The Smartphone Players: The Big 5, the Little 5, and the Quandary of the Mobile App.

According to a recent study, as of this publication smartphones have currently penetrated 27% of the mobile telephone market. In a market that a 2010 pole estimates at roughly 5.6 billion people world wide, this is a huge percentage of people who on a daily basis interact with, and are mediated by Apps. With such a huge percentage of the global population in the mix, who are the agents that make up the mobile App market? How best does one parse the smartphone App market?

To better analyze this, Wired Magazine posted a chart that more clearly shows these agents. The chart both indicates the market percentage that each agent currently controls as well as the mobile operating system that each smartphone runs and it's percentage in the market.

In terms of smartphone percentage (Handset OEMs), Apple and Noika hold the lead with 5% of the market, Samsung (Galaxy) holds second with 4%, followed closely by RIM's BlackBerry and HTC at 3%. These players make up the big 5 in the mobile smartphone market. The little players maker up roughly 5% of the market and are represented by players such as LG, Motorola, Huawei, Sony Ericsson and ZTE.

For our intents and purposes what is interesting to look at is the percentage of operating systems that these mobile devices run on. Contrary to the percentage of mobile smartphone ownership that has Apple (iOS) in tie for the leading market share, on the operating system platform, Android reigns supreme with 11% of the market. Apple's iOS and Nokia's Symbian OS - again tied - with 5% of the market.

Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry OS - which are seen as the two predominant iconisised "smart phones" in popular media, play a much lesser role in the operating system game. RIM's BlackBerry holding out with roughly 3% of the OS market.

So what do these numbers mean for Apps, and the larger App developers market? What does this information do to our understanding of the mobile ubiquity of Apps? For our intents and purposes it is interesting to parse the dichotomies of agency surrounding mobile Apps and their associated mobile OS platforms. In particular the perceived dominance of Apple and Nokia in the mobile smartphone market. From an outward point of view one would assume that because Apple and Nokia lead the market share of smartphones that they would also have the most people using Apps on their smartphone devices.

For an App developer it would make sense to target the Apple market for developing your app on their iOS platform? Right? Yes, but for the random torque within the system that leads this notion astray. As Wired's circular diagram points out, Apple does not hold the lead in operating system because of its singularity as an operating system. iOS only runs on Apple devices, iOS Apps therefore only run on Apple devices. When it comes to the larger trope of Mobile smartphone platforms, Android takes a dramatic lead because of its multiplicitous ability to cross platforms.

On the operating systems level, it is a completely different ball game. Players that were prominent on the Handset OEM's trope completely disappear at the Operating Systems trope (Such as Nokia, HTC, and Samsung). Likewise on the Operating Systems level, new agents emerge that are not present on the Handset OEM level. New agents that dramatically change the game such as Symbian OS (Nokia OS) BlackBerry OS (RIM) and more importantly Android. What we have here is a re-catagorization of Smart phones based on Operating System. Android here takes the lead because of its ability to run on different mobile devices (Handset OEMs) Androids multiplicity in this context is smart because it enables an App developer to reach a broader spectrum of the Smartphone market with a single coding designed for the Android platform.

The App in the Android market becomes rather like a boundary object for App developers and App users alike, permitting them to cross between different tropes: that of the Handheld OEM. For a developer having an App on the Android OS permits him/her to disseminate their App across a multitude of devises: HTS, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, ZTE ..etc. By teaming together and choosing a common smartphone mobile operating system, the agents infrastructure associated with the mobile smartphone created a viable competitor to deal with RIM's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone who dominate the idea of a "smartphone" in popular visual culture.

By parsing this dichotomy between Handsets and Operating Systems and the respective agents involved, this allows us -the App interested- to have a better insight into how each of these different mobile platforms effects the App on a multitude of levels. How do Apps differ on different OS platforms? What is the user experience like? Who uses Apps on different mobile platforms and devises? Why might one choose one devise /mobile OS platform over another? etc etc.

Now that the gears in the proverbial "clock" App are ticking, I'll leave you to ponder while I charge my iphone. These questions and more will be explored in later blog posts.

Finding meaning by digging through cyber history

The question of where to start has plagued me these past few days. The first and seemingly easiest thought is to ask "What is the "app"? followed by "what is the history / origins of the "App"? When did this term get coined? ..etc etc. Sounds simple enough, nothing a quick google search query of "App" cant do to get the shovels digging. Right? Not exactly.

With a topic such as "the app" which is as ubiquitous in our every day contemporary lexicon as "dot com" was at the peak of the internet bubble, it is difficult to find relevant search query by simply typing in "app" into a google search. Similarly because the term "app" has only existed since slightly after the release of Apples "iPhone" during the summer of 2007, it is a term that is almost exclusively limited to online, and tech computer savvy literary publication sources. What your simple google search for "App" turns up is a myriad of articles having everything and nothing to do with our intended query.

A google search query of "App" returned "About 1,880,000,000 results (0.17 seconds)" Among which, after the first four paid query's the search returned the Association of Professional Piercers, The Asia Pulp & Paper Co. which happens to be

Canada's largest producer of paper, as well as Molson Dry – Association des pros du party (APP). Clearly the parameters of the search must be narrowed for anything fruitful to show up.

What did come up was Wikipedia's entry page for "App" which is a start. Wikipedia has two relevant pages for our topic, one on "APP (file format) "and the other on "Application Software" or "app" for short. Half way down the page for application software you run across a link to something called "mobile application development." Most of the page deals with application software relating to a traditional computer, but “mobile” caught my attention. Clicking on that link takes you down a rabbit hole of tech geek lingo. What is interesting here are the various types of “developing environments” upon which mobile “Apps” can be developed. At the current date of viewing the wikipedia lists over 50 different types of developing environments that span across mobile platforms from Android to IOS, Palm to Blackberry. These developing environments we will come back to later on in our research, but for now for better understanding what “Apps” are we need to continue our search.

Topic of Interest: The "App"

Hello world,

The topic of interest that will be discussed in this blog is the "App." Everyone is familiar with it, but what IS it? We are going to be exploring the role that this technology plays in contemporary society and culture as well as other aspects of day to day life from a vantage point of infrastructure and classification systems. Throughout the course of this blog we will be asking various questions that examine the role of the "App." We will start by examining how we use the "App" in our every day lives and from there the questions will start flowing: What were the origins of the "App?" Who developed it? What was their intentions for this technology? What are the competitors? What is the intended platform? What infrastructures were necessary to make the "App" possible? How has the "App" emerged in popular culture? Who writes about it and how is it positioned within these publications? How do we classify and structure the "App" within the current classification systems? From what point of scale should we examine this technology? Within our colloquial understanding, what factors are we not looking at that go into the supporting infrastructures of the "App?" What kind of conflicts and debates have emerged around the "App?" How has the "App" re-structured patterns of behavior? Which groups are dependent on it and are affected by the "App?" As well as; how is the "App" valuable to understand for culture? Our goal will be to answer these questions as well as many other questions that will arise throughout the research process to create a better understanding of what exactly the "App" IS and how we interact and engage with this technology in our every day lives.