We are entering what some in the technology industry refer to as a post-PC era. This does not mean that the personal computer is about to disappear. But according to estimates from Gartner, a research firm, combined shipments of web-connected smart phones and tablet computers are likely to exceed those of desktop and laptop computers for the first time this year, putting PCs in the shade.

According to Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, there could be 10 billion mobile devices in circulation by 2020. Many of these will use bite-size chunks of software known as “apps“, some 18 billion of which are likely to be downloaded this year.

As mobile, web-connected devices become omnipresent, the volume of data they produce will soar. Cisco, a technology company, reckons that by 2015 some 6.3 exabytes of mobile data will be flowing each month. Much of that will be in the form of videos. With mobile usage becoming increasingly widespread and companies testing the water with mobile strategies, market insights professionals need to uncover consumers’ mobile behavior today and tomorrow. But with the pace of mobile innovation moving so rapidly, how can you keep up with all of the things that people are doing with their mobile phones?

In the next three years, would you expect people to use their mobile phones as wallets? What about as electronic passports? What about for space exploration? While that seems like a long shot, a New York state resident did just that — attaching an iPhone to a weather balloon, videoing the journey, and using its GPS feature to map its voyage (see link for the footage).

The iPhone and other smart phones are proving extremely useful on Earth too. These devices, which let people download and install applications, or “apps“, from online stores run by phone makers, telecoms companies and others, are starting to displace ordinary mobile phones in many countries. So, what makes mobile apps so special? Bart Decrem, a co-founder of Tapulous, gives a reply that could have come straight out of the mouth of Steve Jobs. “Apps are nuggets of magic,” he says.

Hordes of developers have piled into the app business, creating hundreds of thousands of offerings for online stores run by Apple and Google, by telecoms firms, and by independent app stores. The appetite for apps appears insatiable: Gartner, a research firm, estimates that almost 18 billion have been downloaded since the first app store was opened by Apple in 2008. By 2013, it thinks, the number will have risen to 49 billion. Many are games such as “Angry Birds”, in which a bunch of enraged digital fowl wage war against evil pigs that have pinched their eggs. But there are also plenty with a more serious purpose, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Child ID iPhone app, which lets parents store information about their kids and send it to the authorities if a child goes missing.

In many ways, apps are representative of the changes taking place in personal technology. Small, downloadable chunks of software, they give people access to information in a neatly packaged format and most have one or more of the following attributes: simplicity, cheapness and instant gratification.

As per Yahoo! Maktoob Research latest technology survey*, interest in mobile applications is also growing across the Middle East and North Africa region. Look at the below tables highlighting the types of apps MENA consumers have downloaded (free or paid) to their web-enabled mobile device(s) – Smart phones and Tablets:

*This survey was conducted online in October 2011 across MENA markets: UAE, KSA, EGY, MOR – and the sample collected opinions from 3,205 respondents in total.

Apps have caught on partly because many websites do not look good when viewed on phones’ tiny screens. Apps do a much better job of making the best of the space available. Using them is intuitive, by and large. Many are free; many others cost no more than a fancy cup of coffee. Some of the most creative apps make the most of phones’ sensors. Gaming ones use accelerometers and gyroscopes to track users’ motions, while mobile-navigation apps rely on inbuilt GPS systems.

Another reason why apps have proved popular is that, unlike websites, they do not need a constant connection to the internet. Instead, they are stored in mobile gadgets’ silicon memories and refreshed when a new connection is available. This also explains why they launch so much faster than software on PCs. “Apps mean that people are no longer going to be satisfied waiting for spinning hard disks on PCs to deliver what they want,” says Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consultancy.

Today there are more than 425,000 apps in Apple’s online store and more than 250,000 in Google’s Android Market. Yet in a recent survey of Android-phone users in America, Nielsen, another research firm, discovered that the ten most popular apps accounted for 43% of usage and the top 50 for a whopping 61%. Admittedly, these statistics may be influenced by the pre-loading of apps for services such as Facebook and Google Maps onto many phones. But the results are still telling. Part of the problem is that there is still no reliable search engine for discovering outstanding apps. No doubt there will soon be an app for that too.

With this kind of innovation, isn’t it truly the “rise of the planet of the apps“?

Sources: Gartner, Morgan Stanley, Cisco, Forrester, Yahoo! Maktoob Research, The Economist, Android Market, AP, Apple, Nielsen, research2guidance