Hate to say....

I now feel compelled to write the final part of this Android review in haste, due to the increasing glut of iPhone news that is almost all worthy of comment. Despite this impulse, I’ll do my best to give this article the finish it deserves. Maybe a little of what’s currently hitting the headlines will be relevant in a piece about the future of androids application market anyway.

What is remarkable, on both iPhone and Android, is the amount of free apps out there. These must be financed partly by the passion of the developers, partly by a desire to show off their talents and partly by financial incentives. I cannot claim to have any idea about the time lengths and difficulties of coding a smartphone app, so its hard to say whether this kind of model is viable over the next few years, or if we will see more developers start to desire some even more financial payback for their exertion. Supposedly an app entering the top 100 can expect to earn anything between $400 and $5000 a day, but then that leaves 149,900 apps earning far less than that. Techcrunch has some very interesting graphs and statistics on this here

What is clear is that both Google and Apple are both staking considerable amounts of money on mobile search, and that advertisers are prepared to, at the very least make some kind of foray into the mobile market. What is a very positive indicator going forward, is that some of the biggest names in the game, namely P&G and Nike, have recently developed Apps specifically for their brand.

I think as the Android platform matures, we’ll see a more consistent and transparent model for of ad supported payment for the app development market, whereas some apps now have no ads, some have a great many. What I hope is that, app development by big name brands also continues. These apps are usually of a high quality, and are good for both the brand and the consumer. The brand gets meaningful interaction with their product, and a campaign that can easily spread by word of mouth. The consumer gets a free app.

On the subject of paid apps, the future is a little more obtuse. Are people willing to pay money for Apps when they are so often viewed as a free commodity? My experience of paying for apps is more of a ‘foray’ than a commitment. I believe this will depend as much as whether we can adjust to spending money via our mobiles, like we did in the transition from shopping in the high street, and online, as it will on whether microtransactions are ‘micro’ enough for us to wear. If we can extrapolate from other industries such as video gaming, it does suggest that they may be.

So what does this mean? Well I’d hate to be quoted in 3 years time making a prediction that turned out wrong. On the flipside I do love to say ‘I told you so’. I’d suggest that as things look at the moment, we’ll see less apps being developed, and a consolidation of the developers into biggers studios, much like the videogame market over the past 20 years. This move will, however be counteracted by a better App funding system implemented by Google, in the near future, and as a result of this, I think we’ll see more ads in ‘free’ apps.