Now trending: It's an appy appy world

Businesses today are assembling mobile applications — called apps — that put games, utilities, information, announcements and even purchasing power in smartphones and tablets. As the number of smartphone users soars from 50.9 million in 2008 to an estimated 145 million in 2014, and tablets shipping over 108 million units by 2012 — mobile apps are likely to become a huge, huge industry.

Endless possibilities

Apple remains the big daddy of apps, with iTunes boasting more than 150,000 apps. The app store reached a staggering 10 billion downloads recently.

According to Gartner, global mobile app revenues will almost triple to $15.1 billion (Dh55.4 billion) this year, with Google's Android market, BlackBerrry's AppWorld (launched recently in the UAE) and Windows Mobile 7 making a mark in the app space.

According to readwriteweb, the iPhone is the platform of choice for app developers, but Android, iPad and Windows Mobile saw increases as developers launched non-iPhone apps in a bid to diversify.

The top five platforms in 2010 were iPhone (30 per cent), Android (23 per cent), iPad (21 per cent), RIM (12 per cent) and Windows Mobile (6 per cent).

E-communications today

Dubai: The world of e-communication has never been busier. Like it or loathe it, but you simply cannot ignore it.

Be it your office, business, friends or relatives, the need to remain connected has become vital to our very existence — or so it would seem.

With the first quarter of the year under our belts, we look at some emerging trends in the world of e-communication.

Smartphones:

The smartphone war set off between iPhone, Blackberry, Samsung, HTC and Android-based phones will get more intense with Nokia finally coming up with something decent in the N8 and E7. This year big screens are in with HTC Thunderbolt, Motorola Droid Bionic, Sony Ericsson's Xperia Arc, Samsung Galaxy and Infuse and LG Revolution boasting 4"+ screens and a number of interesting features and add-ons allied with bigger processing power (1GHZ plus, with some even boasting dual-core processors), making things move lightning fast.

And if and when the two mobile carriers in the UAE decide to get on to 4G, many of these new smartphones high on features, functionality, screen size and processing power will battle it out for high stakes. By the end of this year, more than 85 per cent of the handsets shipped globally are expected to include a browser.

Location-based services will be big this year on the back of the social networking revolution..

Mobile phones acting as projectors are expected to come into their own this year. Samsung's Beam and some Indian handsets already offer projection and future handsets will offer far greater quality, making it a staple in future releases.

The merger of cameras and cellphones is expected to be complete in 2011. We have already seen the N8 with an eight megapixel sensor and Carl Zeiss optics, while in video recording, iPhone, HTC, Sony and Samsung, among others, are already offering HD video capability. This segment should continue to grow furiously this year.

Tablets:

While tablet-style computers have been around for more than a decade now, Apple's iPad was the game-changer in more ways than one, managing to make tablets wow almost single-handedly (and practically overnight).

Positioned as a platform for audio and visual media such as books, periodicals, movies, music, and games, as well as web content, the iPad managed to win over hearts and minds primarily by straddling the divide between mobile device and computing device far more effectively than any of its predecessors.

According to research firm Gartner, the sales of tablets will take off to over 70 million by the end of this year compared to about 17 million last year and it is expected to shoot up to over 108 million in 2012. Apple's share currently stands at 69 per cent and this will drop to 47 per cent by 2015, while Google's (Android) share will ramp up to 39 per cent from 20 per cent.

Samsung, Blackberry, Motorola, Asus, and a number of others have joined the party and one can expect prices to dip further as sleeker, more form-friendly tabs with interesting features and greater power hit the market in the coming months.

Social networking:

Social networking is the fastest-growing category among users of both apps and browsers. Facebook is king with over 500 million mobile users worldwide, while YouTube attracts over 490 million unique visitors per month who rack up an estimated 92 billion page views each month. Social networking and mobile internet complement each other and are expected to push the growth of each other to stratospheric levels. This will be one of the single most compelling factors pushing sales of smartphones, tablets and personal computers.

Heavy cloud:

Cloud computing is the next big five-letter word in IT. It generally means remote hosting of data and services over the internet that relieves computers, networks and private servers from lugging around all that data. If you are using Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Google Docs, e-mail and blogs you are already practising cloud computing.

Cloud computing in the computer, tablet and smartphone market should come into their own this year, with smaller and more powerful devices getting their work done remotely, including the de-centralised storage of documents, photographs and other data that would enable users to work seamlessly with colleagues and even share devices without loss of data, leaving users with a quicker, more labour-efficient experience when working on their devices.