A new report from Flurry, a company that provides metrics for smartphone usage, says that for the first time since the Apple app store debuted in July 2008, the number of book apps released in a single month surpassed game apps. According to the report, from August 2008 to August 2009, more apps were released in the games category than any other but in September and October book apps took the lead. A chart on the website shows that in October, 20% of the newly released apps were book apps.
A posting on the Flurry blog notes that the iPhone has impacted several companies including Nintendo which recently cited the iPhone as one of the reasons its profits fell last quarter. Flurry predicts that Apple could begin to take market share from other devices such as the Amazon Kindle. The posting notes, “Despite the smaller form factor of the display, we predict that the iPhone will be a significant player in the book category of the Media & Entertainment space. Further, with Apple working on a larger tablet form factor, running on the iPhone OS, we believe Jeff Bezos and team will face significant competition.”
As we have mentioned previously, Apple has the potential to make a large impact on our industry. Apple could not only take market share from Amazon but from all booksellers including college stores. More e-book/reading apps are now being introduced than gaming apps, not bad for a device some people said neither they nor their students would ever read upon. Of course, the iPhone is not quite the device for reading textbooks, but how far off can that device really be?
