January 15th, 2010 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial, Platforms: AndroidOS, Platforms: BlackBerry, Platforms: iOS | No Comments »
According to new research from Mplayit, the quality of the Android and BlackBerry App offering is catching up with that of Apple’s much praised iPhone. The quantity however, is still far from there.
Mplayit looked at the most popular application categories across the platforms and compiled the top apps in each category for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. They found a great deal of similarity in the most popular apps in the most active categories, demonstrating that despite the big differences in the number of apps available by device, for the majority of consumers, there is less and less to choose between them.
"How many apps?' is the wrong question," said Michael Powers, CEO and founder of Mplayit. "People just want to get the job done. It doesn't matter if there are 50 different to-do list apps on iPhone, because Android or BlackBerry just need a couple of good ones to make consumers happy."
Cross-platform apps do well in Mplayit’s research. Evernote registered among the top three of the most popular apps in the Lists and Notes category on iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Pandora Radio is among the top three music apps on all three smartphone platforms as well. When a good app is not cross-platform, the analysts noticed that a very similar title fills that spot which shows consumers are just looking for functionality.
"To a customer, the app catalog is a key component of the smartphone experience. Mplayit's cross-platform store on Facebook is currently the only place they can directly compare what is available," said Powers. "And we crowd-source our recommendations to expose popular apps that you don't find necessarily find in Top 20 charts."
