The iPhone OS is the clear favourite smart phone platform for developers while the BlackBerry OS and Windows Mobile, rather than Android or Symbian, currently lead the opposition, according to Ovum's first mobile application developer survey.
Tony Cripps, Ovum's principal analyst based in London, revealed in Ovum's 2010 survey of 217 mobile application developers that 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 smart phone platforms, iPhone's OS garnered most support, with 81 percent 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 smart phone plaudits in the past two years and currently boasts 185,000-plus applications in its App Store, through which more than three billion applications have been downloaded. The commercial case for developing on iPhone is therefore largely proven," Cripps said.
More surprising is that overall RIM's BlackBerry OS and Microsoft's Windows Phone OS proved more popular with its sample than either Google's Android OS or smart phone pioneer Symbian's OS, attracting 74 percent and 66 percent of the 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," he said.
"Overall, this is also good news for Microsoft as it embarks on a new era with Windows Phone OS version 7.0. This support for Microsoft smart phones is 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 _ may be excused by the relatively small installed base of the platform. This is unsurprising given that it is the most recent of the major smart phone OSs to hit the market," Cripps added.
"However, this is far from true for Symbian, which finished in fifth place in the affections of the sample, albeit still with a reasonably healthy 56 percent of the sample developing for the platform. This result comes despite the Nokia-championed platform commanding the highest shipments and largest installed base of all smart phone platforms.
"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," he continued.
"Symbian continues to command a following among developers and keeps Nokia in the game."
