Flurry Analytics, which provides various tools to mobile application developers, on Friday released data looking at January project starts and saw a three-fold increase in iPhone OS applications from December to January, a spike it attributed to interest in the iPad. “For developers who get a jump on customizing their applications for the iPad,” Peter Farago, Flurry’s vice-president of marketing, wrote in a blog post, “there may be an opportunity to stand out early on, and earn more downloads.”

He also noted: “Historically, Flurry has measured surges in new application starts within its system in anticipation of new device launches, including for the Motorola Droid and iPhone 3GS.”

Flurry also published data on Android OS project starts, but found they grew a more sedate 25 percent from December to January. Mr. Farago wrote: “Flurry measures the relative support developers dedicate to iPhone versus Android platforms by tracking new application starts within its system. While Android's steady new application growth over the second half of 2009 closed the gap against the iPhone, reaching as many as one out of every three new applications starts within Flurry for December, the recent spike in Apple iPad support has swung the pendulum back in Apple's favor to a level not seen at Flurry in six months. The unprecedented surge in support for iPad is a positive early indicator for its commercial potential.”

Flurry gathers its monthly data from over 20,000 iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and J2ME applications and more than two billion user sessions. The company also published other information comparing iPhone and Android user retention, user session frequency, and user session lengths over a six-month period, concluding from the similarity of the data “that mobile applications have reached a new stage of maturity, where apps perform similarly across platforms. Our ultimate conclusion is that the content trumps the platform,” Mr. Farago said.