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For September, Book-Related Apps Overtook Games On iPhone

Posted by timothy on from the fall's-good-contemplative-reading-weather dept.

ruphus13 writes "In a sign that ebooks are rising in popularity, a recent survey by mobile analytics company Flurry revealed that users may be using the iPhone for more intellectual pursuits, and not just the visual sizzle. The 'book-related' apps on the iPhone overtook games in terms of new apps released. According to the post, 'Book-related apps saw an upsurge in launches in September ... So much so that book-related applications overtook games in the App Store as a percentage of all released apps. The trend isn't an aberration. In October, one out of every five new applications launching on the iPhone was a book ... from August 2008 to the same month in 2009, more apps were released in the 'games' category than any other and, as a result, the iPhone (and iPod touch) became a new handheld gaming platform, one that impacted the Nintendo DS. '"

2 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. It's easier to produce a 100 book apps by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 4, Informative

    Looking through those book apps, there are many groups of people who are just taking every out-of-copyright book they can find and turning each into a separate app. In general, the games don't do the same things, hence the lower quantity.

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    Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
  2. the iPhone is a so-so ebook reader by obarthelemy · · Score: 3, Informative

    I had a go at my sister in law's iPhone over the week-end. The thing certainly is way better then my WinMob 6.1 piece of crap. The user interface in particular is quite good.

    I was especially trying to confirm whether the iPhone would work for me as an ebook reader. I'm used to using PDAs, starting with the original Palm Pilot, on to an aging Palm TX. Sadly, the answer is no: the screen is too small for me. I'm hoping to upcoming 5" android phones will be good.. and not TOO big.

    BTW, my 2 dislikes about the iPhone;
    - the thing is a fingerprint magnet,
    - and the "page-preview" in Safari is not kept up to date with the actual page render, so if you want to know if a longish page has finished downloading, you have to actually fully open it, you can't see it from the "tabs" preview.

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    The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.