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Friday 18 February 2011

Apple Still Dominates App Stores, But For How Long? [ 18-02-2011 17:11 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: CNET Translation by: Paul Smith

The explosion in smartphone ownership over the past few years has been largely alongside an explosion in the growth of app stores. For many the two go hand in hand and sitting right at the top of the pile has been Apple with its App Store, but new figures from IHS show that dominance starting to slip.

Back in 2009 Apple's App Store brought in $769 million in revenue and 2010 saw that jump by a massive 131.9% to $1.782 billion in revenue.

In terms of revenue all the major app stores did very well, showing massive growth in the amount of money coming in. In fact Apple's revenue growth, whilst the largest in terms of pure money is actually the lowest in terms of the percentage change.

Blackberry App World saw a 360% revenue increase, Nokia's Ovi Store saw revenues go up by 719% and the Android Market's revenue shot up by a mind blowing 861%. The thing is though despite those three figure growth rates the actual revenues brought in by those three app stores is completely dwarfed by Apple.

The Android Market's 2010 revenue, for example, was just $102 million, a far cry from Apple's $1.782 billion.

So if Apple is bringing in so much more revenue than the other major app stores where is this decline I mentioned? It's in the marketshare.

Apple's App Store shrunk from 92.8% in 2009 to 82.7% last year. At the same time the Android Market went from an almost non-existent 1.3% in 2009 to 4.7% last year, or in other words it expanded by 3.6x. Apple's revenues may be going up, but it's days of having a dominant hold on the app store scene look to be numbered.

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Moto Explains $800 XOOM Price Tag [ 18-02-2011 16:58 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: WSJ Translation by: Paul Smith

The XOOM is a great looking piece of kit isn't it? That Honeycomb action sure is a big draw right? You really want it don't you? ... oh that's right it's $800!

$800 is a lot of money for most people, especially during uncertain economic times, so why is Motorola effectively asking you to sell a kidney to buy their tablet? Well to answer that very question we turn to Motorola's Mr Sanjay Jha who told the WSJ:

We felt that our ability to deliver 50Mb/s would justify the $799 price point. It is 32GB with 3G and a free upgrade to 4G. Being competitive with iPad is important. We feel that from the hardware and capabilities we deliver we are at least competitive and in a number of ways better [than the iPad].

Ok that seems fair enough on the face of it, a free upgrade to 4G sounds pretty sweet. Hold on a minute though because there's a couple of things wrong with that statement. First of all is anyone in the real world actually going to see 50 Mbps? Probably not. Secondly, why not offer a 3G only version that would be cheaper?

With other manufacturers getting busy in the Android tablet arena Motorola might be forced to drop that $800 price tag sooner rather than later.

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Video: When Your iPhone 4 Explodes Get Yourself A Montage! [ 18-02-2011 16:21 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: CrunchGear Translation by: Paul Smith

I work my way through a lot of mobile news each day, some of it interesting, some of it dull and some just strange. This definitely fits into that latter category. After all, if your iPhone 4 erupts in flames what better way is there to tell your story than through the awesome power of the video montage?

It's not just any video montage though as not only does it have cartoonish flames erupting from the burnt out iPhone 4 as well as a running commentary it also has a pretty kick ass Bruce Springsteen soundtrack.

The chap behind the exploding iPhone posted about his experience on CrunchGear:

The phone got hot then started smoking then blew up. My wife and kid were in the room and it set off my fire alarm. It slighty burned my hand when I tried to pick it up. Basically the battery caught on fire.

Thankfully no one was injured by the iPhone (the video though ...).