iPad App Development Trends – An Early Look

by on 08/04/10 at 5:00 am

iPad App Development Trends – An Early Look

Bill French is an information architect specializing in Internet applications. He is also the co-founder of MyST Technology Partners and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.

I’ve been curious about what app developers were seeing as opportunities with iPad. The first few days of App Store flurry and new app availability is a general indicator for what’s to come. This general sampling of each iTunes category (for iPad apps only) provided some insight into the makeup of iPad applications available now five days after launch.

Somewhat of a surprise is the overwhelming dominance by games. Business apps comprise only 2% of the total (at the moment). If you combine however, business with categories likely to be used for professional activities (Finance, Productivity, Reference, Social Networking, and Travel), the business-related percentage is about 11%.

Eye-opening is the weakness in Music, Lifestyle, ad News (combined percentage of 8%) – a segment that I thought would fly out of the gate close behind games. We have to be cautious about making any sweeping generalizations from this data. Many of the apps that are available as iPad apps were already available for iPhone, clearly an advantage for some categories and a statistical bias. New applications for iPad, especially from media companies and business app providers are likely to impact these numbers in the months ahead.

image thumb3 iPad App Development Trends An Early Look

The data presented in this chart is neither scientifically acquired nor is it likely to be accurate. It is simply based on the number of apps counted in each category and distributed as a percentage of the total apps counted as of today. It’s also important to note that some apps may appear in multiple categories – this has the effect of inflating the total number of apps counted. However, the distribution is likely to be a fair representation of the actual trend.

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