If you haven’t got an iPad or still not convinced you’ll need one – then you’re kidding yourself. As a marketing consultant new gadgets like the iPad need to be purchased, used extensively and then replaced with the next new shiny gadget. Why – you might ask? Because how else can you have an opinion or recommend a solution to your clients.

Today – I’m taking a quick look at the list of apps featured in iTunes under the category ‘business class’. Which ones would you need straight away? which one’s are just overkill — or just not suitable for UK users.

Business Class apps for iPad what are essential?

Dropbox of course – with 2GB of free space and syncing across multiple machines, this is a fast and easy way to access documents on the go. Of course you can increase space if you invite friends to Dropbox.

GoodReader for iPad – can open pretty much any document you from pdf to word to epub. I just discovered that you can add annotations and freehand comments which makes it useful for signing legal documents.

iMockups for iPad – if you do want to try making sketches or wireframes then this could be one to try. But it’s overdue an update so lets keep sketching with Autodesk for now.

What’s so bad about this collection?

There just isn’t much good to say about this featured collection .. many of the apps have very low ratings and the customer comments are very undesirable.  If you’re one of these featured apps – then that’s a great promotional opportunity – if you developed these apps and have so many negative comments – you need to fix them.

It’s nice to see at least 1 UK app in the list – even if it is the Financial Times app  – which is pretty useless unless you’ve paid.

There is a new breed of apps for online meetings – as I’m still waiting for my iPad2, my experiences of online meetings using Skype have been pretty flakey – unless you’ve got great wifi connected to a fast broadband connection.

Damien Saunders

It was only earlier this week that Apple’s homepage changed to advertise the fact that a 10 billion milestone was soon to be reached.

It wouldn’t be insane to think that 10 billion app downloads is a milestone and a half – no other app store or mobile operator portal has reported such impressive download figures.

In other recent news e-marketer reckoned that we all had a collective average of 60 of these apps on our smartphones — that’s a lot of games, news, branded content and generally important little bits of code on our phones.

Apple made it easier for people to pay less then a dollar, a pound or a euro for these little apps – in the race towards free or add funded it may have found the right price. Make it a decision i dont care about, make it easy to pay for, and make it less then a buck.

Damien Saunders

Initially I was dubious or even skeptical about the new Apple Mac App Store – and everyone from Mashable to ReadWriteWeb to Download Squad have already done a post about first thoughts or white washed the Apple PR news item.

Things that are surprising in the Mac App Store

I was surprised to find this week that Mobile App Developers are using this as the opportunity to port their Apps off of the phone to the desktop. This is Great! This challenges the divide between mobile and desktop! But your big screen Mac is not touchable (yet).

I’m still finding surprises in pricing – one App I previously brought via the web is cheaper in the Mac App store by about £5. Considering the app is £29 in the app store and 38 Euros on the Web … guess where I’d be buying! Clearly this is just one App.

In terms of Apples own pricing – you can buy iLife 11 as a package on the Mac Website for £46 or just buy each app (eg GarageBand) for £8.99 each – that’s a bargain.

These Apps are ok to download but slower to install

These apps download with a nice progress bar icon in your dock … you can then click to open them straight away. But it takes a couple of minutes before the App is copied to your Application folder or to the Spotlight search bar. After they are in your Applications folder – I guess you can remove them from the dock *poof*.

There’s about 1000 Apps to choose from

You have the official Twitter App for Mac (I guess its a port of the iOS app) and you have newer interesting apps as well like Alfred (a launcher app developed in UK).

And Yes — my favourite iPad ‘MacGyver’ app for notes, sketchs and photo stuff is now on the Mac and if its as good as the mobile cousin, I’ll buy that!

1000 doesn’t seem enough compared to 100,000 or more in the iOS app store … but there’s a lot to look at. I still think this is a place to come occasionally and

It doesn’t know I had Evernote and other apps already installed

A nice feature in the future is to sync your ‘other’ apps with the list in App Store. For example, I already have Evernote on my Mac – but the Mac App Store tells me I can download it.

You can’t rate apps that you own

Magically it does know if you previously installed an Apple app so I can’t see the pricing for Aperture or Keynote for example, and boringly I can’t rate these applications — or any others I own.

Have you Not got Mac App Store Yet!

To get the Mac App Store, download the Mac OS X v10.6.6 Software Update or visit www.apple.com/mac/app-store. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Damien Saunders

Apple’s new Mac App Store arrives on January 6 and it could be the perfect tool for small app developers and a welcome boost in hybrid web-app startups. That said — Does your business or client want their marketing and product development strategy to be led by Apple’s App Store?

Mac App Store key features for Users

Customers of the Mac App Store (eg anyone owning a Mac) will think this is a really useful new system tool.  So lets look at a few key features of the App Store

1. Purchase and pay for any app

I guess you’ll pay with your credit card linked to your iTunes account

2. One-Click Install

The Apple OSx already made it easy to install software. This should make it easier as users don’t have to figure out what to do with a .mkpg or download a .dmg and then drag the app to Application folder.

3. Redownload any purchased software

Great if you change your Mac as often as your underwear. Only slightly useful for the average person who buys a Mac and never upgrades their hardware.

4. Get software Updates Notification

Extending Apple software updates to include non Apple apps will be great, but this means that 3rd party apps which do the same thing (like AppFresh) could become redundant.

5. Easy to browse and search for Apps

Lets just assume this App Store is targeted to first time Mac users or people buying a new Mac, then an App Store makes sense to help people install the extra apps they might want. However if you prefer to search Google and go straight to an Apps homepage on the web to buy any 3rd party applications then why would you change that behaviour?

For existing owners of a Mac, the wow factor of the Mac App store will fade quickly — why exactly would you need an App store if all the apps you use are already on your machine? I would also think Mac owners do not go looking for new apps all that often.

6. An App to find Apps

Many current Mac owners at some time have used the Apple Download site and this will be closed down from this week. So the Mac App store makes a good replacement and it brings the user experience inline with iTunes App Store

All this starts to sound as if Apple will upset a few of its existing software developers who already develop, market, sell and support their own apps to help Apple users and their computers run better.

Developers Agreement for Mac App Store

A quick look at the developers site for the Mac App Store tells us

• App Store Benefits for Developers
• You pick the price
• You get 70% of sales revenue
• Receive payments monthly
• No charge for free apps
• No credit card fees
• No hosting fees
• No marketing fees

Here then is the same business model which is used by iTunes / iPad / iPhone apps and similar to other mobile appstores developed by Vodafone, Blackberry, Android.

At first glance, it’s hard to see why any existing application from a 3rd party developer would be added to the App Store if 30% of the RRP goes to Apple. Would this lead to a two-tiered pricing model – and developers increasing their prices for Mac App Store?

You can only assume that existing developers will not close down their existing ecommerce sites and jump into bed with Apple!

What do you think? Are you ready for Apple Mac App Store?

Damien Saunders

With the boom in the number of apps in the App Store (over 100,000) and total downloads in excess of 2bn … someone has got to be making money … right?

In part, the iPhone does offer a better platform for apps – it’s about to overtake RIM as the leading consumer smartphone, sold more than 34 million units and got some of the highest mobile internet usage rates we’ve seen so far.

It’s not fair to say that Developers, Ad agencies or Brands are making money out of the app store.

The problem is discovery – you have to do a lot to get your app to the Featured or Popular lists and that has got to start with spending money on good PR and a Viral / Word of Mouth campaign. For small time developers and startups, who might not account for these costs – they do expect GOOD PR and WoM to equal GREAT results.

Whatever you spend on building the app and promoting the app is not going to be made back in app revenue, consider that the majority of apps are given away for ‘free’. How does anyone make money?

I attended the NMAlive workshop in London last week which looked at Why You Need an App … I agree with all the presenters, which is you have to do something mobile … but expecting it to be a new revenue stream from Day 0 is misleading.

Damien Saunders