By John Pawlicki Part Two of Three: The Battle of the Apps
cally clears out most issues) — so what is not to love? Once we get past the subtle diff erences between an Apple
T
iPad Air, Samsung Galaxy, Microsoft Surface 2 RT and other such tablets (as discussed in Part 1 of this article in the May issue), it is the applications software, aka ‘apps,’ that matters. It is mostly the IT departments that care about the underlying operating system and connectivity of a tablet, since larger entities need to provide support and provide integration of a device into a networked environment. End users are rarely overly concerned with such matters. This is why the fi rst version of the Apple iPad was seen rather derisively by corporate customers and some of the technical media. The iPad used the same basic operating system (OS) as Apple iPhones, which was a greatly reduced functionality as traditional operating systems, and thus relegated to the consumer market — which loved it, as did pilots. What was not foreseen by many is the appeal of an easy-to-use device that rarely needs professional IT support personnel to operate and maintain. This actually gave end users a bit more freedom away from the prying eyes and hands of IT departments, and allowed them to use a device as they desired to use it, not as some dude in a cubicle in the corner of a network server lab wanted them to. You can almost say that the initial iPad was a tool of the proletariat against their overlords in the IT department. It did not take long for the term ‘app’ to become a widely-used moniker for software applications on tablets and smartphones. Many of the early apps developed were focused on individual consumers or specifi c functions and not aimed at typical corporate or business functions. This remains mostly true today as well, with games, social networking and music-
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ablets themselves are nice gadgets with an attrac- tive form factor. They are sleek and lightweight, have simple user interfaces and rarely need much technical support (just cycle the power and it typi-
related apps being among the most downloaded. It did not take business-focused software companies long
to port their MS Windows-based applications on the Apple iOS platform (and, lately, onto the Google Android platform as well). In fact, due to the fact that Android-based phones and tablets outsell iOS devices (since Google provides its OS for free to device manufacturers, while Apple does not license its software to anyone else), there are more Android apps downloaded than iOS apps today.
THE ECONOMICS OF THE APP MARKET Apps are the economic engine that drives the entire tablet ecosystem. They are the main revenue-generators for the software providers (Apple, Google and Microsoft), and are what the key hardware OEMs (Samsung in the Google world, and all of the PC/tablets manufacturers that use Microsoft Windows) depend upon for various reasons. Before we delve into a discussion on aviation-related apps,
let’s take a look at the overall market for tablet applications today. • Overall tablet app market (source: ABI Research) - Revenues in 2013: $8.8 billion (projected) - ~75 percent of these apps will be for games
• Apple iOS apps: - Using recent published estimates, there are more than 500,000 apps specifi cally available for iPads (and more than 1.25M total for all iOS devices)
- More than 60 billion total apps have been downloaded (for all devices), and ~$15B being paid out to developers over the years by Apple
• Google Play (formerly Android Market) apps: - 1M apps overall for all devices (tablet-specifi c apps not identifi ed)
- More than 48 billion total apps have been downloaded (for all devices) and ~$900M being paid out to developers over the years by Google
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