German publisher Fishlabs has been blogging again, and the results should cause something of a stir, as usual.

Having already announced its intention to ditch the operator portals, now the company is giving its opinions on Apple's App Store and its competitors.

Although it has positive things to say about the App Store's convenience, power and consumer appeal, it also criticises the "serious disadvantage" of the App Store's glut of applications, saying "it is difficult to find the good games".

Furthermore the publisher highlights the "ruinous price war" that's emerged as a result, and says the development of higher-quality (and thus more expensive) games is risky.

Nevertheless: "Apple's business model is by far the fairest, most flexible, fastest and thus also the most profitable. And ultimately, this leads, in turn, to better applications to the advantage of the end user."

The same blog post looks at other app stores. Here's a snapshot of some of the views:

On Nokia's N-Gage: "The strategy of only allowing access to selected publishers with high-quality games and pre-installing their mobile games on umpteen million devices as a try & buy version could make a critical difference from the App Store."

On Sony Ericsson's PlayNow: "The offer is more comprehensive than consistently high-quality, and the information on the individual games is as meagre as with most network operator WAP portals. Since there is no evaluation system, customers have to buy a pig in a poke. Community features or the option of side loading are also lacking…"

On Google's Android: "Android is ultimately a Java platform, which offers no protection against software piracy. The first mobile phone with the Android operating system, the G1, with its performance data and especially the design and manufacturing quality, cannot keep pace with the iPhone…"

On Microsoft's Windows Mobile: "Windows Mobile has not been able to establish itself as a mobile game platform due to the lack of an App Store and missing end customer marketing. Even at Handango, one of the largest on-line providers of Windows Mobile applications, Windows Mobile-based games have rather a niche existence…"

Naturally, we've picked out the juicier negative quotes, but the full piece is worth a read, as it goes into more depth.