Today I attended Day 1 of Apps World at Earls Court in London. Events such as this provide a useful snapshot of the current state of the mobile app economy. Listening to the talks and seeing who is exhibiting you notice certain trends.

Whereas 12 months ago you might have expected similar events to be inundated with mobile ad companies, this year the focus appears to be more on solving the more pressing problem of discoverability. With over one million different apps available on the two leading app stores, making sure that users actually find your offering in the deluge of alternatives is paramount. Whatever your monetisation strategy, it can only be effective if you can attract enough users.

The other thing that was immediately obvious is that both RIM and Microsoft are investing heavily in wooing developers to build apps for their platforms. The two companies are currently fighting for a distant third place, behind Android and iOS, in both platform market share and developer mind share.

Microsoft is pushing Windows 8 hard, and with it attempting to blur the distinction between desktop/laptop computers and tablets. This differs from the iOS/Android approach that treats tablets as very different devices to PCs with very different operating systems. With Windows 8 it seems it is the smartphone that is more the odd-one-out in the trio of device types, although the picture isn’t complete since the Windows Phone 8 development tools haven’t been unveiled yet. The non-phone Windows 8 is available to the general public at the end of this month.

RIM is betting everything on its still-not-quite-ready-yet BlackBerry 10 operating system. Perhaps most significantly, it is offering the most eye-catching incentive for app developers on any platform. The Canadian company guarantees that your paid-for native BlackBerry app will make at least $10,000 in revenue. If it doesn’t RIM will write you a cheque for the difference (so long as you were able to generate at least $1,000 in 12 months).

Developer Relations VP Alec Saunders reiterated that Java is now dead on BlackBerry. It remains to be seen whether existing BlackBerry Java developers will migrate to the new BlackBerry developer tools, as RIM hopes, or instead jump ship to Android where their Java skills are more transferable. RIM may also have inadvertently pushed developers towards an Android-only future by providing the ability for BlackBerry 10 to run repackaged Android apps, thereby obviating any pressing need for a native BlackBerry app.

On a related note, the Apps World organisers did RIM no favours by scheduling the BlackBerry talks beneath the imposing figure of a giant inflatable Android. The symbolism was inescapable.

Simplicent LLC has today released the first version of Learn Pro Blackjack, for iPhone and iPad. This blackjack training app, built for Simplicent by Rectangular Software, teaches users the fundamentals of Basic Strategy – the essential knowledge for maximising your chances of winning at the table.

With a typical house edge of around just 0.5%, blackjack is a far better proposition for the discerning player than other casino games such as roulette, but only if you make the right decisions in your play. Basic Strategy is a proven set of rules that determine what you should do in every possible situation to give yourself the best chance of winning.

Learn Pro Blackjack combines a set of training flashcards with a comprehensive strategy test consisting of 340 scenarios. The app supports both Las Vegas and Atlantic City rules and includes additional tips to help you get the most from your gaming experience.

If you want to learn blackjack strategy, the app is available now from the iTunes App Store.

At Rectangular Software we try to keep track of the state of the mobile market place so that we can better advise our clients on mobile app strategies. So we’re always on the look-out for the latest data. Things change so fast in this space that figures from 6 months ago can be hopelessly misleading.

I was interested therefore to see that Kantar Worldpanel today published its latest smartphone market share figures for eight key countries (Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and the United States). Based on device sales for the 12-week period ending on 5th August, the figures show that Android is the most popular platform in each of the countries, with over half of the market everywhere except Brazil and 61.2% overall (up from 52.2% this time last year).

Beyond the good news for Google the picture is more varied from country to country. Apple’s iOS is doing much better in the three anglophone countries than elsewhere. It has over 35% of the US market but less than 3% in Spain where Android has an almost total monopoly.

RIM’s market share for its BlackBerry devices has collapsed everywhere except France. In the important US market it has been all but wiped out. Overall RIM has been pushed into fourth place behind Microsoft, which is finally gaining some traction for its Windows Phone OS, albeit with a still modest 4.8% share.

The regional variation in the numbers underline the importance of understanding who your users are before deciding which platforms to focus your resources on.

The full figures can be downloaded here (PDF).

I was interested to read (via the Guardian) that Facebook has replaced its HTML5 mobile web app with a native app for the iPhone and iPad and is most likely preparing to introduce a native Android app too.

This is significant because there has been a growing trend for companies to favour mobile web apps over native apps (that is apps tailored specifically to one mobile platform, such as iOS, Android or BlackBerry, using tools and technologies that are incompatible with the other platforms). The obvious attraction of the web-based approach is that a single application will, in theory, work across all major smartphones and tablets, regardless of which operating system they run. Facebook’s move is an acknowledgement that while this is clearly a cost-effective way of reaching the widest user base, it does not offer the best possible user experience:

“So while utilizing web technology has allowed us to support more than 500 million people using Facebook on more than 7000 supported devices, we realized that when it comes to platforms like iOS, people expect a fast, reliable experience and our iOS app was falling short. Now that our mobile services had breadth, we wanted depth.”

That native apps offer the potential for the richest user experience is not controversial. Being tailored to a single platform, a native app can integrate seamlessly with the device and take advantage of the full range of hardware and operating system features in the most efficient way possible. In contrast, there will always be an element of lowest common denominator compromise in any cross-platform alternative.

The downside to native apps has been the cost of supporting multiple mobile platforms. Build an iOS app and you have an app that runs on iOS devices. You’ll have to build a separate app to reach Android users and then you still don’t have a solution for BlackBerries. So it’s unsurprising that as HTML5 becomes more mature, mobile devices become faster, and mobile network bandwidth increases, more companies are deciding that mobile web apps are good enough. They are happy to trade platform-specific fit and finish in favour of reduced development costs compared to developing several different native apps.

But before dismissing the idea of building separate native apps it’s worth considering how many platforms you would actually need to support. Over the last year the mobile ecosystem has become considerably less diverse, as these recent figures from Gartner show. Whereas in Q2 of 2011 there were four mobile platforms with a double-digit share of devices sold worldwide, in the same quarter this year Android accounts for almost two thirds (64.1%) and Apple’s iOS (18.8%) is the only other big player. Nokia has all but abandoned Symbian, BlackBerry maker RIM has shed more than half of its market share and, despite Microsoft and Nokia’s best efforts, Windows Phone (2.7%) is still languishing in 6th place behind even Samsung’s low-end Bada OS.

In light of these numbers, it appears that in many cases it may be sufficient to target just two platforms for your mobile app – at least initially. In that case the cost differences compared to developing a single HTML5 mobile web app might not be that significant. Cost is of course not the only consideration. Some apps have requirements that make them inherently more suited to one approach or the other. Here are some of the other factors that may influence your decision:

HTML5 Advantages

• A single app will work on many different devices
• Can build on existing non-mobile web app infrastructure
• Retain full control over app distribution/subscriptions (not subject to app store rules/fees)
• Ability to update the app immediately if required (no need to wait for a review)

Native App Advantages

• Faster / smoother user experience
• Native look and feel (familiar user interface that will function exactly like other apps on the device)
• Access to all hardware/platform functionality (cameras, Bluetooth, accelerometers, NFC, calendar, contacts, notifications, widgets, etc.)
• Better offline experience (for apps that can function without Internet)
• Easier to sell/distribute (hosting and payment processing are provided by the app store)

Rectangular Software recently delivered the first Android app for Pitch Invasion, the UK’s leading organiser of 5-a-side and 6-a-side football leagues. This native app runs on all devices running Android 2.2 and later and enables players to find local leagues, keep track of their results and fixtures and pay fees. The new Android app complements Pitch Invasion’s existing iPhone app, the most recent version of which was also developed by Rectangular Software.

The official Pitch Invasion Android app can be downloaded free-of-charge from Google Play.

Google today announced that Google Play now supports four additional countries from which developers can publish paid Android apps. These countries are the Czech Republic, Israel, Mexico and Poland. With these four new countries come four new currencies in which apps can be sold.

Appmonger, Rectangular Software’s app for tracking Android app sales on Google Play, already had support for three of these new currencies but we failed to anticipate Google’s support for Czech crowns so today we’ve published version 2.2.9 that fixes this.

This new version also includes a few other minor enhancements including fixes to the reconciliation functionality to address Google’s recent changes to Google Play sales reports. There are also some changes underneath the covers that may not be particularly visible at the moment but will become more obvious with the upcoming release of Appmonger 2.3.

Pitch Invasion, the UK’s leading organiser of 5-a-side and 6-a-side football leagues, has today released an enhanced version of its free iPhone app for players in the 100+ Pitch Invasion football leagues across England.

This version of the app was built by Rectangular Software based on the foundations of an app that Pitch Invasion had previously commissioned that is currently being used by thousands of footballers across the country.

Taking the existing app as a starting point, and working closely with Pitch Invasion, Rectangular Software has made several refinements and additions to existing functionality.

Improvements in the updated app include a new location-aware league finder for finding your nearest league, a new streamlined native payment facility and the ability to make and view nominations for Player of the Week. This is in addition to other fixes and enhancements including support for the high resolution Retina displays found on the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod Touch (4th generation).

The updated Pitch Invasion app is available now from the iTunes App Store.

Rectangular Software provides custom development of native iOS and Android mobile apps. Contact us to discuss your requirements.

Some interesting figures were published by mobile app analytics firm Flurry recently. They show how Google Play (the new name for Android Market) is trailing a long way behind its major competitors in generating per-user revenue from smartphone apps (an app on the iTunes App Store earns over four times as much per user).

The that fact apps on the iTunes App Store generate more money than equivalent apps on Google Play is not news but what is interesting in these figures is that Amazon has no such problems making money from Android apps.

The comparison between Google and Amazon is not entirely like-for-like since Amazon’s store is US-only at present and has less than 10% of the titles that Google has. The difference in performance is striking nonetheless and perhaps explains the recent Google Play rebranding that positions Google’s app store as a more direct competitor to Amazon’s digital content store. Google also reportedly has the Kindle Fire in its sights with its own 7-inch Android tablet in the works.

On Thursday evening I received a message on Twitter drawing my attention to a new app on Android Market that bore an uncanny resemblance to Rectangular Software’s own Appmonger app for tracking app sales on Android Market. And by “uncanny resemblance” I mean “almost entirely identical”. So much so that both myself and other Appmonger users who looked at it were convinced that the distributor of this app had downloaded the Appmonger .apk, removed the licensing protection, made a few cosmetic changes and republished it under their own name. The feature set and UI structure were identical, the on-screen labels matched word-for-word and the charts were in most cases visually so close as to be almost indistinguishable. The final insult was that the app was made available as a free download whereas Appmonger sells for £2.49 / $3.99.

The motivation for cracking a niche paid app and giving it away for free is not at all clear. It would have required a fair bit of effort since the Appmonger code is obfuscated. The person responsible had not added any adverts so they did not stand to derive any direct financial benefit from their actions. Perhaps they had added some malware to the app?

A visit to the website linked from Android Market revealed that the perpetrator is a woman in Texas. As well as promoting the app, the website included a support page that was remarkably similar to the Appmonger FAQ on the Rectangular Software website (question titles were identical but the answers had been reworded slightly).

On her blog she claimed to have spent $4,152.11 on developing “her” new app (seemingly the first and so far only app that she has released). On the surface this was an odd claim for an apparently pirated app. I could at least confirm that she had spent $3.99 because a search in Google Checkout revealed that the same person had legitimately purchased a copy of Appmonger on October 21^st 2011.

Takedown

At this point, convinced that Rectangular Software was the victim of pretty blatant code theft, I filed DMCA takedown notices with Android Market and the woman’s web host. Within 24 hours Google had pulled the app from Android Market and the web host had removed the offending pages from her website.

The Plot Thickens

When I later had time to analyse the suspect app more closely, I discovered that things weren’t quite as they had originally seemed. Playing around with the app on an old phone (I didn’t trust it on my phone), I noticed that the whole experience had more rough edges than Appmonger. If this was modified Rectangular Software code then the modifications had been done clumsily and introduced issues that weren’t there previously. Digging around in the .apk, the structure of the app was not as familiar as I expected it to be. If this was modified Rectangular Software code then they had gone to some lengths to try to disguise that fact. Furthermore, I discovered that this app uses achartengine to generate at least some of its charts whereas Appmonger uses custom chart classes that I wrote myself. That at least explains why the line charts look different between the two apps.

There are enough differences for me to entertain the possibility that the person distributing this app did actually pay somebody to build it from scratch and what we’re looking at is a very uninspired clone rather than a pirated and modified version of the original Appmonger. Though why on earth anybody would spend thousands of dollars going to such lengths and not at least try to make something a bit different is beyond me.

On the other hand, there are also certain similarities that would be unlikely to occur without reverse engineering of the original app, particularly in regards to the back end services and the database (all table, column and index names are identical between the two apps except for a few extra columns in the clone).

Anybody is free to create an alternative Google Checkout reporting app and give it away for free if they so choose. As a competitor I might not like it but I’d have little cause for complaint. However, regardless of whether or not it includes any Rectangular Software code, this app takes the sincerest form of flattery to ludicrous extremes.

Having previously added tablet support to the Android version of the educational flag recognition game Flagpole, we’ve now brought the iOS version up to speed with proper iPad support (including support for landscape orientations).  This new version (version 1.3) is available on the App Store now.