Apps starts surge in January

Flurry, an iPhone apps analytics company, released a report today showing that iPhone apps starts increased sharply.  They attribute that to the iPad, whose 1024×768 screen should motivate developers to rebuild their apps for the device.

Just like with the iPhone, developers who have their apps ready at launch should have a substantial advantage of getting attention drawn to their apps.  The iPad tablet, announced at the very end of the month along with the new SDK, should increase app production even further in February.

Some things to consider with this report however:

Apple only launched the iPad on January 27th…4 days before the end of the month and the SDK after.  Also Apple’s “approvers” took the end of December off and started fresh in January.

Developers integrating Flurry analytics into iPhone OS applications in January increased by nearly three times over December. This represents the single largest spike in Flurry history, with over 1,600 new iPhone OS application starts for January. As such, we hypothesize that excitement generated by Apple’s iPad event in January is driving this growth. For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad, there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads.