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The April edition of the WIP App Store Report is now available. The Report is a PDF version of a set of the data contained in our App Store Catalog here on the WIP site, along with some additional commentary in to the world of app stores. This month, we take a look at the interest that's sprouting around in-app purchases, seen by many as a big hope for developers to create solid app revenues.

As app stores mature and become more crowded, there’s a race to the bottom for prices of many mobile apps. While some premium games and branded apps are able to hold their purchase prices up somewhat, price competition for other apps remains very intense, particularly as more developers turn to an advertising-based revenue model.

For many apps -- particularly basic content-centric apps -- free replacements abound; if they don’t yet, they will. Many developers have seen their sales vanish into thin air overnight after a free competitor emerged, leading more and more to try and head off such...

Blurry-jour !   

I started the year talking about blurry boundaries that blur, capturing the spirit of experimentations we're seeing among API providers...

April comes and I'm far from looking like a fool... many wish they could claim the same:

• The Blackberry Playbook runs Android... Android Market distributes Qt  ... but not WP7 and  not a good number of Nokia phones by 2012... And in case you wondered the Playbook won't run Qt as the app is NDK based... 
• With 118 app stores you would think that the likes of Amazon or operators would try to make developers' life easy... well think again! A majority of developers put their apps in 1-2 stores only, because placing apps in stores is just too painful... 
• There's a PR workaround though... it's called exclusive distribution. If you're not able to do a Rovio type exclusivity... no  need to worry! Just don't bother putting your app into any other store and call it "exclusive distribution". You can also do like Amazon and...

Yet again I'm here talking about how painful it is to put apps in stores and why appstore owners should look at simplifying the process.

Well actually I will shut-up for a change and let you do the talking... or rather your opinion gathered through a survey just before Mobile World Congress.

In the follow-up presentation session we did at the WIPJam, there was no surprise... Most of the points in the survey were agreed upon by those present, especially the abominous amount of time spent creating various formats of images... 

As we're not just all talk we're calling appstore owners interested in standardizing things a bit in this field to raise their hands and start sitting round  a table to standardize application description fields a bit... if you're interested, get in touch @thibautR .

These are the latest Samsung, Microsoft, Google, Nokia/Intel and Apple devices...

Obviously I'm not talking smartphones! But rather a smart box (a.k.a  Set Top).

Can you recognize them?

(there's a prize for first person to write a comment with all the devices, OS, manufacturer)

A year ago we organized our first MiniJam at IP&TV World Forum. In expectation of the Google TV announcement, the world was abuzz and full of promises, Apps on the TV were going to revolutionize the world!

A year later the buzz has definitely disappeared and TV apps have little space in developer conversations. And a few hands suffice to "count" the results from the app bonanza everyone was expecting. Arguably the real bonanza was to be found in the TV platforms. 

Apple TV, Boxee and Google TV are here for the buzz, Samsung TV, Meego and Microsoft MediaRoom play the hiding giants. And I'm sure I'm missing a few. Now, mobile device fragmentation looks so, well, over-hyped.

However...

In preparation to the coming appjam at IP&TV we asked Olga Steidl Head of Marketing at SPB Software to give us a quick heads-up on the state mobile TV today and her perspective on TV apps. If you do not not about SPB, here are a couple of cool facts:

SPB is not a techy or arcane acronym but stands for Saint Petersburg

SPB has a long list of top downloaded apps from their UI shell to the their mobile TV, across all platforms.

SPB is well known for it mobile TV app... What are the typical use cases of TV on mobile?

Good question. We ran a small survey in January on how people use mobile TV. Out of those currently using mobile TV and video services, the most popular places for watching content are divided between home (52%), in-between activities (18%), whilst in transit (10%), work (8%), school (2%) and other. However, United States viewers tend to differ significantly with over 45 percent preferring transportation or in-between activities to watch mobile TV. From SPB TV...

The first ever AnDevCon is on its last day here in San Mateo. With an apparent 700+ attendees all coming to join in the Android fray the 2nd AnDevCon has already been scheduled for Nov 7-9, 2011 (registration starts March 21st). There were many different sessions from "Android 101" (for beginners like myself) to very specific/technical workshops like "Developing Media Applications - Taking advantage of camera hardware".

Generally I've heard from experienced java developers that Android is easier to develop for then iOS, what I have discovered at this event that it is not necessarily the case. (Well it is, but let me explain). I look at Android development at the same way I would look at snowboarding. It's difficult to to get your feet set, but once you have the basics down it becomes a lot smoother. This is of course also dependant on your coding background.

In the session, Android 101, the big thing that came out subtly was the distaste for Eclipse and the difficulty of...

This month's WIP App Store Report, a PDF version of our App Store Catalog, is out. Grab the download for a summary of information on the app stores in the catalog, and some added analysis. This month, we wonder if the growth in the number of app stores has peaked.

You might have noticed some of the big news from the mobile industry during February: Nokia’s new partnership with Micro- soft, or perhaps something from the big Mobile World Congress confab in Barcelona. But you probably didn’t notice another significant piece of news: the number of stores in the WIP App Store Catalog held steady at 113.

Journalists are taught in school that things that don’t happen aren’t news; that’s not the case here. Given the torrid growth of the number of stores in 2010, the fact that just 3 have been added so far in 2011, and none in February is quite significant. Particularly when one considers MWC -- a flashpoint of industry product and service launches -- took place in the month.

The...

Recently at MWC2011 we had one of our classic WIPJam discussion groups. Thanks again to all the discussion leaders and here are a few interesting notes and takeaways from those discussions.

HTML5

• HTML5 still has a long ways to go in terms of its own evolution and growth
• 2 big positives that HTML5 will offer is the speed of development and it will help solve cross platform problems
• Currently there is a lot that hinders HTML5, everything from performance to battery life
• More specifically a few of the issues include Geolocation, SQL storage and there are issues with fragmentation using tools like Modernizr, Has.js, Device Atlas and WURFL. 

Cross Platform Development

With so many platforms to address now do you have to provide less functionality to your app to ensure a successful port?

This is one of the major concerns when it comes to developing across platforms, along with the learning curve each platform requires. When it comes down to it there is not...