Monday, March 09, 2009

The iPhone Overtakes Windows Mobile in Nine Months

Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS has had the most applications available for many of its 9 years. However, App Store tracker 148Apps.com now report that over 25,000 applications are now available on the iPhone App Store and these have increased by a staggering 5,000 in less than a month. This staggering growth has happened not in nine years but nine months. It clearly shows that smartphones are the new hot spot and also that Apple have clearly taken the initiative through their App Store. Even Amazon joined them last week with their ebook reader.

Some are predicting the Android phone will dominate, others Palm’s Pre, others Nokia and some still believe Windows has legs. Whatever the horse you would back the facts are that Apple has made and continues to make the news, generate the applications and potentially dictate the direction. If you could drop your current smartphone and merely swap it tomorrow for any other on the same terms and even the same network why wouldn’t you select an iPhone? Its becoming an interesting battle with higher syphisication on one side such as the new Sony and LG camera specifications, versus the textbound corporate Blackberry versus applications and design.

We have said repeatedly that the application wars will be decisive and could decide winners and losers and one only needs to use an iPhone to appreciate how they have got the customer interface right. Given the growth of applications it is now down to whether there is enough attention to feed the application developers on one platform or whether they will have to spread their bets and develop on one of the other platforms. The question is which would you choose?

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