He spoke about Blackberry, Android, The Tablet Market, Nokia, Smartphones, etc etc. Here’s his full take…

On BlackBerry

“We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company.”

“I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android.”

On Android

“Last week, Eric Schmidt reiterated that they are activating 200,000 Android devices per day, and have around 90,000 apps in their app store. For comparison, Apple has activated around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the past 30 days, with a peak of almost 300,000 iOS devices per day on a few of those days. And Apple has 300,000 apps on its App Store.”

“Google loves to characterize Android as “open,” and iOS and iPhone as “closed”. We find this a bit disingenuous, and clouding the real difference between our two approaches.”

“Android is very fragmented. Many Android OEMs, including the two largest, HTC and Motorola, install proprietary user interfaces to differentiate themselves from the commodity Android experience. The user’s left to figure it all out. Compare this with iPhone, where every handset works the same.”

“Many Android apps work only on selected Android handsets, running selected Android versions. And this is for handsets that have been shipped less than 12 months ago! Compare this with iPhone, where there are two versions of the software, the current and the most recent predecessor, to test against.”

“In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?” We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day.”
On the smartphone market

“I think right now it’s a battle for the mindshare of developers and for the mindshare of customers, and right now iPhone and Android are winning that battle.”

On Nokia (and developers)

“Nokia makes $50 handsets, and we don’t know how to make a great smartphone for $50. We’re not smart enough to have figured that one out yet, but believe me I’ll let you know when we do.”

“Most of them [developers] will not follow you. Most of them will say, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to write down a watered-down version of my app just because you’ve got this phone that you can sell for $50 less, and you’re begging me to write software for it’.”

On acquisition possibilities

“We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we are in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position.”

“We don’t let it burn a hole in our pocket, we don’t allow it to motivate us to do stupid acquisitions. And so I think that we’d like to continue to keep our powder dry, because we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future.”

On the tablet market

“I’d like to comment on the “avalanche” of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months. First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entrants, not exactly an avalanche. Second, almost all of them use seven-inch screens, as compared to iPad’s near 10-inch screens.”

“The screen measurements are diagonal, so that a seven-inch screen is only 45 percent as large as iPad’s 10-inch screen… While one could increase the resolution of the display to make up some of the difference, it is meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one-quarter of their present size.”

“Every tablet user is also a smartphone user. No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone… The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.”

“iPad now has over 35,000 apps on the App Store. This new crop of tablets will have near zero.”

Here is a bunch of Ad Networks that you can consider, if you want to earn revenues through ads inside your apps -

http://www.admob.com – The 1000 pound gorilla in the space that was recently acquired by Google.

http://www.adwhirl.com – A multi-network advertising platform with a feature that allows you to switch between Admob, Mobclix, JumpTap, videoEgg, Millenial Media, Quattro Wireless and more.

http://www.google.com/ads/mobileapps – Google Adsense for mobile applications.

http://www.greystripe.com – Has a propritery method of displaying flash ads inside the iphone and recently uses highly immersive and interactive in-app ads.

http://www.medialets.com – Specializes in rich media advertising for mobile devices. They offer an analytics platform and has a framework for tracking user activity.

http://www.mobclix.com – Represents the largest mobile ad networks available for developers and publishers and supports over 20 different networks, and has analytics integration for developers.

http://www.quattrowireless.com – operates as a mobile adnetwork exchange as well as offering its own ads. Allows location based ad serving / targeting.

http://www.tapjoy.com – Operates as an ad network exchange and also has an iPhone SDK for selling virtual goods via Offerpal Media. Has a pay-per-install feature also.

http://www.ivdopia.com – Claims to be the first iPhone Video Ads platform.

http://www.videoegg.com – Another ad network exchange service. Has an interesting Ad Frame format which when tapped shows a full page ad.

The fantastic part (that you can learn a lot from) is that they are documenting their entire experience online – how they came up with the app idea, creation of the app, publishing it, marketing it, tracking sales and revenues generated, making a lite version etc.

You get to see everything from start to finish about each app they release. They give you some great insights and revenue figures for the apps they publish. This is one blog you want to visit – if you have never published an app before and want to get some very good tips and insights on what to expect.

Currently, they’re averaging around $2000 per month with the apps they have released (around 3 to 4 only, from what I can see). Which is pretty impressive and very encouraging for all indie developers!

Here’s a note from their homepage -

Our names are Pat Flynn and Quoc Bui. We’ve been friends since middle school and have recently decided to put our creative heads together in the iPhone application world. The catch is, we are not developers. We really have no experience with working on iPhone applications whatsoever.

Think of the work we do as an experiment. We outsource all of the work for our application ideas and we submit them to the iTunes Store, just to see what happens.

We’ll be documenting our progress, our marketing campaigns, and our income (if any).We’re hoping to be successful, and show you that anyone, even those who are not familiar with iPhone app development (like us), can succeed if you put in the time, effort and a little bit of money.

Visit Pat and Quoc on their blog at Loler Apps! There’s tons of stuff you can learn from them – that many companies and indie developers won’t tell you!

Click here to view the embedded video.

The major findings are:

More than 50% of applications are priced below or equal to $2.00 in all stores, with the exception of BlackBerry App World and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

The average price of all paid applications and the 100 most popular paid applications in the Apple App Store for iPad ($4.65) is higher than in the Apple App Store for iPhone ($4.01). However, the average price of the 100 top grossing applications is higher on the Apple App Store for iPhone.

Google Android Market has the largest share of free applications (57%) and Windows Marketplace for Mobile has the smallest (22%).

Twitter, Inc. published their native application in the Apple App Store and Google Android Market, becoming the monthly number 10 free application in the Apple App Store for iPhone, and the number 6 free application in Google Android Market.

Nine out of the ten most popular free applications and eight out of ten most popular paid applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone are games.

In the competitive e-reader market, both the iBooks application by Apple, Inc., and the Kindle application by Amazon.com are ranked among the 10 most popular free applications in the Apple App Store for iPad. Apple’s application is ranked number one however, and Amazon’s application is ranked number ten.

Five out of the ten most popular free applications in Windows Marketplace for Mobile are published by Microsoft Corporation.

You may download the entire report for free here!

1. Pizza Hut
   • Nearly 1m downloads in three months
   • Generated $1m of sales
   • Drove registrations for main website
2. Paper Toss
   • 10m+ downloads
   • $125k in monthly ad revenues
   • Helped sell $1.25m of paid apps
3. Wall Street Journal
   • Launch app for iPad
   • 64k active users in first month
   • $17.99 monthly subscription
   • News Corp keeps the lot
4. Pandora Radio
   • Adding 30k users a day just from the iPhone – half its new users from mobile
   • 25% of its traffic comes from iPhone
   • $40m of revenues in 2009, and first profitable quarter in Q4 2009
5. Doodle Jump
   • 4m downloads since launch in Mar-09
   • 80k downloads on Christmas Day alone
   • $0.99 price equals $2.8m for two-man team Lima Sky
   • Now a $3.99 Android game
6. RedLaser
   • 2m downloads since launch in May-09
   • 950k active in the last month
   • At $1.99 price point equals $2-2.5 million of revenues
   • 50m barcodes scanned
7. Flight Control
   • 2m downloads since Mar-09
   • At $0.99 equals $1.4m of revenues
   • Now a $4.99 iPad game, and also a DSiWare title
8. Shazam
   • 75m registered users – 25m added in last six months
   • 1bn songs tagged so far
   • Fuelling 260k track purchases every day – 6.3% of global total
   • Mixture of revenue streams: ads and affiliate fees
9. Tap Tap Revenge
   • More than 30m downloads
   • $1m of revenues a month
   • Sold 1m songs in first month of in-game store, and 100k Ke$ha tracks in two weeks
   • Premium spin-offs: Lady Gaga, Nirvana, Coldplay etc
   • Also ads, virtual items…
10. eBay
    • $600m of sales volume through mobile in 2009
    • Predicts $1.5bn in 2010
    • 1.5m items bought through eBay Mobile at Christmas
    • 6m iPhone downloads by Dec-09

Honourable Mentions…

• Apple – $5.45bn from iPhone hardware in Q1

• AdMob – being bought for $750m

• EA Mobile – $212m in its last fiscal year

• Gameloft – $25m from iPhone alone in 2009

• Recent funding for Booyah ($20m), Ground Truth $7m), ngmoco ($25m), TuneWiki (7m), SMS GupShup ($12m), Flurry ($7m)…

Lessons from the 10

• Your app has to be excellent

• Word of mouth is very important

• Mix and match your revenue streams

• Free often spawns premium apps

• Help people buy stuff in the real world

• Free apps are great for cross-promotion

If you want to get a quick round up of the recently held Monetizing Mobile Conference with industry debates and the future of Apps visit the Monetizing Mobile Round Up here. We strongly suggest you spend some time reading this and what the successful app store publishers are saying.

This top 10 list is courtesy of mobile-ent.biz and iphonegamesbulletin.com

Answer: You need to do online research on the various iPhone apps resource sites. Below are the top areas you need to focus on and their respective sites. They will help you get your homework / research done comprehensively and quickly.

App Directories

New App directories keep springing up all over the web. These are a select few. They will help you search for competing Apps not just in one country at a time, like on the App store, but across all continents at the same time.

http://appolicious.com

http://appshoppper.com

http://apptism.com

http://freshapps.com

http://macworld.com/appguide/

http://yappler.com

http://appsafari.com

http://igoapps.com

http://versiontracker.com/iphone/

http://m.macupdate.com/iphone.php

Sites That Give App Rankings

These will help you guage how well other Apps are doing. What is their position on the App Store chars? Do they list on top of specific categories only or in the general category also? Do they perform better is some countries?

http://mobclix.com/appstore/

http://magicjungle.com/majicrank.html

http://applyzer.com

http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/

http://topappcharts.com

http://yappler.com/Apple-iPhone-App-Store-Stats/

Getting Performance Statistics Your App

Here are a few App analytics services that help you track rankings and perofrmance of your own Apps.

http://flurry.com

http://AppFigures.com

http://AppViz.com

http://www.heartbeatapp.com/

App Review Sites

You must read up on what others are saying about your competitors products online. Get to know the strong points and identify the weak points to take advantage of and implement correctly within your own App. Here are the top App review sites -

http://appvee.com

http://appcraver.com

http://148apps.com

http://toucharcade.com

http://appstorehq.com

http://appmodo.com

http://iphoneappreviews.net

http://iphoneapplicationlist.com

http://theiphoneappreview.com

http://whatsoniphone.com

http://iphoneapppodcast.com

http://iphone.iusethis.com

http://iphoneappratings.org

http://appchatter.com

http://touchmyapps.com

Other sites that have review sections within them -

http://macworld.com/appguide/

http://iphonealley.com/reviews/apps/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/iphone/apps.ars

http://appletel.com/apple/archives/category/iphone-sdk/

http://tuaw.com/category/app-review/

http://apptism.com/reviews/

http://appadvice.com/appnn/category/reviews/

This is list is a small extract from Dave Wooldridge’s fantastic book The Business of iPhone App Development, that was reviewed by me earlier at the link. If you are serious about making money with your iPhone App, this is an absolute must read.

I quickly flipped through all the chapters and then started to read it page by page. I have only one things to say – This is a must have book for all iPhone Developers and Entrepreneurs.

Written by an ex-Apple employee who worked directly in the iPhone Team at Apple a seasoned Mac, iPhone and iPad expert developer, it will save you tons of time and money by helping you make all the right decisions when choosing which iPhone Apps you should develop and help you monetize your Apps when you are ready to take them to market.

The original price is $29.99 but its now selling on Amazon for $19.79. This is a steal for 400+ pages of absolutely blissful content for all of us in iPhone development. There’s also tons of free code that comes with the book

Here’s a quick description from the Amazon about the book -

The phenomenal success of the iPhone and the iPod touch has ushered in a “gold rush” for developers, but with well over 100,000 apps in the highly competitive App Store, it has become increasingly difficult for new apps to stand out in the crowd. Achieving consumer awareness and sales longevity for your iPhone app requires a lot of organization and some strategic planning. This book will show you how to incorporate marketing and business savvy into every aspect of the design and development process, giving your app the best possible chance of succeeding in the App Store.

The Business of iPhone App Development was written by experienced developers with business backgrounds, taking you step-by-step through cost-effective marketing techniques that have proven successful for professional iPhone app creators—perfect for independent developers on shoestring budgets. Although there are a few iPhone app marketing books on the horizon, they appear to tackle the subject from purely a marketer’s perspective. What makes this book unique is that it was written by developers for developers, showing you not only what to do, but also how to do it, complete with time-saving resources and ready-to-use code examples. No prior business knowledge is required. This is the book you wish you had read before you launched your first app!

What you’ll learn -

* Transform your iPhone app into a powerful marketing tool with easy-to-use concepts and code examples.
* Analyze your ideas, research the competition, and identify your audience to evaluate sales potential.
* Protect your business and intellectual property and avoid potential legal hassles.
* Utilize several revenue-generating business models such as in-app advertising, affiliate programs, and In-App Purchase. Includes an extensive chapter on tapping into the Store Kit API.
* Build synergy with in-app cross-promotion and social networking.
* Improve usability and implement effective testing, plus a comprehensive walkthrough of provisioning and ad hoc distribution.
* Create a pre-release buzz online with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and a dedicated web site promoting your iPhone app.
* Successfully navigate the App Store submission process.
* Execute a post-release marketing strategy by crafting effective press releases, soliciting app reviews, and leveraging the power of promotional sales and giveaways.

You can read more about this book and even flip few a few of the chapters online on Amazon at the following link – The Business of iPhone App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed