Part 2; Top 10 Predictions for 2010; iPhone, Smart-phones And Lots of Apps

by Dan Dearing on 22/12/09 at 7:00 pm

Dan Dearing is the Vice President of Marketing & Product Management for Trust Digital and contributing editor for iPhoneCTO.

In part 1 of Speeding Ticket Secrets — Huge Untapped Niche

2/21/top-10-predictions-2010-iphone-smartphones-lots-apps/”>”Top 10 Predictions for 2010; iPhone, Smart-phones And Lots of Apps” we took a look at the mobile landscape for 2010 and the impact of iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and the expansion of the mobile app market. We wrap up our look at 2010 with my top 5 predictions for 2010.

4. Mobile application stores will continue to balloon; (Network World’s 7 Smartphone Predictions for 2010).

“This is another safe prediction, given the success of Apple’s App Store and the proliferation of App Store imitators. As of early November, the App

Store offered more than 100,000 applications created by third parties and had had more than 2 billion downloads.”

3. Smart-phone adoption will start driving down data plan costs; (James Kendrick of jkOntheRun.com, Three Mobile Tech Predictions for 2010).

“The gap between the smart-phone and feature-phone is already narrowing tremendously. Next year I believe that more consumers than ever will demand the ability to interact fully with the mobile web on their phones. Smart-phone sales will continue to skyrocket, and carriers are going to realize that they must make the mobile web available at low cost, or lose customers to competitors.”

2. The Android mobile operating system will take off; (Matt Hamblen, Computerworld, smart-phone predictions for 2010).

“That’s a fairly safe prediction, given that several phone makers have announced Android-based models, which could bring the total number of Android devices introduced in 2010 to 36.”

1. New platforms and devices will change what’s required from the IT industry; (Michael Coté, analyst at RedMonk provides our Number 1 prediction for 2010).

“There’s a host of new platforms and networks that seem ready to (finally) pan out for technology companies and their user-bases…highly networked and dependent platforms are emerging and available, lead by the ongoing adoption of Internet-based applications in mainstream life and a renewed interest in the smart phone market thanks to the iPhone…”.

“What defines this space currently is having the internet (and the applications and services it brings) in your pocket, at all times, along with your cellphone and a camera. Without the huge industrial design leaps Apple made with the iPhone this would still be the “Crackberry” market, which is very different than what we mean now-a-days when we say “smartphone.”

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2009 was an interesting year for mobility and 2010 promises to be equally innovative as IT works to harness app phones for applications beyond email. In 2010 business IT will be challenged by a number of complex issues as they deploy app phones to more employees in support of more use cases. Some of these challenges include the debate around device ownership (corporate-liable verses employee-liable), supporting a mix of app phone devices and leveraging existing IT services and resources to more effectively govern and manage app phones. Many IT organizations that we talk with are already busy trying to address these issues in parallel because they know that next year there will be lots of app phones in the hands of their users and customers using a variety of applications. That’s not a prediction, that’s a certainty.