In the last 3 years, over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed, and during 2010 mobile apps migrated from smartphones to media tablets. Starting in 2011, mobile apps are expected to migrate even further, to connected TVs and to the connected home. The number of downloaded apps is around 10.9 billion in 2010, and will reach the number of 76.9 billion by 2014 according to a forecast from International Data Corporation.

The greatest impact of mobile apps has been on the ‘appification’ of broad categories of interactions and functions in the physical and digital worlds. Just as Scott Ellison, vice president of Mobile and Wireless research at International Data Corporation, has said, ‘t he extension of mobile apps to every aspect of our personal and business lives will be one of the hallmarks of the new decade with enormous opportunities for virtually every business sector’.

Mobile apps have presented themselves as tools, modifying the way in which each individual utilizes their smartphone.  These pieces of software have become prized possessions in terms of how they aid consumers in whatever their efforts may be, from searching for a new restaurant to try out, or locating the exact position of a friend.  The shift of the personal computer to the smartphone is changing the way we interact with each other, ourselves and our personal data, delivering a wealth of information on-demand.

The mobile phone is notorious for its influence over consumer behavior, and its showing that influence on specific consumer behavior like impulse shopping. Mobile apps are more and more frequently used for verifying and comparing prices offered by businesses. Such situations determine the decrease in the number of impulse purchases as customers have access to more information on the products’ prices, at least for the smartphone users.

There are also contrasting opinions such as Even Schuman’s, a StorefrontBacktalk editor, who considers that impulse shopping is mainly linked to emotions and rationality is not as powerful as some might argue. The StorefrontBacktalk editor goes so far to say that ‘for every in-aisle price- and feature-comparison that an Android or iPhone enables, there will be 20 purchases in the heat of the moment. And those impulse purchases will be enabled by mobile.’