On Thursday night a panel discussion about the business of mobile applications came to one conclusion. Those at Smule, Pandora, Nokia and BlueRun Ventures admitted - it is all about the iPhone.

From the ease of use to the accessibility of the iPhone App Store, unified hardware and software package, the panel discussed what it is that has made iPhone just so successful. Chief Technical Officer, Tom Conrad from Pandora, for one credited iPhone’s App Store with the success of Pandora’s free music discovery application. The company saw more customers after a few months on the iPhone than it did after two years under the carriers’ wings.

Jeff Smith, CEO of Smule said the iPhone was the only device that could handle their audio application. Ocarina (pictured) requires five audio scripts to run concurrently, Smith said, plus GPS, the accelerometer, multitouch and multithreading. Developers have an easier time as they can get started without having to negotiate with the likes of AT&T and Verizon on their own. iPhone has a huge slice of the market through the Western World. Overall, Nokia still has 40% of the hardware and there are a number of models coming out in the next few months (as well as associated app stores) to take iPhone on. I will be very keen to see statistics and thoughts by the end of 09.

[via CNET]