Rise of the Planet of the Apps

09/18/2011 Comments Off on Rise of the Planet of the Apps Android Apps, iOS Apps Like

Take cover, the apps are coming (actually they’re already here) and their army is now 1 million apps strong and counting. They are multiplying like wildfire and for every app we destroy it seems like another 10 or 20 new ones pop up. The number of apps developed for iOS and Android platforms is growing at a rapid rate with no signs of slowing down.

Like the age old saying “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em“, and that’s exactly what many budding app developers alike are doing. The widespread success and increasing popularity of app stores including iTunes and the Android Market is turning many struggling yet talented app developers into multimillionaires.

In other words, the app gold rush continues and believe it or not we’ve hardly scratched the surface. Surprisingly, if you think this market is already lucrative, the truth is we’ve barely seen anything yet. Mobile app stores have only been around for 3 short years and this is only the beginning. Check out the 1 million mobile apps chart we recently came across from Appsfire below.

1 million apps prediction graph for Android and iOS

As you can see by the chart only about 800,000 of those apps are currently available on the market, some have been dropped while others are still going through the (sometimes) rigorous approval process. Nonetheless it’s predicted that before the year is out there will in fact be 1,000,000 combined Android and iOS apps readily available on the market for consumers. We must also take into consideration that some of those apps are not necessarily unique, meaning the same app is often times developed for multiple platforms. Still, this numbers are very significant and impressive.

At this moment roughly 48% of those 1 million apps are Android and the other 52% are iOS apps. What this means is Android is certainly leveling the playing field in a market that at one point was literally dominated by Apple. On another note, competition aside, as if people need convincing anymore but if the rapidly growing number of apps is not an indication that tablets are in fact here to stay I don’t know what else is. Of course a large majority of those apps are developed specifically for smartphones, not tablets, but by and large there’s no denying that the exponential growth of the tablet computer industry is a big part of this explosion of apps.

While on the topic of apps, just a heads up for everyone, we are in the process of having our app section built and it will be launching soon so stay tuned for that! There’s also a lot of other big and exciting things in the works behind the scenes at Let’s Talk Tablets which will all be revealed soon enough as well. In the meantime, you might also want to check out 10 Great Tablet PC App Development Resources if you’re interested in learning how to design and develop your very own apps.