Flurry regularly monitors new project starts by developers within its system to gauge interest across mobile platforms. With over 20,000 apps started by developers within Flurry, we believe this provides meaningful insight on the platforms that most excite developers, and where current resources are being deployed.
Since Apple introduced the iPad in late January, Flurry noted a significant spike in developer support, indicating early excitement for the promise of the device. As April 3 draws near, developers continue to develop for the iPad at a fever pitch. Today Apple added a toggle switch to its online iTunes store that allows consumers to view apps available specifically developed for the iPad. About 2,000 iPad apps were listed upon our initial count.
Looking into our system, we break out iPad-specific developer support by new project. For reference, we compare this to pre-iPad ratios to demonstrate how much developer interest the Apple iPad is attracting. Specifically, we compare averages taken across 2009 vs. the last 60 days, pulled earlier this week.
Comparing the two pie charts, the first notable difference is that iPad made up 22% of new projects starts within Flurry over the last 60 days. In March, over 3,000 unique applications were created within Flurry. A second point of interest is that Android’s share of new project starts has decreased from 18% to 10%. However, it should not be concluded that Android developer support is on the decline. In fact, the opposite is true, as we count approximately 300 new Android projects in March, which represents a 50% increase over February. Android’s percent has declined because iPhone and iPad growth is increasing at a rate faster than that of Android. In short, more developers are building more apps. The total pie is growing significantly, month over month. A final note is that relative support for Blackberry continues to diminish. While not shown in the chart, we calculate 1% share for Blackberry over the last 60 days, down from 4% for the whole of 2009.