Appcelerator & IDC’s new mobile developer survey is out now, with details on a wide range of development trends including platform choice, developers’ future plans and mobile industry challenges. Notably, the companies have now added HTML5 as a new option to rank among mobile development platforms, and its middle-of-road showing indicates that mobile websites are increasingly a complementary requirement for today’s mobile developers.
Meanwhile, despite seeing a slight jump back to Q1 levels of interest, Android tablets remain a platform with a number of challenges, developers report. Explains Appcelerator, these tablets are in somewhat of a “no-man’s land” in terms of developer priorities right now, as developers aren’t sure what to make of the overall Android Tablet picture.
Ranking the Platforms
One of the big questions the survey always asks developers is where each platform ranks in terms of developer interest. As expected, iOS (iPhone, iPad) are doing well, with 91% and 88% of developer interest respectively, as is Android (Phone), with 87% interest. The Android Tablet platform still ranks high, too, with 74% saying they’re “very interested” in developing for that platform. HTML5 comes in 5th (66%), above Windows Phone, BlackBerry, webOS, Symbian and MeeGo.
But even though Android Tablets rank well here, Appcelerator says that mobile developers are confused by the Android Tablet space, which remains fluid in terms of the changing nature of the OS itself, the hardware and the form factor requirements. This confusion is reflected in the historical chart (below) which tracks developers’ interest over time.
In January, prior to Android OS’s launch on commercial tablets, developers said that pricing was the most important issue to consider. And indeed, Android tablets that were priced higher or equivalent to the iPad have not sold well, it seems.
But now, developers see other issues as even more important than price, including the need for user interface improvements, phone to tablet portability, fragmentation problems, increasing the size of the app catalog and more.
These can be seen in either a positive or negative light, depending on your particular viewpoint. For example, Appcelerator says that these suggestions could now indicate that in developers’ minds, it’s a question of “how” Android Tablets will succeed, as opposed to an “if.”
More details on the survey results can be found on Appcelerator’s website here.
