The Industry Standard - How does a developer decide on a mobile platform? - Comments

Just as your gracious

Larry Borsato708924 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:10:18 -0700

Just as your gracious response shows your character.

As I mentioned, you may be right about Android. Only time will tell. My one concern is that Android will become another Symbian, implemented differently by different phone vendors.

Strangely, one reason I discounted BlackBerry was because it was a single vendor solution. Yet it is Apple's attention to detail and the user experience that makes me believe that they will succeed.

My email is larry [at] larryborsato [dot] com. Keep in touch and we can compare notes when Android is out there. I don't mind hearing "I told you so" if you don't. :)

And thank you for taking the time to respond again. Opposing ideas always lead to great discussions.

sorry for my poor

Apple - digital nazis — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:22:24 -0700

sorry for my poor comments.....The very fact that you took time to reply to my views (not to my cheap remarks) shows your character.

I still don't agree with you on android. SDK has already been released. It will definitely be open sourced. You can play around with it & familiarize. So that when the DEVICES (not a single device like iPhone) hit market you have your app up & running rather than starting your work then. As a developer your aim should be to reach as many customers as possible. With iPhone your reach will be far less limited (though easy to develop) than if you went with open platforms. Also it gives more freedom to you as a developer and to push the boundaries in innovation. There will be no one dictating terms on you.

extremely sorry again for my remarks! I will restrain myself in the future...

Thanks.

There's apps and there's

Bruce — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:27:33 -0700

There's apps and there's apps...Have a look at http://www.joikuspot.com which will turn your Symbian OS phone into a WiFi hotspot. How would you develop that application on an iPhone (only providing a very constrained sandbox) or BlackBerry/Android (only with psuedo Java VMs). On S60 devices using Symbian OS your development options include native C++/APIs, Java, Open C (ie.. POSIX), Web run-time, Python, Flash Lite? http://www.onsymbian.com/2007/10/s60-development.html

Sorry, I forgot to note that

Larry Borsato708924 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:05:18 -0700

Sorry, I forgot to note that the 16 million subscribers are over roughly 8 or 9 years of worldwide sales - the BlackBerry debuted in 1999 or so. Apple has reached 6 million in one year primarily in the US alone, and is expected to hit 10 million by September. That rapid growth was part of my reasoning.

My reasoning comes from

Larry Borsato708924 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:02:15 -0700

My reasoning comes from RIM's own press release (http://press.rim.com/release.jsp?id=1684) which was linked to in the article:

Approximately 2.3 million net new BlackBerry® subscriber accounts were added in the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the total BlackBerry subscriber account base was over 16 million.

I also linked to an article quoting how many iPhones had been shipped and activated so far.

And you are both correct - Android may be far superior - but as I pointed out there is currently no market to serve. And yes, Apple has placed some bothersome limitations on iPhone apps.

I'll certainly have no problem acknowledging my error if that turns out to be the case. I, like everyone, make mistakes. And you can certainly feel free to comment, but the personal attacks don't really affect me. So if you want to discuss this constructively then I appreciate your comments. You can even contact me directly via email at larry [at] larryborsato [dot] com. If you want to insult me though, save your energy.

It's an opinion piece. That's all. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.

Hello Mr. Moron, How you

Apple - digital nazis — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:08:55 -0700

Hello Mr. Moron, How you doing???

"The iPhone is going to be the platform that makes the mobile Internet real and usable -- essentially a mobile computer -- which will drive the adoption of new mobile applications. Once you've touched the screen to follow a link in the exceptionally readable browser, you know that this is the standard by which all future mobile phones will be measured.
My choice was a simple one. I merely selected the platform that has already redefined the mobile phone market. And besides, have you seen the iPhone? It is seriously cool."

To know how 'cool & advanced & developer friendly' is your 'iPhone' is read this

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-9981871-27.html

BlackBerry - "the market opportunity is only about 16 million subscribers".
Apple - "with over 6 million in use so far."

These 2 lines are enough to show you what shitheaded reasoning yours is.

With respect to android, It is just a MATTER OF TIME before devices hit the market.
I bet you can't create apps on iPhone that are in the same class as the ADC !

I wonder what kind of idiots are paying you for your job !!
iPhoney SHITHEADS !!!

I would say that something

Alex — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:32:00 -0700

I would say that something really serious is NOT possible to implement with iPhone SDK while still possible with Symbian/BB and especially Android. For example, iPhone doesn't allow to run background processes, only one application at a time, network connection is released when there is a phone call, LBS services and working with maps are near to nothing even compared to J2ME, not talking about much more advanced Android. Those limitations won't allow to develop serious applications - take a look at Google Android Developer Challenge finalist applications, I guess more than 75% of those applications would never be able the world on iPhone because of its limitations.

How does a developer decide on a mobile platform?

Larry Borsato — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:35:17 -0700

I'm developing mobile applications -- for the iPhone. Considering all of the mobile platforms available to programmers, why would I select the development platform for the Apple device when I could have chosen Symbian, BlackBerry, or Android?

Let's look at my options.

Symbian, of which there are multiple flavors, has been around for about 10 years, and yet people just aren't using that many Symbian applications on the mobile Web. Now owned by Nokia, it will be open-sourced so that may change, but I'll wait and see here.

The BlackBerry is primarily an email device, though it does offer browsing and other applications. Tools are available for development, but it uses Java ME applications, which have a very limited user interface. And the market opportunity is only about 16 million subscribers versus 206 million Symbian devices over the same timeframe. The low subscriber growth rate limits the value of the platform for me.

Android, from Google, is a completely open platform that has the potential to provide most of what the iPhone does. But it isn't real yet, and there are no devices available to test how well it works in real life. With no current subscriber base, it would be a huge risk to develop for what is essentially a non-existent product at this point.

Then there is the iPhone SDK, only available on the Mac, and only capable of building applications for a very small though rapidly growing market of devices right now, with over 6 million in use so far.

I could have picked Symbian, BlackBerry, or Android. I could have written software with a minimalist user interface -- a watered-down lowest common denominator -- for a fragmented array of mobile devices. And they all provide a Java development option, so my life would have been much easier. But the iPhone SDK has a much bigger advantage.

Since Apple owns the hardware and the operating system, they have created an experience on the iPhone that is every bit as intuitive as that of the Mac. And they have also provided the ability to leverage existing Mac development on the iPhone by providing virtually the same Cocoa Framework as that of the Mac. If you know Mac development, you can develop for the iPhone, or you can easily port your existing code. I haven't developed on the Mac in over a decade, but I was able to pick it up in a couple of days.

And the iPhone has already changed the mobile landscape. iPhone use of the Internet is much higher than that of other smartphones, and far exceeds that of the market in general. Soon after it was released Google was seeing 50 times more search requests coming from iPhones.

The iPhone is going to be the platform that makes the mobile Internet real and usable -- essentially a mobile computer -- which will drive the adoption of new mobile applications. Once you've touched the screen to follow a link in the exceptionally readable browser, you know that this is the standard by which all future mobile phones will be measured.

My choice was a simple one. I merely selected the platform that has already redefined the mobile phone market. And besides, have you seen the iPhone? It is seriously cool. After all, once you get past all the logical reasons for selecting a platform, every developer wants to work on the cool one.

Larry Borsato has been a software developer, marketer, consultant, public speaker, and entrepreneur, among other things. For more of his unpredictable, yet often entertaining thoughts you can read his blog at larryborsato.com.