et
Chapter 1: The Global Mobile Market Mobile Technology in Travel - The Introduction
An application for every need?
One of the key successes of the iPhone is the ease of installation and use of its al Mobile Mark
custom applications. The idea of custom applications on mobile phones has been
around for a number of years and there is already a burgeoning Mobile Applications
Development industry. However, locating, installing and using these ‘apps’ as they
Glob
are called, was quite a complex process. Apps were hard to find and distributed
through a number of different channels. And even once they were found they were
not easy to install and use without an above average technical expertise. When
Apple created the iPhone, they also launched the iPhone ‘Apps Store’, a central
repository for all applications developed for the iPhone.
The applications are grouped into categories and are downloaded and installed
with one click. In addition, payment for premium apps is extremely simple. At the
end of 2008 there were approximately 19,000 applications available.
Figure 1.11: iPhone Applications by Category (Jan 2009)
5,000
4,544
4,500
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500 2,345
2,000
1,732
1,500 1,327
1,170
1,026
1,000
830
811 792
622 578
531
500
485
431 370
366
279 241
181
83
0
el ts
Games
Books
ence
T
rav
Spor
Music
News
tainment
Utilities
Lifestyle
Finance
eather
ographic
Medical
er
Education R
efer
oductivity
Business W
Pr
Navigation
Ent
Phot
Social Media
Health & Fitness
Source:
www.mobclix.com -Jan 13 2009
As of January 2009 there were 811 Travel applications which accounts for 4.3% of
the total available. However a number of other categories have applications which
could be considered part of Travel (such as navigation and reference).
At the end of 2009 Google launched their own version of the App Store for their
Android handsets and in January 2009 Microsoft announced they were doing the
same. The large scale onset of easily accessible applications has opened a new
channel of connection for companies via applications that are accessed many
times a day. Considering how intricately travel and mobile technology can be tied
together it is suggested to be well applicable to the travel industry.
20 21
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