Apple has just announced its most successful non-Christmas quarter ever with incredible 5,2m iPhones and 10.2m iPods sold. Since launch, that’s about 45m iPhones and iPod touches and users have downloaded 1.5b applications from the App Store so far. That’s 33 applications per iPhone or iPod touch user. Congrats to that and we could not be more happy about Apple’s success as we are making close 60% of our revenue with iPhone games so far. However, there were a lot of talks about the new iPhone 3GS and OS 3.0 might drive fragmentation which could be a serious threat to the developer community and the success of the App Store in the long term.
Since there is hardly any reliable data available how many devices and which operating system is used we thought we share some figures based on Barclaycard’s Waterslide Extreme, developed off the back of the iconic Barclaycard ‘waterslide’ ad, based on a concept by Dare Digital and developed by FISHLABS (obviously).[full]
Since Waterslide Extreme is a casual game appealing to a broad audience and currently the most downloaded app in pretty much every country (more than 2m downloads within 5 days) we think it gives a pretty good overview of the current installed base.
How many iPhones? How many iPod touches?
Let us start with the iPhone and iPod touch statistics. Most of you know already there are slight differences among the iDevices. As a developer, you want to know how many potential users you might lose if you optimize your app (game) to the more powerful devices like the iPod touch 2nd gen and especially the iPhone 3GS, of course. Respectively, you might consider providing different sets of graphical assets, for instance.
All data records have been collected anonymously, no back-tracking to individual users possible
As we can see clearly, iPhone 3G and the iPod touch 2nd gen are the most popular devices with pretty much identical market share around 38% each. The iPhone 3GS is around 12,5% and given the short time it is available that’s a pretty remarkable chunk, already.
We at FISHLABS optimize our upcoming games for the performance level of iPod touch 2nd gen which give us a great game experience on close to 90% of the iDevices (iPod touch 2nd gen, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS) out there. For the first iPhone and iPod touch 1st gen we reduce some of the graphic features, like disabling vertex coloring or reducing the viewing distance accordingly. On the other hand, it is just too early to come up with a dedicated high-end version supporting the OpenGL ES 2.0 for iPhone 3GS. Even more critical if you think about an app (game) that relies on exclusive iPhone 3GS features.
How many iPhones and iPod touches with OS 3.0?
Most developers are very excited about the new iPhone OS 3.0 features like in-app purchasing, push notification, Bluetooth multiplayer and many more. But when is the right time to launch apps, and games in particular, utilizing these new features. Check out the next chart for your consideration.
All data records have been collected anonymously, no back-tracking to individual users possible
If you are up for an app (game) with the new iPhone OS 3.0 features you face about 60% of the total potential user base. Still quite a lot people you can reach out to but it will be very hard to rise to the top 25 if your thrust of downloads is cut by up to 40% (some may upgrade for killer apps, though) compared to any competing OS 2.x app. For sure, Apple will promote apps (games) with OS 3.0 features to compensate that. Seems like risky business once the promotion has ended, though. We haven’t decided yet when to launch our first iPhone game utilizing OS 3.0 features. Perhaps launching a game with OS 2.x features first and when the hype is over running an update with OS 3.0 features is a good idea. Of course, this won’t work for apps (games) that rely on OS 3.0 features completely.
Success or failure of each and every iPhone app (game) won’t be based solely on the considerations above but for sure the right strategy when to support new features of iPhone OS 3.0 and/or iPhone 3GS will be fundamental. Given the dynamic in the App Store we will know soon what approach was good and what was not. Just that Apple will have sold another couple million devices in the meantime and the rules of the game will be changed once again. Which keeps it all exciting.
Alright folks, hope that helps when planning your next app / game. You may quote these figures above. Of course, a link to our blog would be most appreciated: http://www.fishlabs.net/en
Game on!
Michael Schade