

Why Developers don't rush to create apps on new hardware/platforms. - hardik988
http://www.marco.org/1483805627

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wheaties
And for that enterprising individual who corners a small niche market of
tablet computers that don't sell big but maybe sell just enough go the spoils.
Right, right?...

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patio11
Look how many people made a living selling Mac software before Apple became a
mobile devices company which happens to have business unit which sells laptops
and whatever you call a laptop that can't fit in a bag next to your Moleskine.

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nl
He puts forward a good argument about exactly what is required for a platform
to have a developer rush, and then undermines it in the footnotes but saying
that Android & Blackberry meet the requirement, but don't meet an additional,
undiscussed requirement: easy payment procedures.

I think his three requirements are good, but I'd include two more: 4) Easy
development tools 5) Path to profitability

iOS and Android both meet those too. Android _may_ (or may not, depending on
who you ask) be less profitable than iOS apps, but there are plenty of people
making good money, and I see just as many people developing for Android now as
for iOS.

WinMo7 seems to be similar: good developer tools, a few possible methods to
profitability and I'm seeing more & more Windows/.NET developers looking at it
with interest as a way to get in on the mobile gold-rush they have been left
out of.

Blackberry I don't know about. Apparently their tool support is going to be
better, so maybe they have a chance.

Nokia.. pfft. Maybe in a couple of years they'll be back in the game. I'm not
seeing any one rushing to develop for either Symbian or MeeGo at the moment,
though.

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daeken
While I love my Android phone, the term "easy development tools" anywhere near
Android is just scary. I found even basic Android dev to be so overcomplicated
it's not even funny. I spent about a week trying to get started, and just
decided it wasn't worth my time. This is especially true if you don't want to
use Java or you want to do layouts in text (I ended up writing my own DSL in
Python to generate layout XML, but man it was a PITA).

If nothing else, I think the advantage WP7 has is its development tools -- MS
did a damn good job there (they generally do).

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ergo98
"if you don't want to use Java or you want to do layouts in text (I ended up
writing my own DSL in Python to generate layout XML, but man it was a PITA)"

You made it more difficult than it really is.

It really depends upon what you want to do. If you want to make say a business
app that connects to a web service and pulls some values and lets you set
something or other, it's absurdly easy. The text layout shizzle even lets you
take advantage of every form factor, different DPIs, etc, with automatic
resource utilization based upon the device. Of course as you try to do
anything more complex the nature of the beast is that the solution gets more
complex.

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jfarmer
In two words: distribution and monetization. That's all that matter, period.

This is why Facebook kicked OpenSocial's fragmented and poorly implemented
ass, and why the iPhone developer ecosystem is more robust than its Android
counterpart.

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dholowiski
News flash - developers write apps for the iPhone because it's cool, there are
tons of users and they can make a crap-load of money.

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johnrob
_Can you say with confidence that any of them will address these three needs
well enough, and for enough developers, to ensure a steady supply of quality
software?_

If one of these tablets supports flash in its web browser, then it will have
access to the biggest app platform of all: the world wide web.

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davidedicillo
yes, a platform where nobody want to pay for anything... while people using
iProducts are "trained" by iPods to buy digital content.

