When an industry gets big enough to spawn other sectors that grow parasitically on top of it, then you can tell it has some decent critical mass. And in many cases, that's where to look for jobs, or even start your own small venture.
Take mobile applications, for example. We all know that the iPhone has done exceedingly well as an application platform. So well, in fact, that start-ups are now forming with the sole purpose of measuring just how well. One such startup,
Distimo, focuses on analysing trends in the mobile application space. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it found that Apple leads the field by an order of magnitude. At the recent World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Distimo said that there are 150,000 applications in the
iPhone app store, compared with just 20,000 in that of its nearest competitor, Android.
Let's face it, iPhone apps are so accessible that someone might download one for 99 cents sitting on the toilet, instead of leafing through a back copy of National Geographic. Their accessibility can convert into serious amounts of money for developers.
Tapulous, a 20-strong development company that makes games and social software for Apple's Jesus-phone, is now making $1 million each month from them. Not everyone can be that successful, but most of us would take just a small slice of that particular pie.
What makes it so bizarre is that Apple is such a fascistic company. People can write any application they want for Android, and upload it to the app store without any third-party arbitration. Apple, on the other hand, has a notoriously draconian app approval policy. For example, it took an arbitrary decision to remove almost all sexual applications from the app store this month -- but chose to leave in apps from organisations such as Sports Illustrated and Playboy. This is unlikely to make developers happy -- but with such a lot of money at stake, who's going to complain very loudly?
The unknown quantity in mobile applications is Microsoft. It chose Barcelona as the venue to announce the mobile edition of Windows 7, which is a marked improvement on all previous versions of
Windows Mobile. It's a beautiful looking system, with a sleek user interface, and promised links into services such as Xbox Live, which will be like flypaper for consumers. But not everyone is convinced that developers will support the platform. Beejive CEO Kai Yu is quoted
here as saying that the company has simply ruined its reputation with mobile developers too much in the past. There's also the fact that we won't see the first of these phones until the fourth quarter, which puts Microsoft way behind the curve compared to the competition.
But whether you choose the iPhone, Android, Microsoft, or another competitor such as the recently open-sourced
Symbian, there are worse ways to make money than by developing a mobile application -- even if you do it on the side, rather than taking it up was your day job. If you can avoid the hundreds of me-too applications out there and do something truly original, perhaps you could even be the next Tapulous.
Not the imaginative type? Worry not, my developer friend. Such is the momentum behind this industry that you can even get away without having an original thought in your head. Organisations such as
iPhoneAppQuotes are springing up to connect creative thinkers with the
software developers who can make their ideas an reality. But my advice: if anyone comes to you suggesting the ultimate iCleavage app for the iPhone, you might want to think twice.
