Gartner, a leading information technology research company, released last Wednesday its 2011 Hype Cycle Special Report. The latest Gartner report evaluates the maturity of 1,900 technologies, including the mobile applications or apps.

“Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies targets strategic planning, innovation and emerging technology professionals by highlighting a set of technologies that will have broad-ranging impact across the business,” said Jackie Fenn, vice president and Gartner fellow, in a statement.

Source: Gartner

The Gartner graph shows that mobile applications or mobile apps stores hype have passed the peak level, through the “trough of disillusionment” level, and on the way to “slope of entitlement” to the “plateau of productivity.” 

In the article “Poll: Is the App Ecosystem Outdated?” published in Readwriteweb.com,  Dan Rowinski wrote, “Gartner is essentially saying that mobile app stores are here, established and soon to be the norm when it comes to mobile software deployment.”

About the Author: Burlapp is a technology company that is focused on building mobile applications. If your company plans to integrate mobile technologies into your corporate strategies, contact Burlapp at its new website.

Bloomberg Businessweek writer Stacey Higginbotham calls the smartphone as the modern-day cigarette.

Higginbotham reached the conclusion that smartphones are the new cigarettes with the August 4 release of the Ofcom’s Communication UK Market Report.

The Ofcom report shows that more than a quarter of adults and close to half of all teens in the UK now own a smartphone. Of these number, 37% of adults and 60% of teens are “highly addicted” to them, this according to Ofcom.

In a statement, Ofcom said, “New Ofcom research reveals the extent to which the UK has become addicted to smartphones, with people confessing to using them everywhere from the dining table to the bathroom and bedroom.”

The Ofcom research also looked into the popularity of mobile applications or apps among smartphone users. The research result shows that “47 per cent of adult smartphone users have downloaded an app – with many people taking advantage of the availability of free apps.”

“Adults are also most likely to pay for games (15 per cent) and music (8 per cent) apps, with maps/ navigation following close behind (7 per cent),” the Ofcom research shows.

The Ofcom research shows a behavioral difference between adult and teenage smartphone users when it comes to apps.

“Teenage smartphone owners are more likely to have paid for an app download (38 per cent) than adult owners, amongst whom just a quarter (25 per cent) had paid for an app,” this according to Ofcom.

What do you think? Are smartphones the modern-day cigarettes?

About the Author: Burlapp is a technology company that is focused on building mobile applications. If your company plans to integrate mobile technologies into your corporate strategies, contact Burlapp at its new website.

Google’s operating system, the Android, is activating 44% more devices each day than Apple’s operating system, the iOS, this according to the recent article “Do Apple Apps or Android Daily Activations Matter Most?” published in Forbes.com and written by Eric Jackson.

Jackson reported that the daily activations of Android devices is up to 550,000 a day; while the daily activation rate of iOS devices is close to 382,000.

Despite the Android’s market share triumph, Jackson reported that mobile application or app developers continue to flock to develop on the iOS platform.

Based on a Flurry study, 57% of new app projects starting now are for iPhone/iPad and 15% are for iPad; while only 28% of new app projects were for Android.

“The market share numbers seem to matter less to these developers than getting paid now, so they’re continuing to build out the iOS app ecosystem,” Jackson wrote.

Early this month, Apple reported that since the inception three years ago of the Apple App Store, the company has paid over $2.5 billion to app developers.

Other than the monetary compensation, what do you think are the additional reasons why majority of the app developers choose to develop apps under the iOS platform?

About the Author: Burlapp is a technology company that is focused on building mobile applications. If your company plans to integrate mobile technologies into your corporate strategies, contact Burlapp at its new website.