{"id":206,"date":"2009-02-15T00:19:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-15T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vhirsch.wordpress.com\/2009\/02\/15\/top-10-smartphone-games-apps-2008\/"},"modified":"2012-04-25T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T13:48:01","slug":"top-10-smartphone-games-apps-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/15\/top-10-smartphone-games-apps-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 Smartphone Games &amp; Apps 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_krrmJx627x4\/SZdl35UFtFI\/AAAAAAAADys\/azv2Wfu7yfU\/s1600-h\/handango+logo.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left;cursor:hand;width:200px;height:84px;margin:0 10px 10px 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_krrmJx627x4\/SZdl35UFtFI\/AAAAAAAADys\/azv2Wfu7yfU\/s200\/handango+logo.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/volkersthoughts.blogspot.com\/2008\/09\/whats-smartphone.html\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">Smartphone<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"> content vendor <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.handango.com\/\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">Handango<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"> <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/assets.handango.com\/marketing\/Yardstick\/Yardstick_2008_YearEnd.pdf\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">releases<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"> a smartphone &#8220;yardstick&#8221; every year containing the top sellers from data in their store. Anecdotally, smartphone apps are more often sold via direct stores (rather than operator decks) than &#8220;normal&#8221; (not smart?) phones, owing of course to the better connectability (not necessarily connectivity) of high-end phones: input mechanisms (Querty, touchscreen, better D-pads), almost always 3G phones, etc make for a more satisfying user experience (try inputting a web URL via a basic phone keypad&#8230; painful!).<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">They had just under 10,000 apps on offer (spread across Blackberry, Windows Mobile [pro and standard], Palm, Symbian and Android). The average price point was a rather healthy $19, and users downloaded 1.12 apps on average.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">Handango also <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fiercewireless.com\/press-releases\/handango-releases-annual-yardstick-games-category-grows-11-19-top-category-sales\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">says<\/span><\/a><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"> that games rose as part of overall &#8220;top category&#8221; sales (whatever that is) from 11% in 2007 to 19% in 2008. This is encouraging. Even so, there is no game amongst their overall best-sellers for 2008. Here&#8217;s the list (price points at the end of each line):<\/span><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height:20px;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">1. Spb Mobile Shell 2.1.4 (today screen plug-in) &#8211; $29.95<br \/>2. MobiTV (streaming television) &#8211; $9.99\/month<br \/>3. Ringtone Megaplex (ringtones) &#8211; $19.95<br \/>4. Spb Backup 2.0.1 (file backup) &#8211; $24.95<br \/>5. Spb Pocket Plus 4.0.2 (today screen plug-in) &#8211; $29.95<br \/>6. Pocket Informant 8 (today screen plug-in) &#8211; $29.95<br \/>7. Spb Phone Suite 1.3 (phone features) &#8211; $19.95<br \/>8. VoiceControl (voice command) &#8211; $6.00<br \/>9. Colour Your Trackball (trackball customizer) &#8211; $4.95<br \/>10. eWallet (Professional Edition) (PIM manager) &#8211; $29.95<\/span><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">The top 10 games across platforms for smartphones is this:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"line-height:20px;font-family:verdana;\"><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-family:georgia;\">1. Spb Brain Evolution 1.2 (puzzle game)<br \/>2. Aces Texas Hold&#8217;em\u00ae &#8211; No Limit (card game)<br \/>3. TETRIS (puzzle game)<br \/>4. Guitar Hero 3 Mobile (music game)<br \/>5. Bejeweled (puzzle game)<br \/>6. Aces Solitaire Pack (card game)<br \/>7. The Sims 2 (strategy game)<br \/>8. Jewelrumble 2 (puzzle game)9. Sudoku Puzzle Pack (puzzle game)<br \/>10. Solitaire Buddy Gold (card game)<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">And here&#8217;s a chart of the game categories &#8211; and, no, still no first-person-shooters in the top 10:<\/span><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block;text-align:center;cursor:hand;width:320px;height:155px;margin:0 auto 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_krrmJx627x4\/SZdjzOfsOhI\/AAAAAAAADyk\/TSfrL1HLuu0\/s320\/Handango+game+categories.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">A noteworthy bit in the &#8220;Yardstick&#8221; is that Android already makes up for 10% of their sales (or so would the below graphic tell us).\u00a0<\/span><\/span><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display:block;text-align:center;cursor:hand;width:320px;height:165px;margin:0 auto 10px;\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_krrmJx627x4\/SZdjgiYsFPI\/AAAAAAAADyc\/HQ4muc6--rw\/s320\/Handango+apps+per+platform.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<div><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size:medium;\">From this, it also occurs that Handango does not consider the iPhone to being very smart. Hm&#8230; Well, it&#8217;s probably that everyone who buys content on that one will buy not buy it from Handango but through the AppStore. OK then&#8230;<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smartphone content vendor Handango releases a smartphone &#8220;yardstick&#8221; every year containing the top sellers from data in their store. Anecdotally, smartphone apps are more often sold via direct stores (rather than operator decks) than &#8220;normal&#8221; (not smart?) phones, owing of course to the better connectability (not necessarily connectivity) of high-end phones: input mechanisms (Querty, touchscreen, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[53,484],"tags":[52,54,79,273,310,394,404,499,561,623,725],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-oem","tag-app-store","tag-apps","tag-blackberry","tag-handango","tag-iphone","tag-mobile-applications","tag-mobile-games","tag-palm","tag-rim","tag-symbian","tag-windows-mobile"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paSwZv-3k","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1679,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vhirsch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}