Develop for Android or iPad?

Wednesday, 26 January 2011

Having launched an app for the iPhone the question developers are now asking themselves is "do I go Android or iPad" - and in many cases the answer is - "both".

According to the Appcelerator/IDC QI Mobile Developer Report developers are increasingly taking a multi-platform approach. On average respondents said they plan to deploy apps on at least four devices - iPhone, iPad, Android Phone and Android Tablet - which is double the number recorded in 2010. On average each respondent plans to develop 6.5 apps this year, up 183% over last year.

The report also shows that while the majority of developers were in the getting started and exploratory phases of their mobile strategy (using a "Mobile Maturity Model" proposed by Appcelerator and IDC) now over half have shifted into the "acceleration" phase:

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Although the iPhone is still the most popular device to develop for the gap between Apple and Android devices is narrowing, findings which confirm the trend that we have been seeing consistently over the past few weeks - that developers are increasingly looking to develop for the Android platform. Windows Phone 7 has attracted 36% of respondents to be "very interested" - on a par with the Blackberry and well ahead of Symbian and MeeGo.

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Comparing these responses with those from September 2010 shows that interest in developing for tablet devices has demonstrated a big increase and that while the iPad still heads the popularity list, interest in developing for the Android tablet is also at a high level with 74% of respondents now claim to be "very interested", up from 62% since September 2010. The BlackBerry PlayBook has also gained ground - the percentage of developers being very interested having increased from 16% to 28%.

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With more Android tablets coming onto the market in coming months developers can expect to be busy.

xoom

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