Entertainment Dominates iPhone/iPad Apps In 2010

Apple broke down this year's lists into two segments: those for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and those for the iPad. Each segment has three lists in it, rating the top 10 paid apps, the top 10 free apps, and the top 10 grossing apps.

All 10 of the top paid apps for the iPhone are games or entertainment related. Two of the year's most popular games, Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds, are included in that list. Switching to the top ten free apps, we start to see more social networking and utilitarian apps. For example, Facebook, Skype, The Weather Channel and Bing make it to the top 10 free apps. Google's Mobile Search App, Twitter apps, and others like them are conspicuously missing.

Even the top grossing iPhone apps fail to include any productivity apps. The closest it gets is the TomTom navigation app, and that's not really a productivity app (unless you work in a moving vehicle).

Moving on to the iPad, we see a slightly different picture. Productivity apps show up in the top 10 paid apps for the iPad, including Apple's Pages software and its Numbers and Keynote programs. Each of those apps costs $10, and are substitutes for Microsoft's Office productivity suite. GoodReader and WolframAlpha round out the top paid apps when it comes to productivity apps.

The top free apps for the iPad are all about info-gathering and entertainment. Google Earth, Amazon's Kindle App, Pandora Radio, and Netflix are just a few in that category. Apple's software still leads the top grossing category for the iPad, with Pages, Numbers and Keynote leading the way. The full lists are included below.

Top 10 paid apps (iPhone/iPod touch)