Don’t we all love mobile apps? Well, these apps that have become a part of our daily lives have an interesting history and it is possible that not many are aware of it. For many of you, mobile app development dates back to a few years ago with the IPhone application development. However, application development can go back a few years earlier, when Blackberry first provided wireless email in 2002 by RIM. Since then, the world of app development has come by leaps and bounds, as you’ll see below.
The app development journey
We cannot ignore the great push given by Apple with its iTunes market. We can say that this was really the first time that mobile phone users were able to take full advantage of mobile applications. A year after Apple released their first iPhone that had preloaded applications, they launched their App Store in 2008 and this surprised smartphone users. The same year in October, Google launched its Android Market with the HTC Dream, which was the first commercially available Android smartphone.
By April 2009, the number of apps that had been downloaded from the Apple App Store had surpassed one billion, which was incredible considering that the App Store had only been around for eight months. As of September 2011, this number had increased tenfold with more than 10 billion downloads. Android has also proven to be a significant competitor in application development, and as of April 2010, the total number of applications downloaded from the Android Market exceeded 1 billion. Just a year later, in January 2011, total app downloads also passed the 10 billion mark. In March 2012, the App Store enjoyed more than 25 billion downloads, and although Android Market was later switched to Google Play, it also did very well with more than 15 billion downloads in May of last year.
Most popular apps
We can’t talk about the history of mobile apps and not recognize some of the most downloaded apps in app history.
The first paid Android app to hit the 1 billion mark was ‘beautiful widgets’ and this was way back in 2011. In 2012, we saw that ‘Drawomething’ received 50 million downloads in a duration of just 50 days after its release. launching. ‘Instagram’ also received 38 million new downloads in just 3 months, from its 12 million downloads in January 2012 to more than 50 million in April of that same year. Angry birds, the most popular mobile game, also had more than a billion global downloads in May of last year.
The future of apps
Currently, about 70% of iPhone users have downloaded applications from popular brands, while 60% say they are interested in doing the same. According to research conducted by Indiana University, people are more interested in downloading apps from a brand they recognize, and this could spell good news for your business.
Both smartphone and tablet users have different needs when it comes to applications and it is easy to see why the application development industry has a strong future. What many of you don’t know is that app usage is actually higher than mobile web usage and while the business world initially took more advantage of mobile apps, things have changed and apps have revolutionized the way they that our needs are met. Internet access is now easy and statistics indicate that half of the cell phone market is dominated by smartphones. So this means that there is a growing demand for applications and application development is now on virtually all operating systems. You can also take advantage of the enormous potential that mobile applications offer us by talking to a mobile application development company.