Now playing on an iPhone near you…

by Eric Emin Wood

Turns out the fastest growing category on Apple’s iTunes app store isn’t games or music, but books.

At least, in terms of “unique applications” (i.e. individual titles). As the O’Reilly Radar points out, “releasing an e-book for the iPhone is a lot easier than writing a gaming application using the iPhone SDK.” However, while 2,065 “unique” e-book applications were sold this week versus 561 three months ago, gaming apps continue to be the most popular:

Games remain the dominant category both in terms of number of apps (24% of all apps), and in terms of sales. During a typical week, two-thirds of all apps on the TOP PAID APPS list are Games, while a lone Book spends time on the list.

If nothing else, this illustrates that while the format might be changing, the market for literary entertainment in some form will continue to exist.