Apple’s iTunes App Store has the largest number of location-based applications: 2,300, according to data collected by Skyhook Wireless, a location information platform provider based in Boston. Nearly 75 percent of the iPhone’s location-aware apps are paid applications. These numbers only support our thesis that Apple’s iPhone is giving location-based services a much-needed boost.
An average iTunes app with location features costs about $3.60. The average price of a location-aware app in BlackBerry App World is $13.60. BlackBerry App World has 57 location-aware apps, while Android has 300 location-aware apps, and 80 percent of them are free. 
As I wrote earlier, location-based applications are beginning to become pervasive. Skyhook has seen considerable growth in location requests in the last six months — more than 200 million location requests a day and 25 billion requests in 2009 to date, compared with 15 billion requests in 2008. Location has become a key feature in 17 types of applications, with travel, navigation and social-networking apps leading the charge.
This article is absolutely pointless, which I guess coincides with the fact that almost all of the location aware apps today are pointless.
The article indicates that average app prices are higher for Blackberry, which is a pretty meaningless statistic. More meaningful and driving home the point, is the fact that the SAME app can cost more on the Blackberry. I bought Scrabble for my iPhone for $4.99 (not on sale). I bought Scrabble for Blackberry for one of my clients and it costs $9.99.
Well, it’s just a matter of time untill they all go down in prices since this can’t go on..
What a ridiculous article. Fails to point out the fact that of those 2300+ iPhone apps not a single one of them is the location aware app users have been demanding the most and which many blackberry users get for free (depending on carrier): TURN-BY-TURN NAVIGATION. I have 3 location aware apps on my BB, all of them free, and one of them is the fantastic turn-by-turn nav suite preloaded for free by Sprint (thanks!). The notion that the sheer number of apps and their average price means anything is absurd.
Some of the more interesting applications are friend finders or path mapping, which really requires location tracking and updating to be occurring in the background. A large percentage of the LBS apps in App World perform these functions, some of which are completely free. As I am sure you know, background location tracking is currently not possible on the iPhone application platform.
“Apple’s iTunes App Store has the largest number of location-based applications” – Doesn’t the iTunes App Store have a dramatically larger number of ANY applications than any centralized mobile application store? Walmart probably has the most Britney Spears CDs.
I know you are just reporting stats correctly, but I usually expect some value added interpretation to keep it from being misleading and point to the actual valuable trends. Adding the store launch dates, store sizes and relevant functionality differences would make it far less misleading.
Where’s the app that integrates GPS into the browser so you can do GPS enabled local search?
Location aware apps are growing and more and more developers will tap into this ability. BB apps are too expensive for the same apps for iPhone, and tacking even more cost is stupid.
The iPhone also has nearly 70% of mobile web browsing usage. Blackberry usage is still mostly just email and mostly corporate based. Iphones are mostly purchased by end users while most Blackberry’s are given to employees so one is a must use device while the Blackberry is an office tool. Again, while they are similiar devices, they are in different markets.
BlackBerry is a Smart Phone device that is mainly around phone and email.
iPhone is what we can name it Smart Mobile Computing device that is more about apps than phone or email. That’s why iPod Touch sells as much as iPhone.
I haven’t seen anyone using an Android device yet but based on what I know has a great potential to be more than just a Smart Phone.
Yep thats probably one good reason why iphone apps are cheaper. If you choose to buy Blackberry, you’re more or less choosing connection over leisure.
1. BlackBerry Apps can continue running and report location while in the background. Therefore they can provide more business value rather than just on demand location enabled searches.
2. BlackBerry Owners have more money :-), most BlackBerries are enterprise funded.
Remember that not all apps for Blackberry are in the App Store that RIM just launched a few weeks ago. may are found directly on the location service downloads still. Ones like Brightkite are free but only found at Brightkite for now.
The iPhone apps numbers are greater, simply because there are more enthusiastic iPhone developers than Blackberry. It’s also because iPhone APIs, development, and distribution tools are easy to use.
The only problem with iPhone is, its features are still limited in some areas, that all of you had mentioned, and considering the “age” of the iPhone itself, this is normal.
Meanwhile in the Blackberry, you will find less apps, and of those few apps will be developed by serious developers and companies, hence it will produce more “functional” apps. That’s not the case on iPhone, where amateurs can build an app, and sell it easily.
I agree with Jesse Armand. I personally believe that the number of App comparison in Apple App store and BB app world can truly represented which one has the best apps. The average price is the Apple App store is very low due to the large numbers of App. Many of those apps are pointless and cheap apps. Not to mention the free apps… Combined together, they result in lower average price of app compared to the Blackberry‘s average price of app….