App Store Economics
We’ve been doing lot’s of studying recently about the economics of the App Store. How things move and shake and what patterns there are about what’s popular, useful or worth spending money on.
Over the last month this has been the most revealing pattern we’ve seen.
App Store Top Grossing Lists by Device
iPhone
24/24 Top Grossing Apps are Games.
iPad
11/25 Top Grossing Apps are Games.
Mac
4/25 Top Grossing Apps are Games.
There are so many bewildering and interesting pieces of information you can pull away from just this evidence itself and you could scratch your head for days. The biggest divergence in understanding this data is related to a Market Penetration vs. Leisure comparison. As in..
Are the early adopters the people who do and make things and don’t waste any time playing games?
or…
Is the iPhone the most suitable game playing device in the world right now?
Both of these questions could be true. Ultimately this data boils down to the point that the device your creating content for has a enormous amount of importance in the way it’s value is delivered. Because this is the list for top grossing I think this data is suggesting the time/leisure/desire for productivity factor in the application consumation of your life.
Computer = Do things.
iPhone = Talk to your friends and play games and stuff.
iPad = Not sure yet / somewhere in-between.
Just some early thoughts on this one. Definitely going to keep up more data and stories around this device pattern. Let us know what you think!
