App Store Wiki March Update—Now Listing 57 App Stores!

The WIP App Store Wiki now has 57 app stores, up from 46 at the beginning of February! Download the latest App Store report to check out and easily compare details on them all.

There was one big announcement in the app store arena from MWC: the Wholesale Applications Community, a major effort from about 25 mobile operators, three handset manufacturers, and the GSMA. The WAC is a sort of clearinghouse for each operator’s app stores, seeking to unify their submission processes and standardize developer access to network assets.

In short, this means that developers could potentially reach more than 3 million mobile subs across all the developers with a single submission! WAC is also promising to simplify the development process by using existing technical standards (OneAPI, JIL and OMTP Bondi to start) and making it easier for developers to create cross-platform apps. While it seems unlikely that WAC will make all the other app stores irrelevant, it should offer developers a great route to market as well as useful technical tools.

Another trend this month were app recommendation and review stores. These sites are often built on top of an existing app store, but either add additional recommendation or review functionality, or seek to make the underlying app store’s social features more accessible. For instance, there’s AppBrain, which makes the Android Market more web-friendly, AppComments and Appsfire, which help with iPhone app discovery, and HouseOfPalm, which makes the Palm webOS App Catalog easier to search. Then, also for Palm, is the PreCentral.net webOS App Gallery, which throws in a bunch of homebrew and beta apps.

This seems like a natural progression for app stores: first, the distribution functionality gets established, then comes a refinement of the discovery process. While the distribution aspect gives developers the ability to reach customers, a proliferation of app stores and apps themselves makes it increasingly more difficult for customers to find a wide range of apps. That’s where the recommendations and reviews come in. There are a number of emerging recommendation services—and already some consolidation in this nascent industry—so it’s one worth keeping an eye on.

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