Linked List: January 18, 2010

Monday, 18 January 2010

Gartner on Apple’s Share of Mobile App Sales ★

Chris Foresman, on a new report from Gartner on mobile app sales:

Earlier this month, Apple announced that sales had topped 3 billion; that means iPhone users downloaded 2.5 billion apps in 2009 alone. Gartner’s figures show another 16 million apps that could come from other platforms’ recently opened app stores, giving Apple at least 99.4 percent of all mobile apps sold for the year.

I think Foresman is wrong here. Apple didn’t announce 3 billion App Store sales; they announced 3 billion downloads, including free apps. Apple has never (to my knowledge) publicly revealed the breakdown between free and paid app downloads from the App Store.

However, if Gartner is correct that all other platforms combined accounted for only 16 million mobile app sales last year, then Apple’s share of the market is astonishingly high. It’s not 99.4 percent, as Foresman indicates, but still crazy-ass high.

Update: Via email, Chris Foresman informs me that Gartner has clarified for him that their figures are indeed estimates of all apps downloaded for any platform in 2009, free or paid. In other words, Gartner is using the word “sale” to mean “download”, probably because that appeals to their market. So Gartner really is claiming that Apple has over 99 percent of the mobile app market. Wow.

Ed Bott: ‘It’s Time to Stop Using IE6’ ★

I hear next week he’s going to say it’s time to stop using floppy disks.

John Siracusa Looks Back at His Decade-Ago Early Mac OS X Reviews ★

Love this bit from page four, on why people love to save files to their desktops:

The reason is simple: the desktop is the one “place” on the computer that every user knows how to get to. People don’t even think of it as existing in the file hierarchy (though, of course, it does); to them it’s a location in the physical sense, and items placed within it behave almost as if they were real objects. A file can be “lost” in the file hierarchy — irretrievably, as far as novice users are concerned — but finding something on the desktop will never be any worse than rummaging through the messiest real-life junk drawer. And that bargain, that task of keeping things neat by placing, removing, and arranging, is something that people are comfortable with, and that their innate human abilities are tailored for.

Advanced Task Killer ★

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter, I switched, cold turkey, to a Nexus One on Friday. (I borrowed it from App Cubby developer David Barnard, who was kind enough to lend it to me for a few weeks.) I’ve been tweeting some initial observations, and eventually plan to write a full review/comparison to the iPhone.

As a snapshot, though, I can think of no better example to epitomize the difference between Android and iPhone OS than Advanced Task Killer, a third-party Android app. That this app even exists is, on the one hand, exactly what many Android fans like about Android, and on the other hand exactly what many iPhone fans see as wrong about Android. The truth is you do not need this app (or anything like it) for Android, but many Android users want it.

(Via Dave Winer.)

#4A525Aholes ★

Worth a re-link, for those of you who bought new DF t-shirts last month.

Walkmen ★

Speaking of Grant Hutchinson and gorgeous gadgets, I’ve been meaning to link to his small collection of Sony Walkmen. I look at these and I can hear the tape hiss.

Grant Hutchinson’s ‘Batman’ Newton Prototype ★

They were gorgeous gadgets.

Apple Announces Special Event for Wednesday January 27 ★

“Come see our latest creation.”

Verizon Palm Pre Plus Hands-On Video at Engadget ★

They’ve got a native API for games now; the “Need for Speed” demo looks good. (Biggest niggle: That the carrier banner in the status bar says “Verizon Wireless” rather than just “Verizon”.)

Update: I know that the full name of the carrier is “Verizon Wireless”, and that it’s a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Vodafone, but, come on, everyone calls it “Verizon”, and those are valuable pixels. And for what it’s worth, the iPhone’s U.S. carrier’s full name is “AT&T Mobility”, but it just says “AT&T” up in the status bar.