One of the most striking impacts of the extraordinary growth and
evolution of the mobile apps space over the past three years has been
the "appification" of broad categories of interactions and
functions in both the physical and the digital worlds. Apps can
turn a smartphone into a physical trainer that keeps track of
exercise levels and even your heartbeat, help cook a meal by
walking you through the meal prep and then tell you when it is
fully cooked, monitor your driving and offer tips to increase gas
mileage, turn your phone into a flashlight, connect you with
friends through social networking, find your location through
mapping, offer early forms of virtual reality, automatically
upload and share pictures, scan physical goods through barcode readers,
wirelessly transfer files by physically bumping two devices
together, and provide a whole range of business support from
fleet management to payroll.
"Mobile app developers will 'appify' just about every interaction you
can think of in your physical and digital worlds," notes Scott
Ellison, Vice President, Mobile and Wireless Research at
IDC. "The extension of mobile apps to every aspect of our
personal and business lives will be one of the hallmarks of the
new decade with enormous opportunities for virtually every
business sector."
The most obvious beneficiaries of mobile apps are mobile users who
utilize mobile apps of almost every conceivable type. Whether used
to kill a few minutes while waiting in line or to download
updated product specs in front of a customer, mobile applications
have the power to change the way we live.
The IDC study, Worldwide and U.S. Mobile Applications,
Storefronts, and Developer 2010 - 2014 Forecasts and Year-End
2010 Vendor Market Shares: The "Appification" of Everything
(IDC #225668), provides IDC's current and best estimates for the
rapidly evolving mobile applications market. The report offers
application download, revenue, app developer/storefront revenue
splits, and market share estimates for the major mobile operating
systems and mobile app storefronts. The report also forecasts
worldwide and U.S. mobile app downloads and revenues for the 2009-2014
time period. IDC's outlook on this market is informed by
continuous conversations with a wide variety of players in the
mobile app. Other sources of information include company
financial and product announcements, and the Appcelerator/IDC Mobile Developer Report, a quarterly survey of Appcelerator's 70,000+ mobile app developers.