According to research company Gartner, more people will buy smartphones by 2012 than PCs (via Reuters).  With that growth in smartphone purchases will come an even bigger growth in the development of mobile apps for those smartphones.  In 18-months, smartphone owners downloaded over 3 billion apps from Apple’s App Store.  Considering that sales of iPhones are expected to grow by 50% this year while sales of PCs are only expected to grow by 20%, Gartner’s predictions don’t seem too far off base.

The vast majority of mobile apps are offered for free or for less than $1.  By offering mobile apps for low costs, developers and companies expect to earn a comfortable return based on a higher quantity of downloads than a higher price would deliver.  However, precedent has been set for offering valuable content for a higher price tag (read “Even Expensive iPhone Apps Sell“).

Clearly, the mobile app market is growing fast, and given the shift in buying behavior to smartphones from PCs in the immediate future, creating an app strategy should be on the strategic planning radar of every company.  Mobile apps aren’t limited to iPhones anymore.  BlackBerry, Google, and Palm are growing in terms of mobile app availability, too.  Consumers are driving a shift to mobility that will only continue to grow.

Now, if only my current mobile phone contract would expire so I can get a new smartphone and some cool apps!

Image: Flickr

Today, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) announced the launch of its first mobile application for accessing social media content from SIIA and Authoritative Content from Newstex.

The application is available through the Apple iTunes Store for both iPhones and iPod touches (search for siia or newstex), and it will be available for Google Android-enabled phones in the future.

A free trial version is available, and SIIA Content Division members can request complimentary access to a limited number of licenses for premium content.

The new SIIA and Newstex iPhone app is an easy to use mobile resource that helps users access authoritative news and social media content, including blogs, Twitter and video content, at anytime.

In a press release from the SIIA, Newstex President Larry Schwartz said, “More and more people are tapping social media through applications that provide content from a handful of sources.  We believe this application creates significant marketing and revenue opportunities for publishers and aggregators, as well as associations of all types.”

You can read the complete SIIA press release here.

Today, Newstex announced the release of a new Authoritative Content iPhone App that delivers authoritative content to consumers at their fingertips and at anytime.

The Newstex Authoritative Content Distribution System (“CDS”) for iPhones® is an end-to-end system that enables distributors and publishers to private-label their own content, as well as Authoritative Content from Newstex, on the wildly-popular iPhone and iPod Touch devices from Apple.

The Newstex iPhone CDS offers distributors and publishers the following features:

• Distribution of proprietary content, as well as Authoritative Content from Newstex.
• A private-label iPhone App that fully integrates with any distributor’s or publisher’s corporate brand
• Support for text, images, audio and video, including active hyperlinks
• Remote configuration capability for enabling/disabling content and customizing the private-label App’s look-and-feel
• Enterprise-grade, back office reporting, accounting and analytics

Here’s how it works:

1. Distributors and publishers that partner with Newstex to deliver Authoritative Content to their professional customers via Newstex’s revolutionary iPhone CDS can customize the Newstex app to provide a uniquely-branded experience to end-users.
2. Professional customers simply download the distributor’s or publisher’s private-label app to their iPhones or iPod Touches and give their end-users an activation code to access a custom content set.
3. End-users can immediately begin accessing proprietary content from the distributor or publisher, as well as Authoritative Content from Newstex.
4. Using the advanced capabilities and rich user interface of the iPhone and iPod Touch, Newstex’s private-label app syncs via WiFi or cellular network and downloads the latest full-text news, blogs, twitters and video from Newstex directly to the device.

The Newstex iPhone App—available free from the Apple App store—demonstrates how the basic App will function when deployed on private-label basis.  You can get more details here, and be sure to check it out in the Apple App store (you must have iTunes installed on your Mac or PC to view the app demo).  You really do have to see it to believe what it can do!