App Stores for iPhone & Android Will Soar

Sunday, 05. 3. 2009  –  Category: Enversa Companies

Whenever the Cupertino-based Apple enters a market, they always manage to leave a profound and lasting mark and often do so very quickly. That has certainly been the case with their Application Store approach to offering 3rd party software to iPhone and iPod Touch customers and it seems all but inevitable that Android-based phones are likely to end up with something similar. Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices developed by Google. It allows developers to write managed code in Java, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. After all, virtually every major player from Microsoft to Sony is jumping on the bandwagon in one form or another.

At present the Android Market shows a list of titles broken down into a few categories with links to the developer’s sites. There doesn’t appear to be any mechanism for direct purchases as of this writing.

The key difference between the Google and Apple and their approach to connecting 3rd party developers to customers is that Apple has complete control of the hardware to operating system (OS) and thus exceptional control over which developers and software packages make it into their App Store. Conversely, Android runs on a wide variety of hardware but still maintains strong control over the OS, middle-ware and key applications.
In essence this means that Apple is shooting for quality over quantity to achieve success, and Android may end up taking an approach that is nearly the polar opposite.

An example of this would be programs like Podcaster by Alex Sokirynsky, which was rejected by Apple for duplicating some functionality already in iTunes. Mr. Sokirynsky wasn’t even able to sell his code to third parties due to legal interference by Apple, and as a result has announced plans to port his app to Android.

Android’s official take on the App Store concept has yet to be seen, however it is likely that they won’t be as selective as Apple due to negative publicity that Apple has suffered. On the other side of that coin is the probability that they won’t be too lenient on requirements either.

Google will be in the unenviable position of trying to replicate and improve upon Apple’s very successful concept but without having as much hardware control while simultaneously trying to establish methods of ensuring that plenty of developers are attracted to the platform while keeping the fly-by-night shovel-ware developers at arms length.

While Apple has certainly blazed a trail that looks lucrative, there are many naysayers who suggest that the App Store is more of a fad than a viable long-term business model. Given how many tech industry stalwarts have opened similar stores for their consoles and other hardware, it’s hard to imagine that this is a passing trend.

Is there room for two nearly diametrically opposed approaches? It seems likely that both can thrive because of their differences.

Marc Pickren is the President of Enversa- a performance-based marketing agency.

Tags: applications, apps, cell phone, iPhone, smartphone