Gartner 2012 Top 10 Consumer Mobile Apps List & What Gartner Missed!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love lists (lists of pretty much anything amuses me), predictions for the next year, and conspiracy theories. As you might guess, I don’t much believe in some of these despite their entertainment value. Gartner Research is usually a good source of lists and predictions (not to mention magic quadrants). And, in this item, I’m even going to count them among conspiracy theorists since they use the term “killer applications”…

Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012

However, don’t be fooled by the title. Gartner doesn’t actually name a single app. This lists consists of mobile app categories like money transfer, location-based services, and mobile search (their top three categories). Despite their interesting and mostly well-thought out list, it misses the boat by a wide degree. Here’s what they missed.

1. Games! I know I’m going out on the limb here. But, I predict that people will buy games, lots of games for their mobile devices in 2012. What could lead me to make such wild speculation? Oh, I dunno. Just a hunch

2. eBooks/eReading: I predict that the dedicated ebook readers (like the Amazon Kindle) will be viable but less important products by the end of 2010. General purpose mobile devices like the iPod touch/iPhone, Android smartphones, and netbooks will be the main ebook platform despite their less optimal reading environments (at least using today’s technologies).

3. Mobile Entertainment without traditional game features: This includes location-based social networking type apps and services that have become extremely popular over the past year

4. Apps that move traditional media (especially TV programming, newspapers, and magazines) to the “third screen” (mobile devices)

5. Augmented Reality: I know, I know. Most of what we see now are toy-apps or have limited functionality. This will change.

Let’s get back together in 2012 and see how Garter Research’s list fared against Ogasawara Seat-of-the-Pants Research’s list.

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