Insights & Ideas

The last few weeks have been packed with releases, acquisitions and rumours in the mobile industry (as usual), so we decided to post an end-of-August update post to keep you updated:

Windows Phone 7 Mango Update has been announced to be with us in September 1st week, so only a few days to wait. The Mango update is big news for Microsoft Windows Phone 7 developers as it introduces over 500 new or improved features. Perhaps one of the most interesting updates is mobile IE 9 which is included with Mango, this will provide better HTML5 support. The update also adds Twitter and LinkedIn integrated services.  Nokia is rumoured to release its flagship Windows Phone device in October at the Nokia World Conference. We expect Windows Phone 7 to have a strong response.

Nvidia hopes that cheap mobile chip sales will boom, the chips maker well known for graphics chips is forecasting continued revenue growth thanks to their Tegra smartphone processor. The company has developed revenues to $1.02bn and improved on a loss in Q2 2010 of $175m to a profit in Q2 2011 of $174m. The Tegra powers both the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Droid X2. Nvidia are not sitting ideal as they already have a quad core mobiel processor on the way currently code named Kal-El.

Blackberry Colt leaked, revealing RIM’s holy grail their QNX operating system. Recent news and statistics have shown that RIM has been losing market share to iPhone and Android over the last 24 months. The company has put a lot behind their new QNX OS. However, a heap of RIM’s USPs such as BES are rumoured to not be ready for launch of the Colt! The answer suggested all over the web is that it has taken RIM much longer to re-write their BES services on QNX than RIM expected. However, what does sound very good is rumours that the Colt and other QXN devices will soon support Android based applications!

USA Adults Like QR Codes according to ComScore’s report 14m US adults used a QR code in June. Magazines and Newspapers represented nearly 50% of all the QR scanning which is interesting when we read various reports telling us “Newspapers are dead”.. not yet.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS leaked, so we can all take a look at the new Android smartphone OS screens and compare them to current Android screens and to iOS5? As well as an improved look there is apparently panorama mode fo the camera, and an app launcher. Also strong talk about Chrome being the browser on Android now.
And the two other pieces of information that just about everyone knows now:
Google buys Motorola, for $12.5bn – The purchase includes over 17,000 patents as well the manufacturing capabilities to output nearly 7m devices a quarter.

Steve Jobs resigns as CEO of Apple – The share price took a bit of a dip (erasing $25 billion from the market value) and the fans showed their love, but Steve Jobs is no longer CEO of Apple for the second time round.

Read the full article on Venture Beat here or view a large version of the AppsGeyser graphic here

While Silicon Valley gets all the attention as the hotbed for idea-generation in mobile software, AppsGeyser’s Estuardo Robles begs to differ.  By next year, the mobile application industry will be a 17 billion dollar industry globally and it will have more than a handful of innovative hotspots around the world to thank.

For the industry itself, this is intriguing and assuring information. It refutes the notion that the majority of mobile application idea generation comes solely from developed countries and Silicon Valley in particular while programming and grunt work is outsourced elsewhere.  The study makes it very clear that wherever ideas can be had, Android applications can result.  But the chances that your idea will turn into reality are of course much more likely were you to be in the top cities and countries listed in the graphic.

Also interesting is that the study validates FabriQate’s current and future presence across the globe.  Our engineering team is stationed in Guangzhou and Mumbai.  According to the AppsGeyser graphic, the highest percentage of Android app generation in China comes from South China (probably including Hong Kong as well), not Beijing or Shanghai.  FabriQate also has a client service team in Hong Kong and has an extensive sales network there to feed work back to its Guangzhou hub.  Likewise, FabriQate’s strong presence in Singapore (the leader among Southeast Asian countries according to the graphic) and Southeast Asia has also been strategically planned and meticulously developed in the last three years.

In addition, London ranks second on a list of the top five cities where Android app ideas are born. FabriQate’s headquarters in London takes care of creative, design, and client services throughout the region.  More often, idea generation has taken place in our Guangzhou office as well, but it never hurts to have the input of our team in the UK (2nd after the United States in terms of the top 5 countries where app ideas are born).  London has the highest number of apps created of any city outside the U.S.

FabriQate has plans to open client service offices in New York City where we already have a sales presence (#1 on the cities list), and Sao Paolo (Brazil has the highest percentage of idea generation in South America).

The study looks only at idea generation for Android apps from the period June 2011 to August 2011.  Had the study included the iOS (iPhone and iPad) platform and a larger sample, we wonder if the results would skew more toward the United States as the nation does house the behemoths Apple and Google and perhaps the most highly educated students in the world.

Ideas for mobile apps are generated everywhere but experienced, talented, and versatile coders are in short supply.  If supply and demand can’t match bountiful ideas with skilled software engineers, companies may have to table some of their ideas in lieu of hiring more expensive coders, or take a risk and wait until the  next generation of programmers enter the workforce from college.  Of course, there’s also the option of setting up shop where the most ideas are generated.  Silicon Valley, New York, and London are expensive but perhaps necessary.  Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia (Riyadh), India (Bangalore), and Mexico all look like attractive second options.

View Mary Meeker’s presentation on Business Insider:

The mobile industry ecosystem is now self-sustainable. Silicon Valley superstars Apple and Google’s iOS and Android mobile operating systems have created spaces for developers to reap enormous profits on applications. Aside from well known manufacturers of handsets and tablets, industry titans that had previously only sold PCs, phones, televisions or white goods are vying for footholds in the expanding tablet market. HP, Blackberry, Huawei, HTC, Lenovo, even Amazon hope their tablets and pricing will beat out the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab in mature markets like the US/EU and new ones from India to Brazil and China.

Whole industries, FMCG, automobile, finance, publishing, and many others have had to adapt their brand and marketing strategy to a new SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile) phenomenon and most are struggling to do so. Moreover, even though the relative efficacy of mobile ads far outstrips other traditional media, it has been difficult for companies to build consistent mobile ad revenue despite the fact that users are spending more time on the internet versus print, radio, and TV. If mobile ad revenue can’t pick up the pace, developers will have three options: charging for their apps upfront, allowing in-app purchasing, or even offering virtual goods. Meeker’s report establishes virtual goods as a 2 billion dollar industry in the US though it’s gaining plenty of popularity in China as well.

Read more on China’s PapayaMobile, here and here: Android’s leading social gaming network that as of July 2011 has 300 third-party developers.

Deloitte suggests that brands build actual functionality into their apps that solve problems for the consumer instead of merely showcasing multiple apps purely for marketing purposes. Simple functionalities like social sharing, maps, games, and location sharing are enough to please the consumer, provided the app is bug-free and easy to use. More advanced functionalities like augmented reality and NFC eCommerce will become mainstream in the near future but if brands think they can forgo basic functionality, they will join the other 80% of branded apps in Deloitte’s research (healthcare and consumer brands) that weren’t even downloaded more than 1000 times.

Read Deloitte’s recent article: Branded Apps Flopping.

Finally, we would be remiss not to comment on a couple on Meeker’s trends for the future: HTML5 versus native apps and enterprise adoption of tablets for productivity.

In the near term, hybrid apps, native downloadable apps which run all or some of their user interface in an embedded browser component, will be more widespread. They will utilize the newest HTML5 and CSS3 standards to deliver more and more features that are currently restricted to native apps: i.e. the camera, microphone, address book, and hardcore graphics for gaming.

Read VentureBeat’s July 2011 article for the rest of the debate.

Finally, enterprises are putting tablets to use around the world and it comes as no surprise to us that the iPad is leading the way as 95% of tablets in the enterprise setting are the iPad , according to a recent survey from Good Technology. Our office has an order of ten times more iOS-run devices than Android devices but as far as tablet computing is concerned, both allow our employees to be infinitely more efficient on the job, as they are able to multitask from their desktops, tablets, and phones to finish tasks much faster than with one screen alone.

I don’t even open email, the news, Facebook, Twitter, etc. on my desktop anymore. That space is reserved for Microsoft Office, certain Adobe documents, Dropbox, and many more powerful software tools.

Last week, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld reported on Facebook’s new Facebook for Every Phone app. The app will function on 2500 Java-enabled phones world-wide and will allow Facebook to expand its presence on a wider range of handsets and thus a broader global audience. It already has 250 million mobile phone users.

Features include a lightweight version of its popular News Feed, photo uploading and sharing, inbox access for your Facebook messages, and the ability to find friends using contacts from your mobile phone. As an extra bonus, Facebook has allowed users of its new app to enjoy the first 90 days of data the app uses for free by teaming up with some of the world’s largest carriers.

The app’s new note on the Facebook’s Facebook Mobile page has been “liked” almost 1500 times and commented on almost 500 times so far this week to positive and negative reviews.

Here are a few comments on the Facebook note:

“I was a user of orkut, but because of this facility of fb to be enabled itself to every phone has made me fall in love with it, thanks facebook for connecting me with my friends everywhere and giving me so many nice/new friends”

“thats why we love fb keep people connected”

“Photos and albums take ages to open”

“Still no native chat <sigh>”

“Google+ FTW!”

“Orange Botswana o kae”

FabriQate’s verdict: You can never please everyone but kudos to Facebook for finding a way to connect more people around the globe.

Beth Stackpole of Computerworld very recently wrote an article on opportunities in the mobile app development career. While it’s useful to know that app makers, whether experienced or fresh out of college, are in demand, FabriQate thinks it’s just as useful to give them a glimpse of what their potential careers might look like by dishing advice for aspiring app developers.

People skills are important skills to have, whether your role is in programming, project management, UI design, or business development. Building great mobile apps is not a one man job, making communication and relationship skills an imperative. Often, companies have offices in multiple locations, and you could find yourself having to answer calls from different continents, troubleshoot in different languages, or maintain client relationships with people whose cultures are very different from your own. Even if your role encompasses solely programming, you will still find yourself working with a team to reach deadlines and fix bugs. If you’re on the project management, design, or sales side of the job, people skills become even more important. Often, clients send you their goal of what the app should look like, feel like, and accomplish. However, they may not always know what features are in the scope of the budget they gave your company, how to use social or other media to promote their new products, or even what platforms would optimize their sales success. Therefore, if your company knows what it’s doing, it will generally assign client-facing tasks to its most outstanding communicators. If you want to be a successful programmer or climb the mobile app industry ladder, work on your people skills.

FabriQate has two more tips for developers and successful companies to use. An extension of people skills, professionalism is key no matter what role you take on with a mobile app company. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because your company develops games or recruits a majority of fresh college graduates that it doesn’t expect the highest level of professionalism from its employees. Most app companies are young companies and have a lot to gain from the talent that they hire. If you want to follow your company to success, best to keep a professional attitude between your co-workers, your superiors, your clients, and your LinkedIn connections, etc.

Finally, because the mobile app industry is becoming increasingly competitive, the best developers and the best companies will find that to win clients, the best ideas (along with a strong relationship and professionalism), will more often than not justify the price tag. Therefore, creative or ideas-driven people are very likely to add substantially more value to their company. This applies to programmers, whose elegant code is just as important and necessary in the customer service process after the initial launch, as well as the UI designers, project managers, and salesmen. In all actuality, creativity is not a difficult skill to acquire or develop. As long as you remain focused one hundred percent on achieving your client’s goals, creative and successful ideas will come naturally (check out Robert Solomon’s Art of Client Service for advice to build strong client relationships).

Market demand for apps is soaring. Brands are hungry for a piece of the action, successful or not. Niche agencies and in-house offices are under pressure to perform and hire the right people. If you are an aspiring mobile app developer, rest assured that the industry will be exciting, challenging, and constantly evolving. There will be a lot to learn and a lot to digest as both software and hardware technologies accelerate in the coming years. If your next job is going to be in mobile app development, follow FabriQate’s tips to success: learn or improve your relationship skills, professional skills, and creativity and you’ll be set for a bright future in the industry.

Questions? Visit the contact link on the top right of our homepage, come talk to us in London, Guangzhou, or Mumbai, or visit our company pages on LinkedIn and Facebook.

So we knew this day was coming (and FabriQate has also played its part in getting Apple there!).

On 24th May 2011, Apple approved its 500,000th app. The number itself is startling. It’s also indicative of just how far behind some of Apple’s competitors really are. For example, Google, Apple’s top competitor on apps, announced at this month’s Google I/O conference it had reached 200,000 Android apps. And Nokia’s Ovi Store is the only other app market to have cracked 50,000.
Although the number of active iTunes App Store applications is currently around 400,000 due to removals and replacements, reaching half a million apps is a milestone Apple, its developers and fans, will want to celebrate.

Our friends over at Chomp,  148apps and Chillingo have put together a fantastic new infographic memorializes this moment, showing the app ecosystem breakdown today, its future growth projections and more.

- It would cost $891,982.24 and over 7 terabytes to get all available applications.

- Approximately 36% of all apps are free and paid apps have an average price of $3.64

- Angry Birds released by Chillingo and developed by Rovio has held the number 1 paid spot more than any other app at 275 days total.

- It also includes more practical data, like the average price for a paid app ($3.64), number of iOS developers (85,569) and percentage of free apps (37%).

AppStore hits 500,000 apps

We have always thought that Apps with the ability to utilise native functions of the mobile phones, would eventually outpower the mobile websites. RWW has recently put out a very interesting post (below) that shows some very useful statistics as well.

At last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSM Association (GSMA) partnered with mobile analytics firm Zokem to publish highlights from Zokem’s recent smartphone research study. Its report found that mobile applications are overtaking mobile Web browser usage in terms of monthly use. In addition, apps are now second only to messaging in usage activity, beating both voice and Web for the #2 spot.

Zokem’s January 2011 study looked at over 2,200 smartphone users in both the U.S. and the U.K. Although apps are growing in popularity, they haven’t yet become the top usage category on smartphones – messaging is still #1. Messaging, which includes text, multimedia, email, and instant messaging, accounts for 671 minutes of usage per month (active on-screen time).

Meanwhile, apps (maps, gaming, entertainment, productivity, social networking, etc.) are a very close second at 667 minutes of usage per month.

Voice (531 minutes) and Web browsing (422 minutes) are much further behind.

Although, in total, apps are overtaking the Web in terms of usage, there are certain categories where the mobile Web is still used heavily. News, search and commerce categories receive more usage from mobile Web browsers, with 86%, 85% and 66% of mobile Web browser users using them monthly, respectively, says Zokem.

In comparison, only 22% of Web browser users use Web-based email and only 18% use Web-based games. Instead, native apps for email are used by 76% of smartphone users and native apps for gaming are used by 45%.

In general, multimedia and other entertainment is most popular within native applications, with the one exception being adult entertainment. This category sees 15% of Web browser users accessing such sites per month. That finding is likely related to the restrictions on adult apps per Apple’s iTunes guidelines, which does not permit adult content.

Why are Apps Winning?
Zokem’s CEO Hannu Verkasalo shares some thoughts about why apps are dominating this space over on GSM’s Mobile Apps Briefing website. “According to Zokem’s research, one of the most fundamental aspects is perceived usability and overall user experience,” he says, in describing the success of apps.

“Mobile web browsers are no doubt evolving, with the most recent smartphones supporting HTML 5, Flash and other powerful web technologies – which is a good thing. However, there are still elements – like the small screen, rendering power of smartphones, limitations of web-site based application logic, offline use etc. –  which make web browser based applications in most cases unsuitable, or user interfaces sub-optimal for mobile screens. It is easier technically to guarantee how an app looks, how it works, and how it delivers value to the user compared to web apps,” he concluded.

Verkasalo said other factors that have contributed to apps’ success over Web include the ease of monetization within app stores and the growth of the mobile app ecosystem.

And what do they say about your Personality?

What do people download the most?
According to the survey results, games (38%), social networking (35%) and music (29%) are downloaded the most, while social networking (31%), games (29%) and utilities (25%) are used the most often.

Analysis of data including app genre, variety and usage revealed personality categories linked to smartphone behavior that Pinch summarized into six archetypes called “Appitypes.”

How the research works
Our relationship with our phones continues to change and evolve. Recent research commissioned by Nokia suggests we are now a world of “app dependants” with 55% of smartphone users relying on apps to significantly benefit their lives. This figure suggests that apps are being used as important life tools – and as usage levels rise, so do our phones’ ability to learn more about us and become even more useful.

“With so many apps available, people can pick the ones most relevant to them,” Pinch said. “The intimacy we share with our phones stamps our personality onto them. They know our tastes, our needs and even our secrets. If you ever want to really know someone, take a look at their apps – you may be in for a surprise!”

The research shows that it is not about the number of apps people have, but about finding ones that are the most useful. More than 70% of users surveyed have up to 30 apps on their smartphones, with 20% saying that they delete all similar apps from their handset if they hear about a better one.

“Apps are becoming intrinsic to the way we live,” according to Pinch. “Our relationship with them has turned from occasional use into a real dependency. It is because of this that our personal app ‘collections’ represent our unique needs, personality and interests. We can learn much about a person’s behavior via a mix of their choice of apps, personality variables, use variables and competence variables.”

“What is really interesting about this data is that we are seeing app habits in new ways,” Pinch said. “Two-fifths (43%) of those questioned rely on their apps many times throughout the day – but in different contexts. The beauty of mobile devices is that they can be used with such versatility. For example, the business person can come home and hand their phone over to their kids to play games on.”

Read the full article on Venture Beat here or view a large version of the AppsGeyser graphic here

While Silicon Valley gets all the attention as the hotbed for idea-generation in mobile software, AppsGeyser’s Estuardo Robles begs to differ.  By next year, the mobile application industry will be a 17 billion dollar industry globally and it will have more than a handful of innovative hotspots around the world to thank.

For the industry itself, this is intriguing and assuring information. It refutes the notion that the majority of mobile application idea generation comes solely from developed countries and Silicon Valley in particular while programming and grunt work is outsourced elsewhere.  The study makes it very clear that wherever ideas can be had, Android applications can result.  But the chances that your idea will turn into reality are of course much more likely were you to be in the top cities and countries listed in the graphic.

Also interesting is that the study validates FabriQate’s current and future presence across the globe.  Our engineering team is stationed in Guangzhou and Mumbai.  According to the AppsGeyser graphic, the highest percentage of Android app generation in China comes from South China (probably including Hong Kong as well), not Beijing or Shanghai.  FabriQate also has a client service team in Hong Kong and has an extensive sales network there to feed work back to its Guangzhou hub.  Likewise, FabriQate’s strong presence in Singapore (the leader among Southeast Asian countries according to the graphic) and Southeast Asia has also been strategically planned and meticulously developed in the last three years.

In addition, London ranks second on a list of the top five cities where Android app ideas are born. FabriQate’s headquarters in London takes care of creative, design, and client services throughout the region.  More often, idea generation has taken place in our Guangzhou office as well, but it never hurts to have the input of our team in the UK (2nd after the United States in terms of the top 5 countries where app ideas are born).  London has the highest number of apps created of any city outside the U.S.

FabriQate has plans to open client service offices in New York City where we already have a sales presence (#1 on the cities list), and Sao Paolo (Brazil has the highest percentage of idea generation in South America).

The study looks only at idea generation for Android apps from the period June 2011 to August 2011.  Had the study included the iOS (iPhone and iPad) platform and a larger sample, we wonder if the results would skew more toward the United States as the nation does house the behemoths Apple and Google and perhaps the most highly educated students in the world.

Ideas for mobile apps are generated everywhere but experienced, talented, and versatile coders are in short supply.  If supply and demand can’t match bountiful ideas with skilled software engineers, companies may have to table some of their ideas in lieu of hiring more expensive coders, or take a risk and wait until the  next generation of programmers enter the workforce from college.  Of course, there’s also the option of setting up shop where the most ideas are generated.  Silicon Valley, New York, and London are expensive but perhaps necessary.  Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia (Riyadh), India (Bangalore), and Mexico all look like attractive second options.

View Mary Meeker’s presentation on Business Insider:

The mobile industry ecosystem is now self-sustainable. Silicon Valley superstars Apple and Google’s iOS and Android mobile operating systems have created spaces for developers to reap enormous profits on applications. Aside from well known manufacturers of handsets and tablets, industry titans that had previously only sold PCs, phones, televisions or white goods are vying for footholds in the expanding tablet market. HP, Blackberry, Huawei, HTC, Lenovo, even Amazon hope their tablets and pricing will beat out the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab in mature markets like the US/EU and new ones from India to Brazil and China.

Whole industries, FMCG, automobile, finance, publishing, and many others have had to adapt their brand and marketing strategy to a new SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile) phenomenon and most are struggling to do so. Moreover, even though the relative efficacy of mobile ads far outstrips other traditional media, it has been difficult for companies to build consistent mobile ad revenue despite the fact that users are spending more time on the internet versus print, radio, and TV. If mobile ad revenue can’t pick up the pace, developers will have three options: charging for their apps upfront, allowing in-app purchasing, or even offering virtual goods. Meeker’s report establishes virtual goods as a 2 billion dollar industry in the US though it’s gaining plenty of popularity in China as well.

Read more on China’s PapayaMobile, here and here: Android’s leading social gaming network that as of July 2011 has 300 third-party developers.

Deloitte suggests that brands build actual functionality into their apps that solve problems for the consumer instead of merely showcasing multiple apps purely for marketing purposes. Simple functionalities like social sharing, maps, games, and location sharing are enough to please the consumer, provided the app is bug-free and easy to use. More advanced functionalities like augmented reality and NFC eCommerce will become mainstream in the near future but if brands think they can forgo basic functionality, they will join the other 80% of branded apps in Deloitte’s research (healthcare and consumer brands) that weren’t even downloaded more than 1000 times.

Read Deloitte’s recent article: Branded Apps Flopping.

Finally, we would be remiss not to comment on a couple on Meeker’s trends for the future: HTML5 versus native apps and enterprise adoption of tablets for productivity.

In the near term, hybrid apps, native downloadable apps which run all or some of their user interface in an embedded browser component, will be more widespread. They will utilize the newest HTML5 and CSS3 standards to deliver more and more features that are currently restricted to native apps: i.e. the camera, microphone, address book, and hardcore graphics for gaming.

Read VentureBeat’s July 2011 article for the rest of the debate.

Finally, enterprises are putting tablets to use around the world and it comes as no surprise to us that the iPad is leading the way as 95% of tablets in the enterprise setting are the iPad , according to a recent survey from Good Technology. Our office has an order of ten times more iOS-run devices than Android devices but as far as tablet computing is concerned, both allow our employees to be infinitely more efficient on the job, as they are able to multitask from their desktops, tablets, and phones to finish tasks much faster than with one screen alone.

I don’t even open email, the news, Facebook, Twitter, etc. on my desktop anymore. That space is reserved for Microsoft Office, certain Adobe documents, Dropbox, and many more powerful software tools.

Last week, TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld reported on Facebook’s new Facebook for Every Phone app. The app will function on 2500 Java-enabled phones world-wide and will allow Facebook to expand its presence on a wider range of handsets and thus a broader global audience. It already has 250 million mobile phone users.

Features include a lightweight version of its popular News Feed, photo uploading and sharing, inbox access for your Facebook messages, and the ability to find friends using contacts from your mobile phone. As an extra bonus, Facebook has allowed users of its new app to enjoy the first 90 days of data the app uses for free by teaming up with some of the world’s largest carriers.

The app’s new note on the Facebook’s Facebook Mobile page has been “liked” almost 1500 times and commented on almost 500 times so far this week to positive and negative reviews.

Here are a few comments on the Facebook note:

“I was a user of orkut, but because of this facility of fb to be enabled itself to every phone has made me fall in love with it, thanks facebook for connecting me with my friends everywhere and giving me so many nice/new friends”

“thats why we love fb keep people connected”

“Photos and albums take ages to open”

“Still no native chat <sigh>”

“Google+ FTW!”

“Orange Botswana o kae”

FabriQate’s verdict: You can never please everyone but kudos to Facebook for finding a way to connect more people around the globe.

Two reasons why I am writing this article.

First, in a recent article, VentureBeat misspelled the name of Taiwanese electronic giant Pegatron as “Petagron” which probably went unnoticed by thousands of readers (it was since corrected). The misspelling caught my eye but the tragedies surrounding China’s Foxconn factories should be making more news. The May Foxconn catastrophe in Chengdu, trumped of course by the spate of suicides in Shenzhen last summer, was followed in earnest by the media throughout the Summer 2010 and has prompted Apple to begin paying those workers a larger percentage of the final retail prices of its most famous devices. Apple cares or at least knows what’s at stake if it ignores those events.

Second, we here at FabriQate want our clients to know that we do not condone unscrupulous workplace conditions at Foxconn or wherever Apple finds its second manufacturer in China or Taiwan.  It saddens us to hear of the deaths, the suicides, the conditions, and the suffering of the last year that went into making the hardware for which we provide software like mobile applications.

Plenty of us at FabriQate own multiple Apple devices and love the fact that playing around with and developing apps and marketing campaigns for the iPhone and iPad constitute our 9-5. We can’t wait for the third generation iPad and the fifth generation iPhone. But if an earlier launch means more dangerous factory working conditions, that cannot be allowed. We can wait.

Our business is doing well. Apple is also doing well and its products are in high demand. Steve Jobs knows that. And while many of us consumers gripe at having to wait in line or to wait for a few more months for our favorite toys, think for a second how lucky you are that you have the disposable income to make such purchases. I’m not criticizing Apple because I respect Steve Jobs and he did say “We’re all over this.” It’s just when you have an office in South China (Guangzhou), you can’t ignore these things. That’s all.

Beth Stackpole of Computerworld very recently wrote an article on opportunities in the mobile app development career. While it’s useful to know that app makers, whether experienced or fresh out of college, are in demand, FabriQate thinks it’s just as useful to give them a glimpse of what their potential careers might look like by dishing advice for aspiring app developers.

People skills are important skills to have, whether your role is in programming, project management, UI design, or business development. Building great mobile apps is not a one man job, making communication and relationship skills an imperative. Often, companies have offices in multiple locations, and you could find yourself having to answer calls from different continents, troubleshoot in different languages, or maintain client relationships with people whose cultures are very different from your own. Even if your role encompasses solely programming, you will still find yourself working with a team to reach deadlines and fix bugs. If you’re on the project management, design, or sales side of the job, people skills become even more important. Often, clients send you their goal of what the app should look like, feel like, and accomplish. However, they may not always know what features are in the scope of the budget they gave your company, how to use social or other media to promote their new products, or even what platforms would optimize their sales success. Therefore, if your company knows what it’s doing, it will generally assign client-facing tasks to its most outstanding communicators. If you want to be a successful programmer or climb the mobile app industry ladder, work on your people skills.

FabriQate has two more tips for developers and successful companies to use. An extension of people skills, professionalism is key no matter what role you take on with a mobile app company. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because your company develops games or recruits a majority of fresh college graduates that it doesn’t expect the highest level of professionalism from its employees. Most app companies are young companies and have a lot to gain from the talent that they hire. If you want to follow your company to success, best to keep a professional attitude between your co-workers, your superiors, your clients, and your LinkedIn connections, etc.

Finally, because the mobile app industry is becoming increasingly competitive, the best developers and the best companies will find that to win clients, the best ideas (along with a strong relationship and professionalism), will more often than not justify the price tag. Therefore, creative or ideas-driven people are very likely to add substantially more value to their company. This applies to programmers, whose elegant code is just as important and necessary in the customer service process after the initial launch, as well as the UI designers, project managers, and salesmen. In all actuality, creativity is not a difficult skill to acquire or develop. As long as you remain focused one hundred percent on achieving your client’s goals, creative and successful ideas will come naturally (check out Robert Solomon’s Art of Client Service for advice to build strong client relationships).

Market demand for apps is soaring. Brands are hungry for a piece of the action, successful or not. Niche agencies and in-house offices are under pressure to perform and hire the right people. If you are an aspiring mobile app developer, rest assured that the industry will be exciting, challenging, and constantly evolving. There will be a lot to learn and a lot to digest as both software and hardware technologies accelerate in the coming years. If your next job is going to be in mobile app development, follow FabriQate’s tips to success: learn or improve your relationship skills, professional skills, and creativity and you’ll be set for a bright future in the industry.

Questions? Visit the contact link on the top right of our homepage, come talk to us in London, Guangzhou, or Mumbai, or visit our company pages on LinkedIn and Facebook.

*July update*

So here is our summary of some key stats about mobile usage that show how the dominance of smartphones (and tablets) is changing the way we interact on the internet. While the chart data is a bit outdated, it holds value in allowing us to see just how much the handset and operating system market in the UK and Western Europe has evolved in less than a year.

2010 data from the Enders Analysis/BMRB survey reported that Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Samsung had a combined market share of 59% of the handset market in the UK.

Nokia continues to top the overall handset market in the UK, and because Nokia has long since announced it will be phasing out the Symbian OS over the next two years, it pins its future as an industry innovator on the successful release of its new Windows Phone 7 based smartphones. The director of Global Consumer Insight at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech revealed that Nokia maintains a loyal customer base, saying “There is no denying that Nokia has lost a significant amount of customers over the past 12 months, however, many of the remaining customers appear to be far more loyal to the brand, trading up to Nokia smartphones from Nokia non-smartphones.” Nokia has a large market share of handsets in developing countries so as its sophisticated smartphones look for holes to fill in more mature markets, it must not lose focus of its strategy with less mature ones.

Sony Ericsson UK Marketing Director David Hilton suggested an explosion of mobile gaming in 2011. While this in itself may not be enough to save the fading company from oblivion (prices for its Xperia Play have continued to fall in the US and UK), by switching to the Android platform last fall and building NFC chips into its newest Android phones, the hopes to reassert itself in a competitive market.

According to an IDC Report released in May, Samsung became the biggest mobile phone maker, at 29.3% market share, in the Western European region in Q1 2011, overtaking Nokia.  While Western European sales of new mobile phones running the Symbian OS remained far ahead of the closest competitor by September 2010, the fact that Samsung overtook Nokia in handset sales in Q1 2011 implies the Android OS will continue to gain ground in Western Europe along with Apple’s iPhone OS. Apple is now the biggest player in the Western European smartphone market with a 20.8% market share but is followed closely by Nokia, which could leapfrog Apple if its Windows Phone 7 OS achieves any sort of success in the region.

What’s interesting about the graphs below is how quickly handset manufacturers and mobile operating systems have adjusted their positions in the UK and Western Europe in the last six months to one year. For example, in June, the Taiwan-based smartphone manufacturer HTC opened its new European HQ in the UK.  According to Robert Cozza, principal analyst at Gartner, the UK is a particularly important market for the company, saying “If we look at the amount of smartphones shipped against the number of people in the country, this is the largest smartphone market in the world. It is also the fastest growing in Europe.”

If the UK is the fastest growing smartphone market in Europe, our company FabriQate, headquartered in London, is in a unique position to help prospective clients properly reach this segment.

Total Market Share in UK by all Mobile (2010)

Data consumption by mobile users UK (2010)

Forecast of Sales of Smartphones in US

Sales of Mobile by OS in Western Europe

So we knew this day was coming (and FabriQate has also played its part in getting Apple there!).

On 24th May 2011, Apple approved its 500,000th app. The number itself is startling. It’s also indicative of just how far behind some of Apple’s competitors really are. For example, Google, Apple’s top competitor on apps, announced at this month’s Google I/O conference it had reached 200,000 Android apps. And Nokia’s Ovi Store is the only other app market to have cracked 50,000.
Although the number of active iTunes App Store applications is currently around 400,000 due to removals and replacements, reaching half a million apps is a milestone Apple, its developers and fans, will want to celebrate.

Our friends over at Chomp,  148apps and Chillingo have put together a fantastic new infographic memorializes this moment, showing the app ecosystem breakdown today, its future growth projections and more.

- It would cost $891,982.24 and over 7 terabytes to get all available applications.

- Approximately 36% of all apps are free and paid apps have an average price of $3.64

- Angry Birds released by Chillingo and developed by Rovio has held the number 1 paid spot more than any other app at 275 days total.

- It also includes more practical data, like the average price for a paid app ($3.64), number of iOS developers (85,569) and percentage of free apps (37%).

AppStore hits 500,000 apps

We have always thought that Apps with the ability to utilise native functions of the mobile phones, would eventually outpower the mobile websites. RWW has recently put out a very interesting post (below) that shows some very useful statistics as well.

At last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the GSM Association (GSMA) partnered with mobile analytics firm Zokem to publish highlights from Zokem’s recent smartphone research study. Its report found that mobile applications are overtaking mobile Web browser usage in terms of monthly use. In addition, apps are now second only to messaging in usage activity, beating both voice and Web for the #2 spot.

Zokem’s January 2011 study looked at over 2,200 smartphone users in both the U.S. and the U.K. Although apps are growing in popularity, they haven’t yet become the top usage category on smartphones – messaging is still #1. Messaging, which includes text, multimedia, email, and instant messaging, accounts for 671 minutes of usage per month (active on-screen time).

Meanwhile, apps (maps, gaming, entertainment, productivity, social networking, etc.) are a very close second at 667 minutes of usage per month.

Voice (531 minutes) and Web browsing (422 minutes) are much further behind.

Although, in total, apps are overtaking the Web in terms of usage, there are certain categories where the mobile Web is still used heavily. News, search and commerce categories receive more usage from mobile Web browsers, with 86%, 85% and 66% of mobile Web browser users using them monthly, respectively, says Zokem.

In comparison, only 22% of Web browser users use Web-based email and only 18% use Web-based games. Instead, native apps for email are used by 76% of smartphone users and native apps for gaming are used by 45%.

In general, multimedia and other entertainment is most popular within native applications, with the one exception being adult entertainment. This category sees 15% of Web browser users accessing such sites per month. That finding is likely related to the restrictions on adult apps per Apple’s iTunes guidelines, which does not permit adult content.

Why are Apps Winning?
Zokem’s CEO Hannu Verkasalo shares some thoughts about why apps are dominating this space over on GSM’s Mobile Apps Briefing website. “According to Zokem’s research, one of the most fundamental aspects is perceived usability and overall user experience,” he says, in describing the success of apps.

“Mobile web browsers are no doubt evolving, with the most recent smartphones supporting HTML 5, Flash and other powerful web technologies – which is a good thing. However, there are still elements – like the small screen, rendering power of smartphones, limitations of web-site based application logic, offline use etc. –  which make web browser based applications in most cases unsuitable, or user interfaces sub-optimal for mobile screens. It is easier technically to guarantee how an app looks, how it works, and how it delivers value to the user compared to web apps,” he concluded.

Verkasalo said other factors that have contributed to apps’ success over Web include the ease of monetization within app stores and the growth of the mobile app ecosystem.

Tomi Ahonen (blogger, author) has done a lot of work and pored through financial statements and has come up with the world’s largest companies in mobile, having removed and eliminated away other revenues. We start by appreciating his work.