Analysts predict 300,000 iPhone apps by the end of 2010

From the "Really, you got paid to make that prediction?" file, comes the one that tells us their will be 300,000 iPhone apps in the App Store by the end of 2010.

IDC released its predictions for 2010 (PDF link), and in the mobile arena, they included the following statement:

Developer — and application — momentum will continue to shift dramatically to mobile devices.

At least as important as the number of mobile devices are the frenzied developer energy and application volume building around mobile platforms — most obviously, but by no means exclusively, around the iPhone. There are now over 100,000 iPhone apps listed on Apple’s iTunes store, up from 10,000 a year ago — that’s an annual growth rate of 900%. As a point of comparison, there are on the order of 10,000 Windows PC applications listed on Microsoft’s Windows 7 compatibility Web site. We predict at least 300,000 iPhone applications by the end of 2010, many of the new apps coming from well-known Global 2000 business and consumer brands — and attracting more consumers and businesspeople to these platforms as their most commonly and heavily used clients.

While we fully agree with this statement, and even possibly say the number is possibly low, you have to question how developers are going to contend with that much competition, we have to question when Apple is finally going to realize the store is already unmanageable for the consumers.

I am writing this on Friday evening, 9:20 p.m. CST, and at this very moment there are 4,039 apps in the "Music" category of the App Store.  Doesn’t matter if they are music games, streaming music, apps for learning to play an instrument or even an actual instrument in and of itself, they are all in "Music".  How can anyone possibly a customer to slog through that and find the apps they want?  While I am sure it has resulted in a few impulse sales from browsers, I would hazard to guess that far more sales have been lost due to consumers "walking out" in frustration.

If the Music category (and I am merely using it as an example) is already this overwhelmed at 100,000+ apps, what will it be like in a year?  If the Games category can have numerous sub-categories, why can’t any of the other areas?

Apple needs to change this before the situation gets even worse, and it is going to take both users and developers crying out for it to get Apple to change the way things are done.

AdMob releases Palm webOS SDK

AdMob has announced that it has released an open source SDK for the Palm webOS.

The new Software Development Kit (SDK) can be obtained on the Google Code site (imagine that), and is the first sign of support from the ad company that it intends to support the webOS platform.  This comes on the back of the news that Palm handset unit sales rose 134 percent to 823,000 in the latest quarter.

This completes the company’s support of the three big platforms of the moment: iPhone, Android and webOS.

iPhone sales in China not living up to expectations

Despite high expectations, the iPhone is meeting with lackluster response in China.

According to PCWorld, in the first two weeks of online sales, exactly five iPhones have been sold.  Mind you that this only accounts for online sales, but retail sales for the first few days of sales was only 5,000 units, so the numbers have not been huge in either venue.

As I wrote on Tech.BLORGE.com earlier this week:

The problem is mainly due to the pricing.  The 32GB iPhone 3GS Sells for $800 USD without contract in Hong Kong, but the same model sells for approximately $1,024 USD in the mainland.  When you add in the fact that the Chinese version is missing Wi-Fi, and it makes the pricing even worse.

Apparently neither China Unicom or Apple expected these problems as rumors state that Apple prepared 5 million units for sale in mainland China.  The mixture of a higher price, a lack of Wi-Fi and an already saturated market from people in the mainland buying black market handsets, and it was just a recipe for disaster.  Time may tell a different story, but for now things do not look promising.

Google Phone is a ‘certainty’

The rumors of a Google Phone go back a few years now, but we all know that eventually turned out to be the Android OS. However, the rumors have resurfaced, and they bring some new twists with them this time.

According to sources that spoke with Gizmodo, Google is in development on a Google Phone that will somehow run yet another flavor of the Android OS, but details as to what will be different are unknown at this time.

What makes this device different from all of the Android OS phones out on the market?  Well, your guess is as good as anyone else’s.  The prevailing idea, which is strictly rumor, is that the device will be data and VoIP only, which makes one think that the device would essentially be a Google Voice-enabled handset which would make sense for the company.

The question is how the handset makers who have invested heavily in building Android devices are going to take to this idea.  For developers, why not?  So long as it plays nice with the Android apps they’ve already built, why not have yet another device to sell them on?

Reportedly the first test devices will be delivered to the Google offices in the next few weeks, but no word on when they might be available to the public, how they would be sold or what the price might be.