Another sign that Kindle should beware: iBooks is the most popular free application for the iPad and iPhone.
According to Distimo, a start-up that analyzes app stats, iBooks has made the top ten list of free apps available on iTunes from July to September. This constant hovering in the most popular category is a ranking Distimo believes may be “influenced by the fact that Apple pushes this application to iPad users.”
Games are still less popular on the iPad than the iPhone, Distimo notes. In the Q2 version of the report, half of the top ten paid iPad apps were “productivity tools” like note taker app Penultimate and presentation app Keynote. In the Q3 report, the trend continues: there is still just one game — old school classic RealSolitaire — among the ten most popular free applications for iPad, compared to four in the Apple App Store for iPhone.
The iPad top ten is now dominated by news and info apps including ABC (#4) news weather channel max #5 and USA Today #10.
Mirroring the Apple App Store for iPad, Netflix and iBooks are also now in the ten most popular free apps in the
Apple App Store for iPhone, coming in at #3 and #4, respectively.
Games, however, are still the dominant apps category across all markets.
Conclusion: if you want to make money with apps, make games for iPhone and productivity/news apps for the iPad.
(You can download the full 20-page report here.)
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
