In our latest Developer Economics survey we were really surprised to see a dramatic fall in the level of adoption of User Analytics tools. A year ago they were the most popular category of third party tool with…

According to our survey, a surprisingly high 29% of games developers are primarily building their apps without a third party engine*. They have either written their own engines, or are building everything from scratch. Large games studios very often build their own engines and tools, or customise open source solutions to suit their own internal processes and workflow.

The app stores created an opportunity for any developer to build their own products and reach a global audience with them. For some developers this offered the promise of an independent app business, giving them creative control of their work and hopefully a comfortable income. Recently there have been lots of posts (great summary list inside) from current and former independent app developers about the state of the market and how much harder it is to earn a living from your own apps.

We have just published a research note with an update to last year’s an European App Economy report. The good news is that Europe’s app economy still accounts for 19% of global revenues and is growing strongly at a 12% annual rate. The bad news is that the rest of the world, particularly Asia, is growing much faster.

Our 7th Developer Economics survey broke all records again, reaching more than 10,000 app developers from 137 different countries. The full report with the survey findings has just been published and is available for free download! The view of the app economy that they collectively provide is one of consolidation. Developers are focusing their attention […]

The number of app developers using business models that don’t rely on app store payments is increasing. In some cases this is sophisticated app developers adapting to the market.

The most surprising thing to come out of Apple’s WWDC event this year was a new programming language for iOS and Mac development. To the sceptical this might not seem like anything more than a way to entice more new developers to build apps exclusively for Apple platforms and lock them in. While investment in developer tools is always partly about making a platform attractive to developers, this move has far more benefits and strategic implications.

The web is losing and apps are winning. At least that’s what the most recent data from Flurry says – 86% of time on mobile devices is spent in an app other than the browser, up from 80% last year.

In the mobile software world, developers are considered vital to the health of platforms, of which they have several to choose from. Platform owners have to work very hard to make sure their SDKs and tools are easy to use. Too much friction, too little documentation or too steep a learning curve can drive developers away. Which platforms are the easiest to develop for?

The app stores contain a range of apps from hobbyist creations built for fun to the carefully crafted output of venture backed startups and mega-corporations that have had millions of dollars spent on their development