reserve the device and schedule a pick-up time. In recent weeks, Apple retail stores have struggled to keep the iPhone 4 in stock, with scalpers quickly snatching them up and then selling the smartphones right outside the store.

The China App Store will now offer “localized featured apps and charts of the most popular paid and free apps in China,” in addition to the over 300,000 apps that are available.

Working things out for a different language + a different system of constructing words ain’t ever easy. Chinese students learning English will appreciate the dedication and effort that went into the reverse process.

UPDATE: They sold out of available iPhone 4′s the first day!

In line to enter the World Wide Developers Conference 2009
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

A decade ago, San Francisco’s trendy South of Market district was the birthplace of hundreds of web design firms that have since gone under or been swallowed by rivals.

Now it is the turn of the “app army“, the scores of companies devoted to churning out small programs known as applications that run on Apple’s iPhone and rival devices, as well as on regular computers for users of Facebook and similar websites…

Indeed, veteran industry executives, investors and analysts are calling the shift to internet-capable devices and the apps that run on them a once-a-decade leap in technology, on a par with the great personal computing boom of the 1980s and the debut of the World Wide Web in the 1990s.

“The ramp [growth rate] of the iPhone and iPod touch in the first eight or nine quarters is more than five times the ramp for the internet,” says Kathryn Huberty, Morgan Stanley tech analyst. These devices, and faster wireless networks, are both now reaching about a fifth of the global population, she estimates, which will drive much more rapid development : “Globally,” she says, “2010 is the tipping point.”

No company is more central to the shift towards the mobile internet than Apple, which enjoys a wide lead in distributing applications. More than 100,000 apps are available on its App Store and more than 2 billion have been downloaded in less than a year and a half.

To keep that gusher flowing, Apple has sought to inspire more outsider developers with the rare rags-to-riches stories — like that of Steve Demeter, a bank programmer who earned $250,000 in two months of 2008 after launching a simple game called Trism…

The advantages the bigger companies have over the smaller developers — scale, expertise and marketing know-how — mean there may not be any “app millionaires” in the years ahead, says Matt Murphy of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who runs a fund devoted to backing iPhone developers.

But small groups that have multiple successes will be pursued by bigger companies. “There will be teams of people who get a hit franchise acquired for north of $1 million,” Mr Murphy says.

Useful article. Beaucoup information.

As visionary as their leadership may be, this is a phenomenon that, after all, even surprised Apple.

Back at the beginning of the App Store
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Apple has sent a clear message to any developers who try to game its iTunes App Store. Software developer Molinker has been kicked out, along with more than 1,000 of its iPhone applications.

The Chinese developer had, according to some estimates, 1,000-plus applications in the store, most of which were copycat knockoffs of existing applications. When a friend of writers at the iPhoneography photography blog saw these rather poor applications consistently scoring 5-star reviews, they got suspicious.

Some investigation showed that Molinker’s applications were getting many top ratings and almost nothing in the 2-to-4-star range. In fact, the only other ratings were often 1-star, and likely the only truthful feedback on the apps’ pages.

This scam was so effective that the applications regularly rose to the tops of charts. One, called ColorMagic, even made it into the Staff Favorites section of the store…

After a week of typical Apple silence, iPhoneography wrote again, and received a reply direct from Schiller: “Yes, this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either.”

The scale of this purging is huge: 1,000 applications represents almost 1 percent of the entire App Store offering. This alone shows that Apple is happy to do whatever it takes to keep its house clean.

It also shows the power that Apple has over those that sell in its exclusive marketplace. Sure, Molinker was caught cheating, and punished, but Apple could pull the same trick on any developer, for any reason [I was waiting for the predictable paranoia to set in].

We don’t think that it would, but iPhone developers are a nervous bunch as it is, rubbing on rabbits’ feet and crossing their fingers as their creations make their way through a fickle and seemingly arbitrary approval process.

Customers who bought mediocre apps for a couple of bucks each can go ahead and try to get their money back from Molinker. Good luck!

If I were to tell you that Apple’s app economy was worth more than $2.4 billion a year, you would laugh hysterically, shake your head and walk out of the room, yes? Surf on over to some other web site? But here I am telling you exactly that!

According to mobile advertising startup AdMob, there are some $200 million worth of applications sold in Apple’s iPhone store every month, or about $2.4 billion a year.

Just to put that in context, Apple says about 1.5 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store. In comparison, the Android marketplace brings in about $5 million a month or on a run rate to do $60 million in a year, AdMob says…

* Each month, Android and iPhone users download approximately 10 new apps, while iPod touch owners download an average of 18…

* Nearly 50 percent of iPhone users and 40 percent of iPod touch users buy at least one app every month vs. 19 percent of Android-based phone owners…

The biggest takeaway from this data: People are happy spending money on apps for their smartphones, especially after they’ve had a chance to try them for free.

I don’t post much Geek Industry Business reporting. Sites like Om’s already do a terrific job and have a ton of traffic.

Har!

Apple marked the first birthday of its App Store and noted the following about what is becoming a business model moat in the wireless business:

* 1.5 billion apps downloaded;
* 65,000 apps;
* An army of 100,000 iPhone developers.

Jobs indirectly noted a laundry list of rivals—Research in Motion, Nokia, Android, Microsoft and Palm primarily—all trying to replicate the App Store. Jobs said:

“With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

The App Store is one of the primary reasons that the iPhone has been a hit. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster on Tuesday said that Apple is likely to deliver better-than-expected iPhone sales for its June quarter…

The big picture here is that the App Store has rewritten the rules in the wireless business and Jobs knows it. Apple has first mover advantage and isn’t likely to ease up. As Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett noted Apple has been very disruptive to the wireless industry and the fun is just beginning.

The industry tug of war will revolve around devices and carriers as dumb pipes. Indeed, consumers are increasingly thinking of their smartphone as application delivery devices more than handheld for email and phone calls. The vendors that make apps easy will win. Wireless carriers see the shifts coming and some such as Verizon Wireless are already playing around with an application marketplace, according to GigaOm.

Simply put, carriers have no desire to be a dumb pipe to deliver access. Apple’s march could easily relegate carriers to dumb pipe status. It’s an interesting development that will take years to play out.

I suppose I can chuckle more than most over this. I’m completely outside this particular market since I moved to telecommuting before I trundled along into retiree status. Outside of the blogs and politics I’m involved with.

But, the technology – hardware and software – is fascinating.

Apple says that App Store shoppers have downloaded nearly 1 billion applications since the service launched less than one year ago and is running a promotion that will award one lucky customer with over $13,000 in Apple goodies.

“As of today, nearly one billion apps have been downloaded around the globe. So we just want to say thanks — a billion,” the Cupertino-based company wrote in a new posting to its website that was accompanied by a digital counter that’s racing towards the 1 billion mark.

App Store shoppers who download an app between now and the time the counter hits 1 billion will automatically get the chance to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. The total retail cost of the prize package is valued at $13,746.

Of course, if you’re not buying anything – if you’re as natively frugal as I am – there is another spot to click and enter at the site.

Since the launch of Apple app store, the number of applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch has boomed. There are now 15,000 different applications which have been downloaded more than 500 million times.

But the success of these apps is not just limited to Apple. For people like Simon Oliver from east London, it has changed their lives forever.

The 31-year-old said: “I’d been looking to make games for consoles or handhelds for a while but for platforms like PSP and Nintendo DS there are a lot of restrictions as to who can make games for them. When Apple announced they’d allow anyone to make applications for them I jumped at the chance.”

In March 2008 Simon Oliver sat down at his computer in his bedroom and started developing an application that would turn into the game Rolando.

The demo then attracted the attention of a software company in America.

“It’s been an amazing success, beyond my wildest expectations,” he said. “When I started working on the game my goal was to sell several thousands copies, but it’s already sold hundreds of thousands and is still selling…It’s great when you hear about your own work spreading around the world…”

Go ahead. Tempt me! Isn’t it bad enough I’m involved with a couple of blogs, eh?