2012-02-04 @ admin
Mobile application development market researcher Flurry has updated its last summer report which compared mobile applications to web usage and found that apps came out on top. In December 2011, the usage of Mobile Applications has soared to 94 MPD, while web consumption dropped to 72 MPD.
As you suggest, it is worth questioning the web-surfing side of the study. Flurry published very different results exactly a year ago using a population that was perhaps a little biased (their users), but exact figures in terms of app usage (across the board app usage in minutes on a per user basis). Flurry aggregates data from apps that implement their analytics solution, hence do not collect data on other apps using alternative SDKs like Localytics or even Google Analytics.
Nevertheless, my conclusion is correct that apps are hot(ter) than ever. The line will get blurry as web-apps become better. But by then, we’ll have web-app-stores to take the model to the next level.
Analitics predict 1 million apps by the turn of 2012 – and with Windows Phone Market exceeding 50k apps, we now well exceed that if we count all 3 major eco-systems.
The overall winner is of course the internet and mobile usage (vs. traditional media: press or TV). Apps or web apps leverage the internet in the same way, i.e. requiring near ubiquitous connectivity to connect to the service, leader board, sharing, etc…