Web Simple

Three short years ago Apple changed the rules when they opened up their phones to the universe, letting third party vendors write programs. Although there were technically apps before that, developers and companies were free to develop their own, branded apps on iPhones platform (something virtually unheard of at the time). Since then, over two hundred and twenty five thousand of those handy little programs are in Apple’s App Store alone (and that’s not counting places like the Android Market and Blackberry App World). The market isn’t slowing any time soon. According to a recent Nielsen report on mobile apps, smart phones are expected to overtake feature phones in the U.S. by 2011. You can now do anything with apps from manage your bank account to put a voodoo curse on your boss. I can almost see Apple’s campaign slogan “There’s an app for that” on a Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture edition. At first, this just looks like an “App-A-Lanche” of mind boggling amounts of new programs crushing into the market. But take a closer look, and you can see that there has been a impressive evolution in the app world.

Early apps were very simple. They were like single-cell programs, letting you calculate a tip or see what time it was in China. Not many frills, and conventions were still being hammered out. Developers were like nervous teenagers on a date, not sure how far to push things. Should they charge for apps? Should they give them away for free? How complex should they be? Apple had given them they keys to the iPhone Ferrari, and they weren’t sure where to go. As developers got more comfortable with this new medium and companies and start-ups started waking up to their potential, these simple apps soon began to multiply. Apple also helped things by opening the App Store in July 2008 and allowing users to download apps directly to their iPhones (ten million apps were downloaded the first weekend the App Store was opened). From July 2008 to January 2009 the Apple App Store went from 500 apps to 15,000. (more…)

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