I came across this very interesting chart.

Following partner Nokia, Intel has now announced it is to abandon the MeeGo platform as well. Instead, it will be working on a new mobile platform with Samsung that’s called Tizen.

Though it will be possible to develop native apps for Tizen, the companies will promote its HTML5 engine toward app developers. The core of Tizen will in part be built from what Intel and Nokia developed for MeeGo. Other bits will come from another project that is merged in Tizen; LiMo. The first Samsung hardware with Tizen is expected nid-2012 while the SDK’s should de ready in four to six months from now. What will happen to Bada is unknown.

The biggest app stores are now tipping the half-million mark in terms of overall inventory, but a recent report from the app analytics firm found that when it comes to the most popular apps, consumers often gravitate to content published especially for their markets. In the biggest store of all—the App Store from Apple—on average, nearly one-third of the most popular apps in each country store—27 percent—were unique to those stores.

Distimo notes that the U.S.—at 7,158 apps—has the most exclusively published apps in its App Store. No surprise, really, given this is where so many developers are based and where so many hope to find success first before trying elsewhere.

Looking at worldwide trends, language also plays a big role.

Taking the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia, these countries’ top apps overlap 54 percent of the time. Although Latin America does not seem to get ranked by Distimo, you can imagine that it too would see a similar trend. The storewide average overlap is 33 percent.

On the other hand, countries with the highest number of localized apps in the top rankings marry two important trends: they have very mobile-friendly consumers, and they are countries where English is not the first language.

Japan topped the list with 67 percent of its most popular apps being popular in that country alone. China, where Apple launched a country-specific App Store in October 2010, came in second with 56 percent of most popular apps specific to the China App Store.

Is there a limit to how many local apps have a chance against the world-wide bestsellers like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja? For now, it appears the answer is yes. Distimo notes that one-third local seems to be the general number for local apps’ popularity across all platforms, not just Apple’s.

Nokia’s Ovi Store, for example, has significantly more country-specific apps than other app stores—29.4 percent for Ovi with Apple the next-highest proportion at only 5.2 percent—but Distimo notes that the number of local apps that make it into the top rankings are roughly the same as for the App Store and the Android Market, despite Apple’s and Google’s catalogs having far fewer local apps.

That could spell an opportunity for those developers looking to have more visibility among users in specific markets.

You can see that trend playing out especially in China. Platforms like Android are seeing the creation of full-out local app stores to compete with the Android Market, catering to those using devices built on the OS, with app stores from the likes of Baidu (NSDQ: BIDU) and Tencent.

There have also been a number of companies setting up shop to help localize apps from, say, the U.S. market for the Chinese market. The most recent of these was an effort from the DIY app platform Mobile Roadie, which as partnered with local mobile agency FabriQate to launch Q Mobao to help Western developers create iOS and Android apps for the Chinese market. It has also launched a similar initiative in South Korea.

Targeting specific markets is not just about local content, of course.

Last week IDC published figures (via Bloomberg) for smartphone market share in India, and it turns out that Apple has only a tiny part of the market in that country, shipping just over 62,000 iPhones to India in the last quarter, less than it shipped to Norway. That gives Apple a 2.6 percent share of the smartphone market in India. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) currently enjoys the biggest share of the market in India, with 46 percent.

With India the second-largest mobile market after China, that is a big miss for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). IDC notes that part of the issue has been a lack of widespread 3G network for fast mobile data services. Although users can still connect by WiFi, that’s an impractical solution for a person on the move.

Fifty percent of all mobile games distributed via Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) App Store yield revenues under $3,000 throughout their lifecycle according to the results of a new developer survey conducted by Owen Goss, founder of Streaming Colour Studios, the startup behind iOS titles including Dapple and LandFormer.

Roughly 250 iOS developers participated in the online survey, conducted during the week of Sept. 19. Goss found that the top 20 percent of iOS developers earn 97 percent of App Store revenues, with the top 1 percent earning more than a third of App Store payouts. Only 25 percent of developers have earned more than $30,000 lifetime total revenue selling iOS games and another 25 percent of developers have hauled in less than $200. Four percent of survey respondents have earned more than $1 million in the App Store.

App Store games generated median revenues of $1,100 over the last 12 months–in other words, half earned more than $1,100 and the other half brought in less. Goss adds that a quarter of games earned more than $10,675 and another quarter generated less than $140.

Freemium mobile games–i.e., titles that are free to download but offer premium in-app transactions like virtual currency and virtual goods–generate 65 percent of gaming revenues in the App Store according to data published in July by mobile app analytics provider Flurry. The report states that the number of consumers who spend money in a free game ranges from 0.5 percent to 6 percent, with spending influenced by the quality of the title and its core mechanics. Ninety percent of consumers are still not spending a dime on in-game transactions.

Games remain the most popular mobile application category, with 64 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers playing mobile titles in the last 30 days, according to research published by Nielsen. Gamers across Apple’s iOS platform spend 14.7 hours a month playing mobile titles, while the average gamer spends 9.3 hours each month. Sixty-nine percent of iOS gamers download titles from the App Store–14 percent play preloaded games, 4 percent turn to web games and 3 percent play games transferred from another device.

Developers make the most money from apps developed for BlackBerry devices, according to market research company Evans Data.

The study, which covered 400 developers, found that 13 percent of BlackBerry developers make at least US$100,000 per app, “considerably more” than Android or Apple developers, according to Evans Data CEO Janel Garvin.

She said this will mean BlackBerry devices “continue to be compelling to developers, especially in the enterprise.”

“The industry has a perception that developers are going to target either Android or Apple, and those two will define the market. However, there’s room for more than two,” Garvin added.

However, Google’s Android Market is the app store most widely used by commercial developers, with 47 percent of those surveyed saying they have experience of the store compared to 43 percent for Apple’s App Store. Android Market was also tipped by the majority of developers to be the dominant app store in two years’ time.

Other figures to emerge from the research showed that the most-used monetisation model by app developees is paid apps without ads, followed by subscriptions. The biggest complaint developers had about app stores is poor visibility for their apps, with 37 percent citing this as an issue.

Its always nice to be the first with new technologies like 3D.It is the content however that puts the fun and excitement in 3D. LG must have experienced the same with the Optimus 3D hardware.

To solve the issue, LG will be issuing a new tool that converts 2D games into 3D games. The new tool will be called the 3D Game Converter and doesn’t require any action from game developers as long as the game is created in landscape modus and OpenGL is involved; hence it will be distributed directly to 3D smartphone owners. Still, LG does offer developers optional control over the 3D effect in their games.

LG will distribute the tool with the introduction of the new firmware for the Optimus 3D in October.

Samsung Electronics reportedly plans to open its Bada mobile operating system to other manufacturers and software developers in 2012, a measure to accelerate growth of the smartphone platform while also distancing the company from its reliance on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android OS.

Citing a source familiar with Samsung’s plans, The Wall Street Journal reports the company has no plans to acquire a software company or mobile operating system, instead betting it can expand Bada beyond smartphones to so-called smart TVs and other connected devices by opening the platform to partners. The approach worked famously for Google, which made Android available as an open-source platform at launch–roughly three years later, Android is the largest mobile OS worldwide, commanding 48 percent of the global smartphone market according to data issued last month by Canalys. (Samsung is presently the world’s largest Android vendor, Canalys adds.)

Samsung introduced Bada in late 2009, targeting Europe and emerging markets. The manufacturer has not yet introduced a Bada device for the U.S. market. According to market research firm Gartner, Bada powered 1.9 percent of all smartphones sold globally in the second quarter.

“Hardware vendor-controlled platforms that move from closed to open do not have a great track record in the past. Nokia (NYSE:NOK) failed dismally with Symbian, for example,” Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston tells the WSJ. “For Samsung to be successful with opening Bada it will need to be launched in the United States market, because that is where the most powerful developers and consumers are found. If Bada does not get traction in the huge U.S. market, then the odds will be stacked against success.”

Samsung’s future plans and continued commitment to Android have been the subject of considerable speculation in recent weeks, especially in the wake of Google’s agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) for roughly $12.5 billion. Google has promised Android will remain open, but analysts speculate that manufacturers building Android devices may not enjoy the same technological support and access given to Motorola once the company is absorbed into the Google family.

There’s also the question of whether Samsung wants to continue mortgaging its future on Android when the platform is facing so many questions over patent rights. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has already targeted Samsung with legal action, alleging that its Android products copy Apple designs and is seeking a worldwide sales ban–Samsung has responded with a countersuit of its own, contending Apple is in violation of its wireless technology patents.

Samsung recently denied reports it would bid to acquire Hewlett-Packard’s webOS mobile platform. “It’s not right that acquiring an operating system is becoming a fashion,” Samsung CEO Choi Gee Sung said during the recent IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, adding the company is working to boost its software capabilities “harder than people outside think.”

Separately, Samsung Telecommunications America named former Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) executive Kevin Packingham to be its new senior vice president of product innovation. Packingham, who was at Sprint for 11 years before becoming CEO of lobbying and consulting firm Amerilink Telecom, replaces Omar Khan, who left Samsung in July to head Citigroup’s mobile solutions business.

By Jason Ankeny

There are two new pieces of research that illustrate the problem. First, research2guidance, which has published a report comparing the average daily downloads per app on various stores, taking Apple’s App Store as the benchmark. The report claims that “apps on Nokia’s Ovi Store had 2.5 times higher download numbers in Q2 2011 compared to apps on Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) App Store”: 160% more average daily downloads per app.

Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace was 80% up on the App Store by the same analysis, with RIM’s BlackBerry App World up 43%. Google’s Android Market was down slightly (5%), while stores from Samsung, LG (SEO: 066570), GetJar and Palm (NYSE: HPQ) were further down.

Here’s the company’s chart: