The worldwide smartphone market is growing at a near meteoric rate. Are you prepared or preparing to capitalize on this trend? IDC’s research finds that smartphone vendors will ship around 450 million units this year… that’s 49% more than in 2010.
This is four times faster than the overall mobile phone market. The Android operating system is still predicted to continue its rapid growth and be the top operating system, with an expected 39.5% of the market by the end of the year and 45% by 2015. Much of this growth is fueled by consumer desire to have the additional functionality offered by smartphones. This creates a massive opportunity for forward thinking individuals and businesses.
iPhone applications developers and Android application developers worldwide are booked for months in advance to meet the growing demand for application software for these systems. And its not hard to see why, consumer demand is high and these applications offer an all new way to engage consumers. Savvy business owners are looking to mobile application developers to help them turn outdated advertising campaigns into engaging applications that interact with consumers on a personal device that is carried with them most of the day.
Already businesses are finding campaigns run via creative and practical mobile applications are paying huge dividends. There are several keys to success with mobile applications and a quality, professional application developer can help you put together a map to success that will help you translate your brand into a powerful mobile application.
Yesterday Apple released iOS 4.3 with several enhancements like the Nitro JavaScript engine to improve Safari browsing speeds, extension of AirPlay support and the Personal Hotspot used on the Verizon iPhone.
The iOS update also delivers a new feature called iTunes Home Sharing, allowing users to stream iTunes content on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad over a local WiFi network.
These additional features are great news for iPhone application developers as well they expand the palette of possibilities with this already incredible device. To help them utilize these tools Apple also released its iOS 4.3 SDK and Xcode 4, a new version of its integrated development environment available to iPhone and iPad application developers.
A key opportunity that is sure to be utilized by iPhone application developers is the new option to allow for streaming from third-party apps through Apple TV. In addition, AirPlay allows video captured on iOS devices to be streamed back to Apple TV. With each revision, mobile application development is given the tools to take a step forward.
According to data from a recent study by Asymco, iPad and iPhone owners download an average of over 60 mobile applications per device.
Amazingly, they are reporting that iOS application downloads are outpacing music downloads in terms of growth. The amazing growth of iPhone application and iPad application downloads is exciting news and a huge opportunity for savvy business people.
With users downloading custom built applications at such a high rate that there are massive opportunities to utilize this medium in ways people are thinking of everyday. Applications, regardless of if they are for iPhone or iPad or even applications for Android or BlackBerry applications are rapidly changing the way we communicate and do business.
Have you though of how you can use applications to enhance your customer’s experience? Provide them with useful data? Create a loyalty program? Give them important information to assist them in using your products better? The possibilities are endless and those that don’t push themselves into this realm may soon find themselves left behind.