All one has to do is simply look around and realize that content consumption is increasingly on the rise, more importantly it’s increasing on the rise while on the move. In fact, mobile content consumption is expected to surpass online content as Smartphone price points decrease. To shed a little more light on the subject, Christina Warren shared a fantastic post over on Mashable about 5 reasons you’re consuming mobile content, I urge you all to read it at least once.

Mobile App Opportunities

According to a recent report by EPiServer, 73 percent of UK consumers now access websites on mobile devices and two thirds have used a mobile app in the last year. However, only 20 percent of companies actually have a mobile-optimized site, let alone a mobile app. Noticing the gap here yet?

By 2015, it’s estimated that 43% of mobile users will be using Smartphones as the penetration continues to grow at a fast rate. Brands, businesses and content creators that will be the first out the gate to generate content for mobile app users, are the ones who will have the upper hand going forward. Up until very recently, the same was being said about increasing your reach online by engaging in social media. Today it’s almost impossible to participate on social networks without encountering one of the big name brands.

Maria Wasing, VP of Marketing Europe & Sales Operations at EPiServer recently said, “The number of consumers carrying an internet-enabled device with them at all times is rocketing and, by thinking about the best approach for your brand now, businesses can make the most of the growing mobile opportunity.”

To that statement, I’d like to add; The evolution to social engagement will occur away from the PC. Ignoring this trend is setting yourself up for failure.

App Development Costs

In 2011 alone, the app development services industry, which includes app creation,  management, and distribution reached $20.5 billion. However, one of the most frequently asked questions remains; how much does it cost to develop an app?

In general, app development costs  vary significantly from region to region, the complexity and scale of the app. UK developers for example may charge $626 per day whereas competitors from India may charge roughly $138 per working day. Of course, you can always invest your time and learn to code yourself.

Now, I hear what you’re saying. With rates like that, how am I supposed to create an app to share my content? Luckily there are a few DIY app development services that will help you get your content on the app store in no time with very little cost. Here are a few examples.

Mobile App DIY

Conduit - Conduit allows anyone to create an app containing content from your site’s RSS feeds, YouTube channel, Social presences such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as customization of your splash page, icon and much more.

AppsGeyser – Turn your web content into an Android app in minutes. Additionally, the AppsGeyser service helps you distribute and monetize your mobile app. Over 90 thousand apps have already been developed with this service.

AppMakr – Appmakr is a browser-based platform designed to make creating your own iPhone app quick and easy. Using existing content and social networking feeds, AppMakr is a user-friendly system allowing for the creation of native iPhone applications.

ShoutEm – This service isn’t free, but it does give you incredible options such as adding modules and arranging them as you please. ShoutEm also lets you brand the app with your company’s colors and logo, including setting up your own application icon, home image, iTunes artwork and more.

Other notable services include: Swebapps, Apps-builder, Mippin, Android3apps and, Mobile Roadie.

Great What’s Next?

By now this post should have opened your thoughts to the opportunities that mobile apps have to offer. Start thinking about the content you could be sharing with your audience beyond the social web. Break it down into sections that your audience would most find beneficial to access while on the go and test the DIY services mentioned about to see what works best for you.

Needs a little extra motivation? Read these posts:

Anatomy of a Mobile App Entrepreneur

App Icons are Like Speed-dating in the Mobile Apps World 

Written by Oren Todoros, W3i Blog Contributor

What’s New @ W3i for Mobile App Partners

App ID Creation – Create an ID for your app that you can use for integration. This will save you time speed up implementation so your app is to market faster! Forgot your ID? Do you need to know what we have set up for your currency? Can’t remember if you have been set up as a partner for a specific application? Find it all here!

Self-Service Campaign Management (Coming Soon!) – Stop and start your campaigns to optimize your return. No more waiting for someone who may be in a different time zone than you. Move quickly with the ability to pause and resume your campaigns as needed without the help of a W3i associate. Were you looking for the ability to see the campaign information for your applications? Now you can! You will be able to view your budget, remaining balances, daily cap information, country targeting, rate, start time and expiration time, whether or not your application was featured and more!

Mobile Integration Documentation – For ease of implementation you now have direct access to updates to SDK’s, sample apps, FAQ’s, etc. No more waiting, direct access to all of our integration updates immediately without having to log in.

Create and Save Custom Reports – Saves time and gives you the insight you need at your fingertips. Save your reports for immediate access to your most important reports after login.

Custom Subscriptions (Coming Soon!)– Now that you have the ability to save your reports, wouldn’t it be nice to have them e-mailed directly to you? Coming soon, the ability to subscribe to your custom reports and have them sent directly to you as you need them. Weekly, daily, whenever, you got it!

This is just the beginning of improvements we are making to improve your experience partnering with W3i.

Apple’s development certificate stuff can be difficult to understand, and after I recently explained it to a new team member I thought it would be a valuable topic for others.  Some of this is documented well on Apple’s site, but I will go through it and focus more on the parts that I found unintuitive.

You can download Xcode for free and start creating apps and experimenting with the iPhone/iPad simulators right away.  If you want to put anything onto a device, however, you will need to purchase a developer license from Apple.  (Note: A device is required for things like testing In-App Purchases, Push Notifications and Location Services.)

After you sign up as a developer, you have access to the developer provisioning portal where you can request a development and distribution certificate.  Apple’s site does a good job of walking through most of this process.

How to create a development/distribution certificate:

1. Generate  a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) with a public key
• In your Applications folder, open the Utilities folder and launch Keychain Access.
• Choose Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant >Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority.
• In the Certificate Information window, enter or select the following information
• In the User Email Address field, enter your email address
• In the Common Name field, enter your name
• In the Request is group, select the Saved to disk option
• Click Continue
• The Certificate Assistant saves a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file to your Desktop.
• The public/private key pair will be generated when you create the Certificate Signing Request (CSR) if you use the Key Chain Assistant to create the CSR.
2. Submit the CSR through the Provisioning Portal to the Admin for approval.
• Click the Distribution/Development tab
• Upload the certificate by choosing the file
• Click Submit

Once the certificate processes and downloads you can double-click it to add it to the Keychain (the login keychain by default), the part that is not clear is that this certificate is tied to the computer where you requested it.  If you ever want to sign an app with the certificate on another computer (or another OS on the same computer), you need to export your identity from Keychain Access.  The export process is pretty simple and creates a “Personal Information Exchange” (.p12) file that can be copied to another computer:

Apple's Keychain - Simple Export Process Creating a "Personal Information Exchange"

If you have e a team with multiple developers that could potentially submit an app to the App Store, then exporting the identity is a critical step. This allows other team members to import that distribution identity, download the distribution certificate and provisioning files, and sign the app for testing or submission (Ad Hoc or App Store).

Once you have a developer certificate you can activate any iOS device for debugging:

1. connect the device via USB
2. run Xcode
3. open the Organizer (Window->Organizer in Xcode)
4. go to the devices tab
5. Control-Click on your device in the list
6. select “Add Device to Provisioning Portal”

Xcode will take care of requesting a development provisioning profile (iOS Team Provisioning Profile), and install it on your device.

The next thing you’ll want to try is Creating an App ID, but be careful here – once created, an App ID cannot be changed or deleted. The App ID is comprised of a description, a prefix, and the bundle id. The bundle id is something like com.domainname.appname, and the bundle prefix can be left alone unless you are creating a suite of applications that need to
work together.  A few pieces of advice:

1. lowercase bundle id - The App ID is case sensitive, so it’s best to eliminate confusion/mistakes by sticking to all lowercase.
2. unique description - The common name (description) field shows up in a few different drop-downs, and if you create two that are similar it  can be a pain to keep them separate.
3. double check before submit – As I said earlier, this is permanent.  A misspelling here isn’t customer facing, but it can be annoying and confusing for other teammates.
4. beware enter key - The default action for the enter key is to submit.  I accidentally found this out after I entered the Description, but before I had entered the bundle id…  Duh! So now we have an empty bundle id with a valid-looking description.

Once you have an App ID you can create provisioning profiles for that app.  There are three types of provisioning profile:

1. Development - Now that Xcode manages a default development profile you shouldn’t have to worry about this.
2. Ad Hoc - This is for distributing to coworkers or team members that may need to see or test the app. If they are not registered as developers on the same account, then their device UDIDs need to be manually entered.
3. App Store - Used only for final submission to the App Store

Revoking

If you didn’t export the identity (.p12) files, and the original computer that created the Certificates is lost or wiped, you can Revoke the existing certificates and create new ones. Unfortunately this requires updating all of the active Distribution Profiles.  It’s not difficult, but depending on the number of apps it can be a tedious process.  To do this go to the Distribution tab of the Profiles section, and click Edit -> Modify next to each profile. The Modify page will not let you Submit the profile unless you make a change, so usually I just add a space to the profile name.  Once the profiles are processed they can be downloaded and added to any computer with access to the distribution identity (.p12) file.

Hopefully, this saves you a ton of stress and time.  Do you have any additional feedback on  Apple Development Certificates?   if so,
add it in the comments.

Tony Feick. Senior Software Developer

Over the course of the last year we have seen considerable growth in smartphone ownership, apps and mobile app sites. With the new year right around the corner, now would be a good time to look ahead and make some fact-based predictions on how the mobile industry as a whole will evolve over the next few months.

First, here’s where things currently stand. According to analytics firm Distimo in its year-end report for 2011, there are now over a million mobile applications available across the top seven major app stores. And, as I mentioned in my previous post, the iTunes App Store still reigns supreme, especially if you’re a developer looking to make a profit.

The iPhone App Store generates about four times the revenue that is generated by the Google Android Market, the report finds, in terms of total revenue generated by the 200 highest grossing apps. Meanwhile, the App Store for iPad generates more than double the revenue of the Android Market.

To add to Distimo’s report, Neilsen’s State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report highlights the potential of mobile commerce in the near future.

Report’s Key Findings

The majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively);

The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days;

The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile internet has grown 45% in 2010.

87 percent of app downloaders (those who have downloaded an app in the past 30 days) have used deal-of-the-day websites like Groupon or Living Social.

Apps are Growing Up

Taking the facts above into consideration, here’s how I see the mobile and app industry grow over the course of the next 6 to 12 months.

The rise of the mobile web will continue to grow, specifically with retailers and businesses. Given the ubiquity of the web cross platform, the costs associated with cross platform development and the experiences which can be provided via mobile Web, developers will shift away from platform specific apps towards developing rich, mobile Web experiences.

Amazon will acquire RIM. No facts to back this one up, it’s just a hunch.

While QR codes are a hot trend right now (usage of QR codes jumped up 9,840% in the second quarter of the year 2011,) the user experience is clunky and uninviting. I don’t see this trend continuing into 2012. We’re already starting to see the emergence of more advanced and appealing technologies.

Businesses will get smarter about developing lead-based app marketing campaigns. Business-to-business companies will be leading the charge, but everyone will be on board soon. Year 2012 is set to be the year of lead-based app marketing.

In Conclusion - 2012 promises to bring us more progress in the mobile space thanks to increased attention to user experience, better development tools and increased opportunities for mobile advertisers and publishers. Mobile media  is the future, and the future has officially arrived.

It’s becoming evident that when it comes to mobile devices and their operating systems, their success strongly depends on the apps they run.

At the moment, all App Stores follow the same business model, in which 30 percent stake of all downloads go directly to the brand, while the developer/publisher of the app gets 70 percent. That includes hosting and credit card fees, as well as “marketing” for the app.

Before we dive deep into the clash of the app stores facts and figures, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat; Apple is king supreme when it comes to leading the app race. To make sense of it all, it’s far more important to understand how they achieved such massive success and set the standard for the way apps are downloaded today.

Apple’s App Store

From day one Apple worked extensively with developers and kept a close eye on all apps submitted to the app store. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its share of gimmicky, single-use-only apps, but for the most part, they leaned heavily on quality as opposed to quantity.

According to 148Apps.biz as of November 2011, the App Store hosts 518,601 approved applications with over 85,000 registered developers creating apps for the platform. The iPad alone has over 150 thousand native applications available for download. Let’s not forget the over 80 thousand Mac apps also available for download.  You you can see why no other app store even comes close.

For any budding app developer, the place you should strive to be is on the App Store’s home page. Make it there and your app is gold. Of course, getting there relies on how well your app is received by iOS users. Rarely will Apple feature an app that has yet to make a significant impact in terms of installs.

Google’s Android Market

When it come’s to Google’s Android Market, their mantra has always been “we’re open!” Whether that’s a good thing or not, is up to you to decide.

Unlike Apple, for example, there’s absolutely no lengthy or draconian app submission process. Got an app!? Come on down, it’s as simple as that.  All that Google asks is that developers do no evil. That means; no malware, no porn, no funny business. The problem is that some app developers clearly didn’t get the memo, as sneaky Android apps are on the rise. Regardless, have a clean, mainstream app? Boom! It’s available for download almost instantaneously.

Google recently announce that worldwide Android Market app downloads now exceed one billion per month.  Compared to iOS, which surpassed 18 billion total downloads in October. Another interesting fact to point out is that  the Android Market recently surpassed 10 billion total downloads in total.  This comes on the heels of comScore’s latest MobiLens report, showing that, for the three months ending in October, Android devices now account for 46.3% of U.S. smartphone subscribers versus 28.1% for Apple.

Taking into consideration how prevalent third-party app stores are on the Android platform, particularly in countries like China but also elsewhere, that’s a remarkable achievement.

Windows Phone Marketplace

Developers are already eyeing the opportunities that the Windows Phone Marketplace offers, and there are at least 6 reasons why.

In terms of raw numbers, Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace has gone from a few thousand apps to a milestone 40,000 in just over a year. This leaves it well behind the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace (both are quoted at around the 500,000 applications mark).

When asked why developers are more interested in Windows Phone 7 now than a year ago, a plurality (48%) said it was the Microsoft/Nokia partnership. Nokia also received high marks from its new Lumia Windows Phone 7 smartphone announcement last month, with 28% of developers saying they are ‘very interested’ in developing for the device.

But Wait, There’s More!

So far we’ve looked at Apple’s leading App Store, Google’s “open” Android Market and Microsoft’s up and coming Marketplace, but that’s only part of the story. A clash of the app stores pose wouldn’t be complete without including Nokia’s OVI store which holds roughly 35,000 apps. Although it’s particularly interesting to see how the OVI store will evolve considering Nokia’s attention is shifting almost entirely towards Microsoft’s Windows Phone. That being said, Symbian still retains, by far, the highest potential user base. Even though its users are incomparably less active than iOS’s heavy downloaders, it still generates significant download volumes to Symbian publishers.  This is largely because whilst Apple boasts of its 500,000+ apps, the OVI store contains less than a tenth of that number.

The Takeaway

At this point, it truly sounds like it’s Apple vs. the world, but as we’ve seen so far, the app industry is changing at a rapid pace. Every app environment has its pros and cons, both for consumers and developers alike. Ultimately, it’s up to you, the end user to decide what best suits your lifestyle and budget. Turning it back over to you. How do you see the App Store Battle being played out over the next year? Share your thoughts in the comments below or reach out to us on Twitter at @W3i and @OrenTodors.

The Olympia Center in London England was host to this year’s Apps World Event where a who’s who of the mobile app world came together to discuss both the challenges and opportunities of the flourishing app industry.

Apps World, which doubled in floor space since 2010, is quite telling of how the mobile industry as a whole is expanding exponentially and is estimated to be worth over $17b by 2012 according to GetJar.

Global brands such as Vodafone, Telefonica, Nokia and Spotify were out in full force to demonstrate their view-point and strategies.

One of the clearest indications that the mobile industry is in transition is the ever growing demand for content on the customers’ terms. This is very evident in News and Media publications. Steve Wing, head of digital marketing, consumer media at Guardian News and Media, shared that it’s still too early to tell exactly what impact The Guardian’s new iPad app is having on print sales.

“From our research, a large proportion of iPad people are non-newspaper buying – they’re new digital people,” he said, while pointing out that access to the iPad app is also being bundled with the newspaper’s six and seven-day print subscriptions. “To date, that level of cannibalization has not been there.”

Apps World Highlights and Takeaways

Throughout the event, there were nuggets of information both on stage and through the Twitter-sphere.  Here’s a roundup of app trends that’s not to be missed.

25% of Smartphone owners scan QR codes” Alex Kozloff – Senior Mobile Manager, IAB.

Multi-language apps – I see this as a must for apps in the future – @kirstymca

App downloads are a little like valuing monthly website visitors. How many of them convert?

Apple’s App Store is by far the biggest app distributer; dominating distribution similarly to how iTunes dominates digital music sales. Apple takes a 30% cut of all sales, enough to run at a break even, only making profit on hardware says Javier Lorente of Telefonica. Lorente also highlighted the strength of the Apple ecosystem which will drive HTML5 growth.

If you attended the event, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Share them in the comments below or reach out to us via Twitter @W3i and @OrenTodoros

(credit: image by apps-world.net)

Know the Market

It used to be that Internet Explorer was by far the dominant web browser, but these days several other browsers such as Firefox and Chrome have increased market share significantly. Statistics vary and you may find different results depending on your audience, but the top 3 browsers are growing closer in market share, as Internet Explorer continues to lose users to Firefox, Chrome and even Safari. In October, 2011, technology site ars technica recently reported that Internet Explorer dropped below the 50% mark across all operating systems.

Browser Stats According to ars technica

Other sites such as w3schools.com  and Wikipedia give Internet Explorer an even smaller share so it is a good idea to track and monitor which browsers are more common among your users. A low reading with a particular browser can also indicate a problem with your add-on.

Usage is even more splintered when taking browser version into account. Internet Explorer remains split between the last 4 major versions while Firefox is even more spread out.  By contrast, most Chrome users are using the latest version because Chrome updates automatically.

Some of the top browser makers are increasing the frequency of updates. Mozilla announced earlier this year that it will move to a rapid release cycle, with new versions coming every 6 weeks. This is similar to Google’s release cycle for
Chrome. Meanwhile Microsoft appears to be sticking with a longer release cycle for Internet Explorer, with version 10 expected early in 2012.

Recent Browser Changes

Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 8 both introduced new confirmation prompts when add-ons are installed. This change raises a barrier for add-on distributors such as W3i’s InstallIQ. Although users go through the process and consent to install an add-on, they must consent again to accept the add-on the next time they use their browser.

IE9 displays an information bar at the bottom of the screen, and it may not be apparent to the user that it is there. Some users may miss it and after a few times IE will stop showing the bar and simply disable the add-ons. IE9 also added an Add-on Performance Advisor, which alerts the user when add-on load times exceed a certain threshold.

New Add-On Confirmation bar in IE 9

Firefox 8 has two types of add-on confirmation depending on how the add-on is installed. If you install your add-on using the common method of copying files into the Firefox extensions folder, then the confirmation prompt will open in a new tab when the browser is restarted. This prompt includes a checkbox which is unchecked by default, and is easily skipped by the user. Even worse, if multiple add-ons have been installed, Firefox will open multiple tabs, but as soon as one add-on is accepted, Firefox prompts the user to restart. Upon restarting, Firefox loses the other pending add-ons. This is a
significant barrier to installation processes that may install more than one add-on, such as InstallIQ.

New Checkbox Confirmation Tab in Firefox 8

Fortunately there is another method you can use, which should yield a higher rate of add-on enablement. You can package your add-on in an XPI file and install it on the Firefox command line. An XPI file is a Zip file containing the add-on components and an XML manifest. When add-ons are installed using the XPI method, Firefox displays a modal dialog with an “Install Now” button which is much more likely to be accepted by the user. In addition, multiple add-ons can be combined into a single install, with a single prompt to enable all of them.

New Add-on Confirmation in Firefox 8 for Add-Ons Distributed via XPI

InstallIQ now requires add-on partners to package their add-ons in XPI files so we can better manage the installation process. InstallIQ will automatically combine multiple XPI’s and install them by launching Firefox.

Looking Ahead

With browser updates coming at a faster rate and add-on installations becoming increasingly difficult for the user, it is important to keep an eye on forthcoming changes and be prepared to adjust your products.  Mozilla makes future Firefox releases available as they are being developed. They have a Beta channel for the next scheduled release, and the Aurora channel for changes that are further out.

Similarly, Google has multiple release channels which you can install for various platforms.

Meanwhile Microsoft is providing a preview of Internet Explorer 10. Microsoft has said that the Metro version of IE10 will not allow any add-ons, although the desktop version will.

Regardless of the nature of your add-on, it is more important than ever to streamline your development process and be ready to quickly make changes to adapt to the ever-changing browser platform.

Bill Zitomer, Software
Development Team Lead, W3i, LLC

Bill uses his over twenty years’ experience to build W3i’s core desktop products as well as back-end technologies.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 30, 2011–W3i® (www.W3i.com), a leader in monetization and user acquisition services for mobile apps, announced today the launch of the $10 Million AppX Game Developer Marketing Fund.  The goal of the marketing fund is to accelerate user growth for up-and- coming mobile social game developers by aiding in their user acquisition financing.

W3i's AppX - Resources to Accelerate Game Profitability

iOS™ and Android™ game developers’ goal is to drive user acquisition of mobile games accelerating the growth of active users.

This fund reinforces W3i’s commitment to iOS and Android game developers to help them compete with AAA competitors thus accelerating their path to profitability.

W3i is known for its extensive experience in partnering with mobile and desktop app developers to grow their app  businesses.  All developers who qualify for the AppX Game Developer Marketing Fund receive adept production support, actionable insight to optimize their game business and profitable user acquisition with funding to speed up growth.  The AppX suite of services is provided without charge and with no, long-term revenue share.
Using AppX does not require the developer to give up their IP rights allowing them to focus on actual game design and development.

“W3i has proven to be a valued partner in marketing our game, My Pet Zombie. Not only did we quickly become  profitable with our app, W3i helped increase the lifetime value of our users by three times. We would highly recommend using W3i to market your mobile game,” comments Brian Robbins, Founder of Riptide Games.

“We continue to develop tools that add value for mobile game developer partners,” said Andy Johnson, CEO. “Our road map continues to focus on improving monetization and user acquisition tools to optimize ROI using a decade of experience doing the same for our desktop app partners.  The rollout continues with AppX.”  For more information contact W3i AppX.

About W3i: W3i is a leader in monetization and user acquisition services for mobile and desktop apps.  Utilize an experienced team of app-savvy marketers with deep technical know-how and many years of industry experience to grow your app business. We are ready to collaborate with app developers to execute programs that quickly deliver revenue and quality users. To learn more, visit www.W3i.com with offices in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Sartell, MN. 

Press Contact:

Deborah Manthei

Director of Marketing Communications

320-257-7571 (office)

deborah.manthei@W3i.com

The names of companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

I recently gave a talk to a group of marketing specialists from large corporate firms. After my talk, one of the attendees approached me and said: “I enjoyed your talk, it all sounds so exciting, but can you please tell me what exactly an app is?” Talk about a reality check.

In the ultra fast paced world of connected devices, one of the words that’s thrown around more than any other is the term “app”. So for those amongst you who are still trying to figure it out, an app typically refers to software used on a smartphone or mobile device such as the Android, iPhone, BlackBerry or iPad, as in “mobile app”. Similarly the phrase “web app” or “online app” is also used in a business setting as an abbreviation for “Web application” or “online application”. It’s a piece of software that helps you get things done, receive updates, or enjoy a little leisure time.

Now that we have that figured out, let’s fast forward to how apps are evolving almost as quickly as they appeared.

Apps, The Next Evolution

Mobile apps extend the reach and productivity of your business, but even “mobile” devices are rapidly changing shape. Take for example the I’mWatch – A sleek, thin and ergonomic watch that’s powered by the Android OS. The watch is a phone, web, music, radio, organizer, photo and video player. This new level of portability delivers new use cases for apps, as we currently know them.

“The effects of the mobile industry are making a huge impact in retail right now. Companies are looking at innovative ways to bring in new customers, deliver their messaging and maximize sales through the use of branded apps,” shares Ariel Haroush CEO of I Display, Part of the Outform Group. “The key is to deliver mobile content throughout the retail shopping experience via smart digital retail signage.” Expect to see Android OS based point of sale devices sprouting up in a fashion boutique near you.

Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and other TV Manufactures have already started launching their line of app enabled TVs. These “Smart TVs” can connect to the web through ethernet or wireless connection.  This connectivity allows the user to perform many of the functions on their television that could normally only be done on a computer or mobile device. Samsung has already gone the extra mile by launching their own dedicated App Store for TVs.

“The support for Samsung Apps – from content providers to developer partners and consumers around the world – has been tremendous,” said Eric Anderson, Vice President of Content and Product Solutions, Samsung Electronics America, Inc. “As we look ahead, Samsung sees the opportunity to expand not only the breadth and depth of apps, but also how users interact with them, making it easy to discover and enjoy content across multiple devices in the home.”

In conclusion – Get ready to re-learn everything you know about apps. The trends creeping up right around the corner are about to deliver the reality to the sci-fi we’ve been dreaming of. Developers who aren’t seriously considering the opportunities of these connected devices will be missing out.

Turning it back over to you – How do you see the evolution of apps progressing? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us on Twitter @W3i and @OrenTodoros

Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet has all the makings of becoming the first successful Android based tablet. With it low price point, large volume of apps, ease of use and access to the Amazon service is it any wonder that developers are seriously looking at this new tablet as their platform of choice?

Appcelerator and IDC polled almost 2,200 developers this month, and the Kindle Fire edged out the Samsung Galaxy Tab as the most attractive Android tablet to target their efforts at. Here are 5 reasons why developers are already fueling the Kindle Fire Flame.

1- In a sprint to lead the pack, Songza, an Amazon-backed music startup, is launching a Kindle Fire app before any other mobile OS. The reason as Co-founder Elias Roman pointed out is their desire to be an early adopter on “the Android tablet that will matter more than any of the others.”

2 - Top tier publishers such as Netflix, Rhapsody, Pandora, Twitter, Comics by comiXology, Facebook, The Weather Channel and Zynga are already on board by being launch partners for the Kindle Fire; each looking for wider distribution channels for their content.

3 - In the US, 49% of developers are very interested in creating apps for Android apps, upsetting the Galaxy at 48%.  Worldwide, the Kindle Fire ranked second with 43% while Samsung ranked first with 56%.

4 - The Kindle Fire is coming in at a substantially lower price point.  Second, the Kindle Fire is backed by Amazon’s large content and e-commerce offerings that can be integrated into apps and the convenience of its app store.

5 - Development is proving to be fairly easy for developers who’ve previously developed for the Android OS. The Kindle Fire uses Android 2.3 instead of Android’s Honeycomb OS.

Is you organization looking towards the Kindle Fire for your upcoming app? Let us know in the comments or reach out to us via Twitter @W3i and @OrenTodoros.