June 11, 2009

How to choose a mobile development platform

Smartphone app dev is exploding, leaving developers confronted with a plethora of choices. Here are some tips to help you make the most of your mobile apps

Today's desktop application developers have it easy. We essentially have three OS platforms to choose from: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. And even then, there are often ways to make software written for one platform run on the others. Compare that to the early days of PC software development, when developers were forced to choose between Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM, and other proprietary hardware platforms, with little commonality in between. But even those Bad Old Days pale in comparison to the situation mobile application developers face now.

Even if we limit the choices to smartphone platforms alone, mobile developers must choose between Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm webOS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile -- am I forgetting any? And each is incompatible with the others. In turn, the choice of platform limits the choice of tools and languages that are available, not to mention the range of devices the apps can run on. That's true even for Java -- Java ME was a nice idea, but the world of mobile handsets is still a far cry from "write once, run anywhere."

[ Dig into mobile development with a developer's-eye view of smartphone platforms, and check out InfoWorld's guide to the best mobile devices. ]

Obviously, reaching the broadest possible audience is a top issue for mobile application developers, but there are other factors to weigh. Here are a few things to think about when choosing a smartphone platform for your mobile apps:

1. Which carriers offer devices for the platform?
BlackBerry devices are ubiquitous across U.S. mobile carriers, but not every model is available on every carrier's network. Similarly, customers who want iPhones have no choice but to sign up with AT&T (assuming they also want support from Apple, warranty coverage, and access to the full feature set of the device). So far T-Mobile is the only carrier offering Android phones in the United States, while the Palm Pre is exclusive to Sprint -- although it's rumored that both phones could show up on AT&T's network before long.

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aaugh 11-Jun-09 9:21am
You forgot the most important criteria -- which platform will make me the most money.
javac 14-Jun-09 9:31pm
To develop for Windows Mobile, you would normally use C# and .NET on Visual Studio, not C++.
Raj_Aggarwal 22-Jun-09 8:21am
Great analysis, Neil. Perhaps there are both heuristics (e.g. an enterprise app should try BlackBerry first) and quantitative measures (e.g. platform user base sizes and minimum app prices in app stores) that help determine what platform to begin developing on and an order of platforms to port unto. I recently blogged about this in a two-part series and I think our articles are very complimentary: http://www.localytics.com/blog/post/smartphone-os-wars-what-platforms-to... Thanks! Raj
ashish02281 11-Sep-09 1:25am
Great article Neil. Your idea of write once, run anywhere is coming true. I would like to highlight a platform "Mitr" developed by an Indian company SpiceLabs (www.spicelabs.in) where the developer needs to write the code once in a language similar to Java and it can be ported onto any platform be it symbian,windows or blackberry. We had realized that when a "idea" wants to go mobile it should not spend time thinking on which platform it should be developed so that maximum benefit could be extracted. Business should think about business only.
ArnoVMT 28-Nov-09 1:39am
Hi Neil, Great article, we share your view of a write once platform that allows you to create, deploy and manage cross platform mobile applications. We developed a platform called RAMP ( http://ramp.virtualmobiletech.com/ ) that enables developers to rapidly develop mobile apps that automatically runs on the underlying platforms. With more and more manufacturers releasing handsets this is the only way forward, dedicated team development is far to expensive! Look forward to reading more of your articles.

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