Mobile App Downloads Nearing 20 Billion Annually, Study Shows

On the same day that Apple announced its App Store had passed 1.5 billion downloads, Juniper Research is reporting that it expects mobile application downloads to approach nearly 20 billion per year by 2014.
“The increasing deployment of app stores targeted at mass market handsets, allied to enhancements in storefront interfaces and an ever increasing array of titles appealing to wider demographics have been the main factors driving this market,” said the firm in a July 14 statement.
Noting this burgeoning market, Juniper Research founded a Future Mobile Awards for Mobile Applications contest, with which to acknowledge companies that it believes have made “significant progress in their sector during the previous year,” it said in the statement.
Its inaugural Gold Award winner is “Nearest Tube,” an “augmented reality app” from acrossair. The Silver Award went to developer Tapulous, maker of “Tap Tap Revenge” and, of course, “Tap Tap Revenge 2.”
“Nearest Tube” will also be available as “Nearest Subway” for San Francisco and New York, “as soon as Apple approves it!” states the acrossair Website. Instead of working as a 2-D map, pointing out the nearest subway station, users user their iPhone 3GS’s video function.
The acrossair site explains, “When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in [colored] arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on.”
While Apple is, by leaps and bounds, the leader in the mobile application space, Microsoft, Palm, RIM and Google are all working to build up their app offerings as well.