Mobile analytics firm, Flurry, has been tracking (and making transparent) a wide variety of mobile analytics data for some time now so they pass the "sniff test" of credibility for observation and inference in my opinion (although, a caveat is that less clear is Flurry's market position in non-Apple segments, as that alone could fuel some degree of sampling bias).
In this latest infographic, they compare New Project Starts over the past 60 days to New Project Starts for all of 2009 so as to gauge both absolute and relative growth of Android, Blackberry, iPhone and now, iPad, respectively.
So what does the data reveal, and what conclusions or questions does it raise?
- First and foremost, iPad, from a platform perspective, minimally is seeing serious "halo" effects as a result of its kinship to iPhone, with iPad alone jumping ahead of Android in terms of new project starts during this period.
- The composite of iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad affirm the veracity of my thesis that "It's the Platform, Stupid!" Namely, that for all of Android's success in signing up handset OEMs, that has yet to translate to a mindshare shift with developers. Quite the opposite. iPhone and its siblins have more mindshare than ever.
- Related to #2 above, given the significant amount of Android App Starts in terms of raw numbers, it seems somewhat of a "tell" that there is yet to be one breakout (or especially noteworthy) Android app that HASN'T been released by Google, whereas we can name lots of apps and segments where iPhone Apps are unqualified hits.
- While Android is losing out in the market SHARE game with developers, it's not losing in absolute terms, as the overall pie is growing. In other words, it's just garnering the proverbial smaller slice of a larger pie.
- Relative support for RIM's Blackberry continues to diminish, with Flurry calculating 1% share for Blackberry in terms of New Project Starts over the last 60 days, down from 4% for the whole of 2009. For RIM, this raises a difficult question. Can they succeed in the long run when their platform ambitions are failing so fully, and if not, what are they going to do about it?
In any event, you can read the full post by Flurry Analytics HERE.
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