iBokan - iPhone App Development

MAY 2009 - In a market that was worth $2.35 billion in 2007 and is projected to be worth $9 billion by 2012, the iPhone presents a unique platform to consumers and developers of edutainment applications alike.

Edutainment is a compound word that joins “education” and “entertainment”. Broken down in this way it is much easier to understand why the term as both a descriptor and concept has flourished within the circles of modern education.

Growing reports on the importance of the early mental stimulation of children in their cerebral development has seen parents rushing to find ways of giving their children an edge in their learning careers. Edutainment strikes that balance between learning and entertainment necessary to keep kids interested, engaged and of course, learning.

The iPhone presents an incredibly unique tool for the delivery of curricula and learning materials that extend way beyond the classroom. Not only in terms of its portable size but also for the learning potential presented by the hardware contained within, namely the interactive touch-screen and motion sensor, creating the potential for countless applications in numbers that are only limited by the creativity of developers.

To date, developers have taken advantage of the unique hardware built into the iPhone to design applications that simulate anything imaginable from drinking a beer to having a light saber fight in true Starwars fashion complete with appropriate sound effects. Developers have however been slow to leverage the potential of the iPhone’s hardware to develop educational applications. The main reason for this lack in supply is likely due to a perceived lack of demand or the notion that education will not sell.

A snapshot of the most popular categories on the iTunes App store today serves to illustrate this trend. The Top 5 categories on the iTunes Apps store currently hold a total of 24608 applications (source: 148apps.biz). With 8083 active applications, the Games category is by far the most popular, commanding 32.6% of the market (within Top 5). Entertainment follows with 6004 apps (24.4%), Books with 4604 apps (18.7%), Utilities with 3162 apps (12.8%) and last (but not least), Education with 3162 active apps (11.1%).

Education was admittedly probably not the main target market for Apple when it opened its iTunes App store to third party developers last September, but there is high demand from consumers for high quality edutainment applications. It is somewhat surprising that developers have been so slow to react to this demand in a market that is projected to enjoy significant growth in the near future.

There are some exceptions however. Developers such as Duck Duck Moose (Wheels on the Bus), Gabor Nagy (Graphing Calculator) and Eknath Kadan (Grammar Up) have all come to the table with very solid educational products and have been in turn rewarded for their efforts with top rankings within the Education category (and the inevitable increase in sales this brings). At Bokan Technologies we have in our own way been successful with a number of educational apps including Eye Test, Cute Maths and our latest interactive picture book series “Jumbo Book” (www.myjumbobook.com).

Offering significant flexibility with the added benefit of having the entertainment factor built-in,  electronic edutainment is being actively pursued by education providers at all levels as an increasingly significant channel for learning (often under the banner of e-Learning). In today’s “knowledge” economy education, learning and research have become a major focus for many governments around the world. More often than not however, governments, institutions and schools have neither the knowledge nor the expertise to develop the software that is going to help their students learn.

As developers it is our moral obligation and social responsibility to bridge this gap. We should be addressing this shortfall not only because of the untapped nature of the market, but because so much stands to be gained. The need is there, with professors, students, teachers, parents and kids (though they might not know it yet) all waiting for creative edutainment solutions for the iPhone that will help them teach and learn. If there was an educational app for every Moron Test and tank war game, the world would be a better place. The time to act has come.