Smartphone Makers Urged to Focus on Seven Core Apps Discussion

[Judy Jefferson]

Apple may have more than 200,000 mobile applications in its App Store, but in reality only seven types of applications are expected to drive software downloads and the market over the next few years.

Read the full content of this Article: Smartphone Makers Urged to Focus on Seven Core Apps

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[dsaroff]

No offense to In-stat, but "Games" are not an app but a category...Sure games drive downloads, partially because people want them and partially because there are so fricken many.

How about calendaring? I see lots of people asking for a calendaring application as powerful as the old Datebk6 on the Palm, but nothing comparable (amazing isn't it) on iOS or Android (or WebOS or Blackberry for that matter).

[RickAgresta]

I agree totally with dsaroff's post; of course, without knowing the content of the nearly $3000 report, it's difficult to assess as to whether or not they delineate apps from categories. maybe editing the subject line to include the word 'category' would help..

[Varjak]

I would say 'games' are as much an 'app' as music and video. Both are types of functions as well as 'apps' that control those functions (like emulators, etc.). And one might also include 'e-books' in the Music and Video category as another multimedia entertainment function.

You could also say that IM might be included in Social Networking. And yes, I'd add calendaring and 'personal productivity' (word processors, spreadsheets, databases) to things that are important to me.

[NamelessPlayer]

PIM isn't on the list? I'm shocked. Just goes to show how the smartphone has now basically become a luxury lifestyle device.

As for games: I'm a core gamer. Everyone here who has even casual knowledge of me knows that, and my avatar and screen name shows it. But games are NOT something I'm looking for in a PDA/smartphone-type device, at least not as a primary function.

Why? Controls. The type of games I'm into tend to require a D-Pad and face buttons at the very least. Most smartphones nowadays tend to lack those, and even basic dumbphones or sliders with thumbboards don't have them laid out in an ideal fashion for comfortable gaming.

Game libraries also have much to do with it, for the type of games I enjoy on dedicated handhelds are generally core gamer affairs expected to last several hours on just one playthrough and possibly even more playthroughs. The typical smartphone app store game is generally more of a budget affair that's meant to be played in short bursts. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't always mesh with my tastes.

Oh, and most of all, I don't need to sign my soul away to a carrier for two years to use a dedicated gaming handheld. It's just a one-time payment up front and it's mine, no strings attached. This is why I could easily see myself packing a 3DS shortly after launch, yet I'm hesitant to adopt anything resembling a smartphone nearly as quickly.

[Ed Hardy]

You're probably right, the term should probaby be core features rather than applications, but that's the term In-Stat used:

”Big Seven” Smartphone Applications to Drive Future Hardware Designs
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[RickAgresta]

they also say this:

“In-Stat tracks 26 different categories of smartphone applications,” says Frank Dickson, VP of Research.

[Drillbit]

Mobile gaming with touchscreens has a serious problem. When you are forced to use controls, e.g. touch screen, the view of the screen is often blocked by the hand. The inability to enable complex control sequences is the difference between a touchscreen device vs. a dedicated game console.

[r0k]

Email, games, social networking, instant messaging, mapping & directions, music & radio, and weather, eh? Well I suppose you could lump contacts and calendaring in with email and with networking. But weather? And how does web browsing get left off the list? Is it something that is "already there?". Perhaps that's what happened to contacts and calendering. They are already there. Well, let me assure you there is enough disparity between Android, webOS, iOS, BB OS and the rest when it comes to calendaring and contacts to make these worthy of their own category. How about document viewing and markup? Docs2go (and others like it) are on almost every major platform for a reason. People need to be able to open attachments on their devices.

Apple's app store has about 22 categories. Some are more full of apps than others. Perhaps these guys would have been better off checking their results against readily available app store stats before claiming something like weather deserves its own category while PIM data handling got left off the list entirely. It's easy enough to do over at appshopper.com. Simply look at the highest grossing apps, then delve into each category and see how many apps in that category are among the highest grossing. With 200k+ apps, I would say you are getting a decent prediction of "must have" app categories. The only differences would be other platforms which offer better or worse "basics" than iOS. I think the "basics" are phone, contacts, calendar, web browser, app store and memos. These guys are missing the a big chunk of data when they ignore the fact that a lot of app sales are driven by failure of a particular smartphone platform to address some of these basics (to a particular customer's satisfaction). For instance, soon enough we will be in an "all webkit" world but for now at least, there is a lot of opportunity for third party browsers.

@Drillbit, you need get skinnier fingers or a stylus...