Does Cross-Platform Support Impact Your Mobile Software Usage?

I’d never heard of Mplayit before this morning, but they’re on my radar now. The company offers a mobile application recommendation service on Facebook and helps you find good software for Android, BlackBerry and iPhone handsets. I suspect there’s some “crowd-sourcing” of information going on, which I generally find useful. More interesting than the service itself might be the trends you can find from the data within it.

Mplayit today issued a press release stating that “[t]he iPhone’s massive lead in the total number of apps may no longer be translating into a similar advantage in the marketplace.” Put another way, it’s what I’ve been saying for some time — it’s not about the total quantity of titles in an any app store, it’s about having access to the tools that meet your needs the best. The chart below shows Mplayit data from over 42,000 individuals — it’s a breakdown of category titles for each platform.

In some cases, like Pandora and Evernote, the same apps are popular across all three platforms. I’d even go out on a limb and suggest that cross-platform support for mobile apps is a strategic advantage. It helps not only people owning multiple devices, but it removes barriers to switch platforms as well. This attribute is actually one that I look for in a mobile app — if there’s a good app that can be used on several of my devices, I’ll usually pick it over a great app that can only be used on one device.

How much does cross-platform support enter into your mobile application usage?

Related GigaOm Pro research: “Feature Phones: The Next Market for Mobile Apps?

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