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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. '"

3 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. What's the correlation? by Necroloth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sorry if I've misread... but from my understanding, there are more book-type apps released, not apps sold/used?

  2. Maybe by zblack_eagle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While it may be technically accurate that ebook apps are rising in popularity, I don't think that developers releasing more ebook apps (likely to be more individual books released as apps than app readers) translates to it being popular for users. For one, it is probably relatively easy for publishers to recycle some code to wrap around books they publish and release them as apps in the app store. Making unique games for a somewhat different platform in terms of IO and UI would be more difficult. If anything it just means that the traditional content owners have been moving in on the iphone as yet another platform for releasing their content on to.

  3. Calm people, calm... by omgarthas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's just apps released, I could release tomorrow three millions of "Find your ideal weight" and that wouldn't mean that Fitness apps were rocking the market...

    Book apps are easy, fast and cheap to release, hence the massive release numbers, not any indication of a success