Apple’s iPhone has already shown the way – app stores are clearly the future of software. Adobe’s flagship CS5 may still be so vast it comes on four DVDs, but eventually even software of its calibre will simply be downloadable too. Seven billion Apple downloads can’t be wrong.
There are two major converging trends behind what is a story of convergence on many more levels than that: first, increasing access to the web, and increasing broadband speeds in particular, mean that downloading software is more possible than ever before and faster too. But it’s also in companies’ interests too: a download is always the latest version, it saves on expensive shipping and packaging, and it means software registration, giving vital information about users, is easier to enforce.
The much talked-about cloud, too, is a key part of the app store phenomenon – and bear in mind that Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS will be app driven, just as its Chrome web browser already benefits from an extensions app store.
Apps, typically, are still fairly small pieces of software: as more of the difficult processing work is done in the cloud and simply accessed via an app, the download only needs to be the software that gives users the ability to interact with the cloud’s capabilities. That’s a trend that will accelerate into the future: on televisions, on radio, on phones and on computers, it’s application downloads that are increasing rapidly because they are offering users the chance to expand what these gadgets can do. Their low price may increase, but the download is already becoming the standard method of delivery.
source: telegraph.co.uk/
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