By A recent survey of 400 developers from around the globe shows that 60 percent of those working in the mobile space have had some experience working with Android, a number 10 percent higher than the closest trailing platform, iOS. That should explain the tremendous growth in the Android Market’s supply of apps since the end of last year when it stood right around 20,000 to a reported figure from the same survey of 72,000 apps. You don’t have to be a math whiz to add the one up to an exponential growth for the Android platform.
At the same time the survey is quick to point out that developer preferences and the number of available applications doesn’t necessarily translate directly to the size of the install base. Both Android and iPhone see smaller total market shares compared to their overwhelming supply of mobile applications.
The preference towards Android no doubt has much to do with the open nature of Android and Google’s outpouring of developer support. It’s all part of what Vision Mobile, conductors of the research, call developer mindshare, a commodity as valuable as handset market share itself. If their data holds any weight developers definitely have Android on the mind, and when combined with continued platform growth Android is quickly becoming a reckoning force in the market.
[via IntoMobile]
i feel bad for palm ….all the way at the bottom
I’ve got to say, as both an iPhone and Android user, these lists of total apps in the marketplaces are becoming really annoying and useless. in both app stores, a hell of a lot of those apps are worthless garbage – is it really relevant if hundreds of “apps” are various naked lady skins on some cheap app or something?
Interesting. What about the reports about Android devs not being able to make a profit? I guess despite the profit margin they prefer the openness of Android. Go Android!
thats pretty much expected due to the following:
-java as a language is superior and more readable than objective c
-plus every developer out there knows java or at least has tried it before, Eclipse IDE is much better than Cocoa’s IDE
-The openness of Android, it helps a lot in code development or to have an idea of how some of the things done in the stock apps
@TomHandy It all depends on how hot the naked lady skins are.
There are many OEM’s so it is possible to make a deal to have you app preinstalled. I bet everyone in the US knows what Layar is because it is featured in Verizon/Motorola’s big TV spots.
I’m also excited by the potential of the Cisco Cius. Devs will be interested as the enterprise market actually pays for apps and they aren’t interested in silly soundboard or games that you can finish in a few hours.
@Maj +1
Java > Objective C
Eclipse > Cocoa
Where are the good GAMES though? Come on, PopCap!
I’m pretty sure a big part of that is the fact that the Android SDK is free.
The explanation is simple. Google treats developers like rock stars. Apple does not.
@maj
Android user and Dev, but Xcode is way better than eclipse, Xcode has the benefit of focusing on one language/framework, beats eclipse hands down.
Eclipse is avg at everything, great at nothing. Example, Jdeveloper beats the crap out of eclipse for Java dev.
On cocoa I feel that the framework is much more logically designed than Android, and the barrier to entry is far lower.
How exactly is java more readable than obj-c? I hear a ton of C#, smalltalk, perl, etc saying the same thing. Who cares about a language? I’m a dev, give me a great framework in any lang and I’ll make good usage of it.
I love Android but one cannot focus on just the language as an assessment of a full framework.
look at how Apple treats Adobe. Mac wouldn’t be anything without Photoshop and if that’s how they treat Adobe they could do the same for anyone else (including all the Flash devs out there)
@TomHandy
I completely agree. I would like to see the 10 best apps in 10 different categories and put them head to head.
.
Apple beats Android in gaming apps. Ties or loses in every other category.
Actually, Phandroid – that would be some great original content for you guys.
.
You could put out a category every week and pair the two platforms up, reviewing the 5 – 10 best apps per category.
what woulbe be amusing is if adobe pulled the plug on mac versions; as they are not “open” enough
@Daniel K
I think xcode and eclipse are both good, but Eclipse is slightly better. I like Visual Studio even more. As far as languages are concerned, I definitely prefer Java to objective C, but objective c is not horrible and gets the job done.
One thing is for sure. It’s much easier, cheaper, and faster to publish apps for the Android market as opposed to iTunes app store.