Over the last few years there has been an increasing level of popularity for mobile applications, more commonly known as "apps". Initially launched by Apple to be used with the iPhone, apps have been produced for a continuously expanding variety of platforms and operating systems.
Mobile application development is growing significantly fast that in fact, apps are currently obtainable not just for mobile phones but additionally for laptop computers, tablets to desktop computers. Thousands of apps can be found on each one of a handful of mobile devices including the Apple iPhone, as well as mobile phones that use the Blackberry, Google Android and Windows Phone platforms.
How the App Started
Apple first launched their app store to be used for the iPhone devices on July 10th, 2008, and by March 2012, Apple confirmed over twenty five billion apps had been downloaded around the world. Despite the fact that Apple launched mobile application development, Google quickly followed up in October 22, 2008, starting its own app store, the Android Market (now Google Play) for the Android system. This is followed by BlackBerry with BlackBerry App World on April 2009, and Microsoft with its Windows Phone Marketplace on October 2010. Nokia also have OVI Store since in 2009 for its Symbian units, now merged with Windows Phone Marketplace.
When it is first launched, apps were intended for functional uses like increasing productiveness of devices via the ease of access to contacts, emails and schedules. However, the variety of apps increases dramatically that customers demand quickly led mobile application development straight into what it is now today.
The Apps Today
The popularity of apps increased dramatically since it first started in 2008. As of March 2012, the total third-party application available for Apple platform almost reached the 600.000 milestone, while Android is not far behind by confirming almost half a million.
In September 2012, Google Play has reached 25 billion with more than 675,000 apps available. In October 2012, Google announced that Google Play had 700,000 apps available to download, matching the number of apps in Apple's App Store. And as February 2013, Google Play reached 800,000 milestone, still roughly the same with Apple's App Store that marked 40 billion downloads.
Mobile games and also other entertainment based apps now have surged in success, although the ongoing mobile application development has make sure that business organizer style apps remain prominent. Moreover, with the addition of GPS and online-based location services on countless smartphones, mobile application development is taking a new change toward location services and maps software.
The Apps in Business
Originally, mobile application development had been the private domain, mainly Apple and Google. Specialist development companies are now greatly involved with third-party mobile application development as apps have increased in use.
Today, apps are now a huge business. There are a number of free apps on the market, sometimes giving a cut-down/scaled-down variation from the complete app which are often bought for only a small payment. Nevertheless, apps are no longer specifically the sector of business establishments. A lot of people have turned their hands to mobile application development and identified a niche market for an app and designed an app to fulfill the requirement, from large business companies to teenagers.
Apps have revolutionized how people approach their lives. From business management to leisure activities, many people have become dependent to them.