Plenty of larger companies have launched successful programs for the iTunes App Store, but the real success stories have been apps from smaller, previously unknown developers--often the work of one or two individuals. With one billion apps downloaded and counting, however, everyone's looking to get into what is potentially a huge money-making opportunity.
Take Warner Brothers Digital Entertainment. The company has announced plans to release 25 new iPhone apps by year's end, including apps for the new Terminator, Harry Potter, and Sherlock Holmes films. That's a staggering number, to be sure, and one that may signal a flooding of the iPhone market by larger companies looking to grab a piece of the pie.
There's little chance, after all, that a giant like Warner Brothers will be subjected to the same manner of vetting that has blocked apps from smaller companies. A big business also has the resources to promote a new app that can easily send it straight to the top of the downloads chart.
MocoNews posits that the entry of companies like Warner may signal the end of the first era of entrepreneurial-driven App Store content. The shift may not be quite so concrete as that, but short of some small-business support on the part of Apple, it seems likely that the App Store may become a microcosm of the corporatized Web. And if that should happen, homogeneity will no doubt follow closely behind, signaling an end to the creative drive that has pushed the early app boom.
In which case the developers who made names for themselves early on with innovative new products will likely be snapped up by corporations looking for controlled quirkiness in their releases--Burger King, anyone? Others may seek refuge in the still-wild territory of the Android Market.
In any case, it would be a bummer to watch innovation roll over for brand recognition. But if history is any indication, such a shift seems inevitable.
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