The Treasure in Your Hand 11 create apps for Android and BlackBerry as well. Almost everything I teach you in this book will rock your apps, regardless of what platform you choose, but I recommend starting with Apple, especially if you're a newbie. Alan Johansen is another successful appreneur with zero coding experience. In two years, working as a solo apprenuer, he launched 30 apps, which have been downloaded over 11 million times. Alan has seen the Apple App Store evolve over the years and believes it is in its infancy. He says, "It's refreshing to see the app stores support and reward independent developers. It's refreshing to see them promote inde- pendent titles (instead of only promoting their own titles)." GOOGLE ANDROID Android is the second-largest mobile platform on the market and is avail- able on more than 100 devices made by different manufacturers. It's an open-source platform, which allows manufacturers of smartphones to adapt and use it for their devices without any costs. This has made Android the number one mobile operating system in the world. Even though Apple sells more apps on its iPhones, Android is used on more phones. Year after year, Android has made the biggest gains in these markets, predominantly taking market share away from Apple's iOS and RIM's BlackBerry. But the research group Kantar Worldpanel Comtech believes that Apple's iOS will make new advances against Android in the United States, as the iPhone is made available to more carriers. Regardless of this, you should consider Android as the second platform you create apps for after making some money on Apple's iOS apps. BLACKBERRY The BlackBerry app world is growing, too, at a steady pace of 69 percent per year. However, at this time, BlackBerry's 772 million app downloads is dwarfed compared to Apple's over 18 billion and Android's over 6 billion downloads. SETTING UP SHOP The app business has practically zero overhead. I have no office, no equipment, and no employees. I have a Macbook-Pro and an iPhone,