The world is set to “appify” at an astounding rate over the next three years according to market research outfit IDC, which predicts the app industry will grow from its current 10.9 billion downloads a year to a whopping 76.9 billion downloads in 2014.

Windows Phone 7, which launched just 3 weeks ago, has almost doubled its number of registered developers in just over 2 months to 15,000. We’re guessing a great deal of developers were holding off until launch to see if WP7 was a viable platform, or another dud from the guys in Redmond.

Will the social network be announcing the much-hyped-but-even-more-debunked Facebook phone? Will the big news be all about an iPad app, or other types of new mobile apps? Will developers be salivating at news of a new Facebook mobile SDK? Or will Foursquare be put into check by Facebook Places announcing special retail deals?

Although making money from smartphone apps is usually associated with success in the Apple App Store, a recent New York Times article argues that developers are leaning towards developing apps for the Android market instead.

While Samsung may be fawning over Google’s Android platform here in the US, across the pond it’s a completely different story as Samsung tries to make headway in the world’s feature phone markets, pushing to open them up with its Wave phones and Bada OS.

Remember that study that came out a while ago that showed a good percentage of Android apps were transmitting sensitive user data back to their designers? Well, long story short – the same thing has happened again, but this time on Facebook.

RIM is rolling out a plethora of new services and development tools to make it more worth a developer’s while to spend time making apps for BlackBerry – a move sorely needed if RIM is to battle back from dropping 25% of its share value in less than a year.

SingTel’s Adeline Tang talks to RCR about the carrier’s relationship with developers, and its efforts to act as a bridge between Asia and the rest of the world.

RCR Unplugged recently caught up with Inma Martinez, a venture capitalist from Stradbroke Advisors based in the UK, to talk about what’s up and coming in the app world, how to monetize, the untapped areas in drastic need of more ‘appiness and a whole lot more besides.

Sometimes we hear about new gadgets and can’t decide if it is the coolest or lamest thing we’ve ever seen. It can seem like such an awesome idea, but is it something you’d actually use