But why are games not relevant? The question here is about whether an app ecosystem adds significant value to a platform for end users, the nature of that value (be it entertainment, productivity or whatever) is neither here nor there.
If you wish to say that $2 billion is irrelevant then we'll disagree on that (and it might be worth noting that in terms of box office receipts only one movie - Avatar - has ever made that in any case) but to put the scale in terms that relate to the mobile download market as opposed to some random unrelated market, sometime likely late this year app downloads will surpass iTunes music downloads (and to put that in context iTunes is the largest seller of music in the USA and has over 80% of the legal US music download market).
That 14 billion apps equates to over 60 apps for every iOS device sold (http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/16/more-than-60-apps-have-been...). If the suggestion that most people aren't really using third party apps is true then a small but significant number of people must be downloading hundreds and hundreds of apps each. While I'm sure that some people are doing that, I'm not convinced that enough are doing it to allow for a significant installed based doing nothing at all. Personally I consider myself a prolific downloader and I don't have two hundred apps.
One point of clarification which is worth noting - this figure is new app downloads, not updates. If I download Twitter then three updates that counts as one, not four.
For what anecdotal evidence is worth (not much) I don't know a single iPhone or iPod touch user who doesn't download and use third party apps and that includes people inside and outside of IT ranging in age from 10 to 40.
Games are certainly relevant but in building the business case for participating in the app market in general it's crucial to keep in mind that all these sales statistics pertain mostly to games.
And while I certainly don't consider $2bn irrelevant you have to admit that the hype around app sales is currently far out of proportion to its economic significance.
I've not seen any figures that suggest that they're "mostly" games - can you provide a link (the one below doesn't support mostly, it support games as the single most used but by a relatively small margin over several other categories).
I'm not sure it is just hype. Digital music is considered significant yet app sales are about to outstrip downloads and there are predictions that if game downloads carry on on their current trajectory then in 10 years time Apple IS mobile gaming.
And apps are an enabler for a lot of other stuff from smart phone sales (for instance that $2bn includes nothing from free apps such as Facebook and Twitter which are key for many people) to data sales to add sales (estimated at another $850m by 2014) to everything else.
Sure, on it's own $2bn can be seen as relatively small beans that's not the full story for revenue that can be directly attributable to apps and there are significant indirect effects beyond that.
If you wish to say that $2 billion is irrelevant then we'll disagree on that (and it might be worth noting that in terms of box office receipts only one movie - Avatar - has ever made that in any case) but to put the scale in terms that relate to the mobile download market as opposed to some random unrelated market, sometime likely late this year app downloads will surpass iTunes music downloads (and to put that in context iTunes is the largest seller of music in the USA and has over 80% of the legal US music download market).
That 14 billion apps equates to over 60 apps for every iOS device sold (http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/16/more-than-60-apps-have-been...). If the suggestion that most people aren't really using third party apps is true then a small but significant number of people must be downloading hundreds and hundreds of apps each. While I'm sure that some people are doing that, I'm not convinced that enough are doing it to allow for a significant installed based doing nothing at all. Personally I consider myself a prolific downloader and I don't have two hundred apps.
One point of clarification which is worth noting - this figure is new app downloads, not updates. If I download Twitter then three updates that counts as one, not four.
For what anecdotal evidence is worth (not much) I don't know a single iPhone or iPod touch user who doesn't download and use third party apps and that includes people inside and outside of IT ranging in age from 10 to 40.