I recently struggled on reports of the app market development. There are astonishing numbers within the reports. In the first minutes after reading I was really amazed. But reflecting these numbers, it is no real surprise. Looking into the app stores on a regularly basis, the situation is quite clear. We are getting flooded by apps.
As an example: The Apple app store kicked-off in 2008. It took nine months to sell 1 billion apps. Did you know how may apps has been sold by end of 2013? It is 2 billion apps – per week. Putting these numbers on a graph you see that the market is growing exponentially.
Read this article for details.
For sure, most of the apps are sold within the private market. Most of us love the idea of tiny helpers throughout the entire day – and even throughout the night. By the enormous variety of apps, the benefits can be tailored very individually to the requirements of each user.
It hasn’t been too long ago where I searched for full-blown applications that increased my productivity. It was very hard to find a tool that fits, or is affordable. Nowadays the situation is different. We spend our time in searching and selecting the right tool(s) available on the market.
Today’s issue in the private sector is that we need to focus on only few tools in order to stay productive. And the real challenge is to stay with a tool for a certain time. Otherwise we are getting into a vicious circle of constantly optimizing our process. Thus, productivity gets stuck.
Enterprise IT is drifting into another challenge. It has never been easier for business/functional departments to virtually swipe a credit card and buy an app or a piece of software. Enterprise IT needs to use this impulse very soon adopt this trend in order to fulfill the requirements of theirs customers. Otherwise shadow IT is growing and growing and the IT departments need to work hard to get back into the driver seat and get productive again.
All in all, it’s up to you how to get around with the apps. In business life – please double-check with IT if they can help you before buying an app. And in private life, think about how apps can help you through the day.
And now? Take this impulse: Go and check out how apps can increase your productivity… Here’s list of links to the current app stores: