1.5 billion mobile handsets sold in 2011, nearly one third are smartphones. Nokia is still top dog for handsets, but Samsung and Apple sold more smartphones.
Submitted by Karl Simonsen (not verified) on 24 July, 2009 - 04:00.
There will always be a place for download applications and the app store but in the end the majority will move to the browser. Today the majority of developers are using the app stores primarily for the marketing and discovery not because they could not have just created a mobile optimized web site or web app. There will always be a place for applications that require access APIs. At Blinglets we have created numerous applications for iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms and used the app stores for the marketing and discoverability aspects. But for all other handsets we created mobile optimized web sites with almost identical functionality to support all other handsets. For Blinglets the app stores offered a level of discoverability that made it worth the extra effort of developing applications for the various app stores.
There will always be a place for download applications and the app store but in the end the majority will move to the browser. Today the majority of developers are using the app stores primarily for the marketing and discovery not because they could not have just created a mobile optimized web site or web app. There will always be a place for applications that require access APIs. At Blinglets we have created numerous applications for iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms and used the app stores for the marketing and discoverability aspects. But for all other handsets we created mobile optimized web sites with almost identical functionality to support all other handsets. For Blinglets the app stores offered a level of discoverability that made it worth the extra effort of developing applications for the various app stores.