iPhone leads smartphone developer battle; Java ME still leads overall

Tony Cripps, Principal Analyst, Ovum

UK: Developers will support multiple mobile OSs but Apple bobs to the top
Ovum’s 2010 survey of 217 mobile application developers exposes a wide range of important trends that are either already having or will have a profound bearing on the future of device manufacturers, mobile operators, software platform vendors, and content providers.

Among the most pertinent is the varying degree of support for different mobile device operating systems and associated developer environments – whether mobile-specific or web-oriented. Among smartphone platforms, iPhone OS garnered most support, with 81% of our sample either already developing for the platform or planning to do so.

This result is to be expected – Apple has stolen most of the smartphone plaudits in the past two years and currently boasts 185,000-plus applications in its App Store, through which more than 3 billion applications have been downloaded. The commercial case for developing on iPhone is therefore largely proven.

BlackBerry and Windows Phone development trumps Android and Symbian
More surprising is that overall RIM’s BlackBerry OS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS (formerly Windows Mobile) proved more popular with our sample than either Google’s Android OS or smartphone pioneer Symbian’s OS, attracting 74 percent and 66 percent of our sample, respectively.

These results will be most gratifying for RIM, which appears to have successfully made the transition from enterprise-centric applications and can now be considered mainstream.

Overall, they are also good news for Microsoft as it embarks on a new era with Windows Phone OS version 7.0. This support for Microsoft smartphones is, we believe, reflective of the company’s eminence as a tools vendor, if not necessarily the user friendliness of its device platform. Quality of tools repeatedly came out among the chief criteria for developers when selecting which platforms to work with.

Android’s relative underperformance – albeit only just trailing Blackberry on 64% – may be excused by the relatively small installed based of the platform. This is unsurprising given that it is the most recent of the major smartphone OSs to hit the market.

However, this is far from true for Symbian, which finished in fifth place in the affections of our sample, albeit still with a reasonably healthy 56% of our sample developing for the platform. This result comes despite the Nokia-championed platform commanding the highest shipments and largest installed base of all smartphone platforms.

In our view, Symbian’s relative failure reflects the perceived (if not actual) lack of development in the platform of late while Nokia migrates to the fully open source version. A failure of OEMs to offer devices that regularly appeal to the consumer has not helped either, at a time when its competitors are doing just that. Whether Symbian can regain its developer poise will depend on how well Symbian^3 devices are received once they reach the market later in 2010.

Other OSs struggle but Java ME still hits developer buttons
Symbian does, at least, continue to command a following among developers and keeps Nokia in the game. Less well-supported platforms such as LiMo and Palm’s WebOS are struggling for developer acceptance, as well as consumer acceptance. Lack of application support is a sure-fire way of putting off consumers. Only 30 percent of developers said they will support any other platform outside the top five.

What is clear, however, is that while smartphone development can now be considered mainstream, the real “bread and butter” of the developer’s trade still lies in the mid market and cross-platform development.

The top three mobile application platforms indicated in our survey were, in order: Java ME, mobile browsers, and full web browsers. Each of these environments is being targeted by more than 80 percent of our sample. Qualcomm’s BREW and Adobe’s Flash were not far behind.

Ovum’s mobile application developer survey provides a comprehensive overview of the requirements, habits, and intentions of mobile application developers today. The full results will be published shortly.