Theres More to Apps Than More Apps, says mPlayit

The iPhone's massive lead in the total number of apps available for it may no longer be translating into a similar advantage in the marketplace, according to new analysis by Facebook mobile app store, Mplayit.
The iPhone has many more apps available for it than its competitorm, with over 100,000, compared to around 20,000 Android apps and around 4,500 on Blackberry App World.
Mplayit has looked at the most popular app categories across platforms and compiled the top apps in each category for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Its analysis found a great deal of similarity in the most popular apps in the most active categories, demonstrating that despite the big differences in the number of apps available by device, for the majority of consumers, there is less and less to choose between them. Mplayit's app store on the Facebook platform offers apps for the iPhone, plus Android, BlackBerry and Java phones. 
How many apps is the wrong question, says Mplayit CEO, Michael Powers. People just want to get the job done. It doesn't matter if there are 50 different to-do list apps on iPhone, because Android or BlackBerry just need a couple of good ones to make consumers happy.”
Cross-platform apps did particularly well. Evernote registered among the top three of the most popular apps in the Lists & Notes category on iPhone, Android and Blackberry. Similarly, Pandora Radio is among the top three music apps on all three Smartphone platforms. The analysis also showed that barcode readers have recently shot to the top of the most sought after apps on all the three leading Smartphone platforms. Currently, all of these platforms offer barcode solutions, though from different vendors.
Some platform-specific favourites held their own, however. In the Lists & Notes category, Evernote shared its top three spot with different, lesser-known competitors on each platform: Things and AwesomeNote on iPhone; ThinkingSpace and QuickList on Android; and TaskManager and SlickTasks on BlackBerry.
To a customer, the app catalogue is a key component of the Smartphone experience, says Powers. “(But) its not really necessary to match Apple app-for-app to offer a compelling mobile experience. Android and other platforms only need to offer the best and the brightest, as well as the same utility and features.