Kristian Prosser's List: iPhone News

• I talk to a lot of people who have no idea what business metric they are trying to improve by implementing a mobile web site, let alone by how much. So they have absolutely no basis to decide whether the investment is worthwhile.

• iPhone Developer News and Announcements Now Available via RSS

    

  You can now subscribe to a new RSS feed that will allow you to instantly receive updates to the iPhone Developer News and Announcements. Get the latest information on a wide range of topics including tips on submitting apps to the App Store, current turnaround time for app review, program updates, development and testing techniques, and much more. Subscribe now.

• The trickle of Android-based smartphones seen this year is expected to turn into an avalanche in 2010, according to market research company CCS Insight, which forecasts that more than 50 devices will ship next year.

• Nearly four in 10 consumers don't want to receive mobile ads for any reason -- and less than 20% recall seeing a mobile ad, according to new data from market research firm Parks Associates.

• I believe that the real potential for Android app developers lies in the New Year. Here’s why:

• 3) One ad network is generally not enough to give you 100% Fill Rate. Using only one ad network results in lower fill rates and less money.

   

  4) Mediation layers allow you to connect to multiple ad networks and can provide you with 100% fill rate.

• Developers were forced to make the tough choice of which operating system to develop for. Making it harder, customers were scattered and were requesting versions of a variety of platforms, with no one platform controlling the market, unlike the desktop world. Until a few months ago, they had only one choice: develop for each platform independently, picking and choosing which to support, each with huge costs and unknown payback.

    

  That, however, is changing. Developers now have three ways to develop cross-platform.

• Apple has passed Nokia to become the world’s most profitable handset manufacturer, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter of 2009, Strategy Analytics estimates Apple’s operating profit for its iPhone handset division to be $1.6 billion, with Nokia reaching only $1.1 billion of operating profit over the same time period.

• It seems that apps which are addictive (like games) persistent (like social communications apps), or lengthy and easy to sample (like books) are doing the best with in-app purchases. It trickles down after that. There is one music app in the top performing apps—RJDJ (iTunes link), one news app, one finance app, and so on. People just don’t want to pay for songs, news, or stock quotes.

• The new system is straightforward: when a developer logs into the Dev Center, he or she can see bulletins and status updates that discuss the app’s progress through the app store approval process, including “In Review,” “Waiting for Review,” and “Ready for Sale” updates. It also timestamps each note.

• Mobile Orchard pointed to a post by Joe Hewitt (developer of the Facebook iPhone app) where he mentions that Apple may be using a static analyzer to help review app submissions.

• Browsing the web was the fastest growing activity on UK mobile phones between the second and third quarters of 200p, according to new research from The Nielsen Company. The number of Britons using mobile Internet increased by 1.6 million, from 8.8 million in Q2 2009 to 10.4 million in Q3 2009. This means over one-fifth of people in the UK with a mobile now use their handset to browse the web.
  Downloading applications or software was the second-fastest growing activity. Driven mostly by Nokia and iPhone owners, the number of Britons engaged in this activity increased by just over one million, from 3.1 million in Q2 to 4.1 million, or 8% of Britons with a mobile, in Q3.
• Despite this, Edward Kershaw, Vice President of Mobile Media at The Nielsen Company says:
  “Although there have been sizeable increases in the take-up of new mobile technologies, such as video and location-based services they remain niche forms of behaviour. Although the era of the handset as a truly multimedia device on a mass-market level lies somewhere on the horizon, the key for companies to successfully harness mobile lies in a realistic understanding of what media activities people on a large-scale are actually doing on their handsets now.”

• This morning we announced that AdMob has signed a definitive  agreement to be acquired by Google.

• E

  arlier today, I gave a presentation at the Develop Liverpool conference looking at gaming on five 'app stores' - well, three app stores (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry) and two digital handheld games stores (DSiWare and PSP Minis).

  It outlined some of the stats and trends from those five areas, compared and contrasted their capabilities, and looked at the idea of the emerging 'cross platform digital games developer' targeting some or all of them.

• With the growing number of people accessing web content via their handsets, the mobile display market has grown significantly over the last couple of years – and so too has the number of ad networks aggregating mobile ad inventory.

   

  The number of ad networks offering services to publishers has now become unmanageable. New optimisation platforms have emerged to help publishers address this problem.

   

  Smaato are the one the biggest mobile yield optimisers in Europe.

• As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app.
• Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking. These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development.

• "Everybody talks about fragmentation as a bad thing, but I think you need to look at it from the perspective of the developer," Eric Chu, Google's group manager for Android mobile platforms, told the wireless-happy OpenMobileSummit in downtown San Francisco this afternoon. "How much work does the developer have to do to address the fragmentation? If there are a million devices and they're in three fragments, they don't care."

• Using mobile apps for advertising is all about leveraging Smartphones' inherent rich media and platform capabilities. Mobile advertising used to miss the wow factor; apps fill that gap.

• Big brands love the iPhone: they're flocking to the App Store like bees round a honeypot, steering well clear of rivals like Ovi Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World.

• The world's biggest consumer brands are swelling the App Store with apps, and often innovative ones too, making use of location, connectivity, social networking and in-app payments. These are creative, interesting apps, not brand-slaps or naked advertising.

   

  Now, how many of these apps are available on other smartphone platforms? The NBA has launched an Android version of its app with BlackBerry to follow, and... well... that's about it.

• Music offers a stark case study. Hundreds of bands are launching iPhone apps, ranging from pure promotional efforts to more innovative fare like I Am T-Pain, Nine Inch Nails' nin:access, and Sonifi by BT (the trance DJ, not the telecoms firm, obviously).

   

  BlackBerry has an innovative U2 app, sure. But only after stumping up a big-bucks tour sponsorship. Nokia has a Noisettes app, but it had to make it itself.

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