2009 was a fantastic year for Skyhook Wireless and the location-based mobile industry in general.  Skyhook announced partnerships with over 17 different Android applications with innovative uses of location, including market leaders like ShopSavvy, Locale, Sherpa and Aloqa.  We also partnered with some cool Windows Mobile and Symbian apps like Rummble.  In addition, we secured partnerships with three different laptop recovery products.  Dell announced that Skyhook will provide the location every Mini 10 Netbook, and Apple revealed our native availability on Snow Leopard.  Skyhook also launched its Maps Booster product, a consumer app for the Symbian platform, meant to improve location on any other LBS app downloaded, or simply the Nokia maps function itself.  We also began putting out monthly app reports and revealed some startling statistics and differences between the top mobile app stores.

2009 in the mobile industry saw an explosion of inventive location-based apps that have become staples in our lives.  Apps like Foursquare and Yelp are not traditional navigation or routing apps, yet use location in a cool and necessary way that makes them addictive.   Smartphone users across all platforms are now relying on these kinds of apps in their everyday lives.  Other staple apps like Shazam and Bump added location as well, resulting in unique new features to spice up their tried and true methods.

Not only did we see an increase in distinctive location apps, we also saw many examples of small developer teams actually making big profits from mobile apps.  Some examples include RedLaser, Foursquare and SCVNGR. No one thought over $1 million in profits could be turned from mobile apps, but this was the year that proved them wrong.  We also saw up and coming mobile app companies pull in major investments from VCs.  Some of these included Gowalla, Pageonce, Outside.in and Hot Potato.

Augmented reality also made a big splash in late 2009.  Some awesome app examples included Twitter 360, Layar, Gunman and Nearest Subway by Acrossair.  Staple apps like apps like Yelp, Bing Maps, Brightkite and Urbanspoon added the AR feature as well.

2010 should hold even more exciting developments for location in the mobile industry.  We predict we will finally see some real adoption of location-based advertising.  In addition, we foresee most mainstream mobile apps adding a location component, whether it’s local leaderboards or a way to find other users nearby and learn more about them.

One platform with an uncertain future is Android.  With all of the new Android devices rolling out in 2010, it remains to be seen whether this will help or hurt the platform.  Many developers are apprehensive that fragmentation will cause app development to become a challenge, while users are excited about the new Android devices.  It will be interesting to see whether the platform takes off or hurts itself.

For the Skyhook Developer’s program, we anticipate high adoption rates of our SDK across the Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile platform, and greater user satisfaction with location on Nokia devices with the purchase of our Maps Booster product.  We hope to inspire the development of more innovative location apps, and give users a way to more deeply and realistically connect with one another virtually and in the physical environment.

Follow us on Twitter in the New Year: @SkyhookWireless

Skyhook partnered with Distimo this month on our App Store Report for some fresh insight on the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry App Stores.  We analyzed top ranked apps in the iPhone App Store, and all location-based apps on Android and BlackBerry.  Here are the highlights of the report, as reported from the intro page:

-The Apple App Store has the largest proportion of paid location based applications (57%), with BlackBerry coming second (49%) and Google Android Market third (21%).

-Prices of Maps & Navigation applications on BlackBerry App World decreased from $16.13 in September to $13.74 (-14.8%) in November, while the average prices on Apple App Store and Google Android Market remained fairly stable despite the announcement and introduction of free Google Maps Navigation.

-The average price of location based applications on BlackBerry App World is about twice as high as on the Apple App Store ($14.37 compared to $7.34).

-Besides the Navigation and Travel categories, most location based applications are published in News & Weather and Social, such as AccuWeather, foursquare and Loopt.

We should also note that Distimo released today a mobile app store called Appstore.info which houses information and apps from all available mobile app stores.  You can browse through apps from each store and discover all the latest stats.

To get up-to-the-minute updates of Skyhook news and partnership announcements, follow us on Twitter: @SkyhookWireless

Skyhook announced today that we will provide the location information on Rummble’s new Windows Mobile app.  Rummble has received a lot of buzz in the UK as it is one of the first social networking apps to use Geo tweets.  It is a cool combo of Twitter, Yelp and Foursquare.  The app serves as a real-time recommendations platform. It allows people to easily rate, share and review any location or point of interest in the world.  As you use it, it will learn your preferences and show you places you will like. You can see what is happening nearby in specific venues, then check-in and notify your group of friends via Twitter, Facebook, SMS or email.

Our partnership with Rummble shows again that innovative apps which rely heavily on location need Skyhook in order to perform best.  It also serves as an example of another Windows Mobile app that requires better location services than those offered by the native platform.  We look forward to even more inventive and cool LBS apps being released on platforms other than iPhone, and their use of Skyhook.

To get up-to-the-minute updates of Skyhook news and partnership announcements, follow us on Twitter: @SkyhookWireless