Apple Leads All Mobile App Stores

According to a report by the Global Intelligence Alliance, Apple's App Store leads all mobile application stores based on a variety of factors. The five key factors used in determining the overall success of each store included time to market, ability to attract developers, rate of device adoption, interface efficiency and finally having an abundance of attractive applications. Taking all of these factors into account, GIA believes Apple has distanced itself from the competition:

“Applications can make all the difference, and manufacturers like Apple, who see the smart phone more as a software platform than as a set of hardware features have the ability to position themselves miles ahead of the competition,” said Mr. Erwin Baumgartner, Head of GIA's Information Technology Practice in Asia-Pacific.

As you can see from the chart above, Apple scored perfectly in all categories except for the device adoption/rollout category. This just proves that Apple isn't perfect after all. The scores are based on a very simple scale, 2 being the best and 0 being the worst. The report also gives high marks to Nokia and the Android platform for their attractiveness to developers and interface appeal. The Android platform scored low on device adoption rate while Nokia scored low on the variety and appeal of applications. The report should be considered extremely inconclusive considering Palm scored low in quite a few categories due to the fact that the Pre hasn't even been released yet. It will be a better comparison once all of the stores and devices have had time to establish themselves. Until then, Apple rules all mobile application stores. This may be just another report patting Apple's back, but we are alright with that, it's our platform of choice after all. [via AppleInsider]

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