The bean counters at IDC have some predictions for what’s going to happen over the next few years with regards to the popularity of mobile applications. They say that in 2010 there were 10.9 billion applications downloaded all across the world, and that in 2014 that number is supposed to skyrocket to 76.9 billion. The market for apps will be worth close to $35 billion during that period. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I still firmly believe that most people go binge eating on applications when they get their device and start setting it up, then they never bother downloading anything after those first few weeks. I also believe that as the browsers in devices get better, and offer greater access to the underlying hardware, writing applications that have to be maintained across multiple platforms will not only seem like a purposeful way of putting your mobile development team through a world of pain, but it will also slow down how quickly your company will be able to iterate features and better support customers.
“Mobile app developers will ‘appify’ just about every interaction you can think of in your physical and digital worlds,” notes Scott Ellison, vice president, Mobile and Wireless research at IDC. “The extension of mobile apps to every aspect of our personal and business lives will be one of the hallmarks of the new decade with enormous opportunities for virtually every business sector.”
True as that may be, the numbers that IDC is toting may come to fruition thanks to the mass adoption of smartphones. Ask someone who has owned either an iOS or Android device for the past 12 months how they consume applications and you’ll get a very different answer compared to someone who just got their Jesus Phone in the last half of 2010.
[Via: mocoNews]