IPHONE APPS BUSINESS: AN INSIGHT FOR DUMMIES

With the popularity of iPhone (for that matter Apple’s all other products such as iPad and iPod Touch) in the global market, the iPhone application market has evolved like never before. There are thousands and thousands of iPhone applications in the market these days. The iPhone apps market has become an ocean of all sorts of apps. Yet, it’s very easy to distinguish a good iPhone app from a bad one. Yes, I’m claiming that not all iPhone apps are up to the mark or as desirable as the hi-tech iPhone/iPad users would want to have.

I thought about this massive explosion of iPhone apps into the market and for no doubt whatsoever it’s the Apple’s well laid strategy to allow anyone or everyone to develop iPhone apps at will. As a result, not only Apple made a significant progress in spreading the iPhone/iPad businesses but also gained a fresh insight into its products from the hi-tech and developers community. What came next was the keen interest of the corporate world, mostly in mobile industry, to develop apps on the Apple’s platform. Certainly, this was a win-win situation for both the Apple Inc. and the developers of the iPhone apps.       

Yet, I would want to highlight the negative side of the iPhone apps evolution. There are iPhone developers and iPhone app developing companies (few startups, few big ones) everyone is trying its very own ideas, few with some vision and others just like that. End result is market with flooded with the iPhone apps.

From a business point of view, the competition is intense, and it takes a lot to turn an iPhone app into a real success. For a company to cope up within the iPhone apps market it is just not about developing a good iPhone app but also about making it available to the target audiences; And if you are thinking it’s just about marketing than you are wrong. It is really important for the developer’s community to first be ultra clear about what app it is trying to develop, who will be using it and what you expect to do about the iPhone app in the future (one time app or any updates in future??) . Market research is so very important aspect of iPhone app business, be it identifying what app you want to develop or what niche domain you are trying to get in, everything has to be clearly defined before any development starts. In fact, Market research also identifies the target audiences and marketing strategy beforehand in order to avoid clueless strategy for selling the app later in the game.

One start-up that has a clear vision of where it’s going and where it wants to be is Faqden labs. I got this rare and invaluable opportunity to review the firstiPhone application that Faqden labs developed. The iPhone app that I reviewed was named “INTELLIVOCAB for GRE GMAT”. I predicted it to be an instance winner with its excellent user interface and even better analytics for learning the GRE/GMAT EnglishVocabulary, and I’m glad it simply produced the results the way I thought it would. It became an instant hit, and is among the top 5 apps in Educational apps today of Apple iTune Store. I have no doubt whatsoever that “INTELLIVOCABfor GRE GMAT” is the best vocabulary building iPhone app in the market at the moment. Recently, Faqden labs launched a similar product with specific focus of SAT students called “INTELLIVOCAB for SAT”. “INTELLIVOCAB for SAT” has a superb UI and analytics just as “INTELLIVOCAB for GRE GMAT” has. “INTELLIVOCAB for SAT” certainly looks the better improved version of Faqden’s first iPhone app. For SAT students take my world “INTELLIVOCAB for SAT” is the best vocabulary building app.

From a user point of view, there is a swamp of iPhone applications out there and buying an iPhone app is one thing but identifying the app that he wants to buy has become an extremely challenging activity on its own. This has evolved a business of another kind i.e. companies like Appolicious who are maintaining the directory for iPhone apps and help users narrow down on their choices. Basically, such businesses are weeding out the unwanted apps on the choices of users and their own intelligent logic. Amazing!! Now we have got softwares to churn out iPhone apps, it is like having an app for sorting out the apps, what a vicious circle :) :) .......