device diversity

The latest Gartner report on future smartphone market share was an interesting read, as reported by Register Hardware. It fleshed out what we’ve been saying for a while:

device diversity is only increasing

Specifically it predicts that Android will surpass iPhone in market share by 2012. It also makes a number of other interesting predictions. Specifically that BlackBerry will slip from second place to fifth place. And that Windows Mobile marketshare will increase.

What we’re seeing here at Rhomobile is that app developers (including the two thousand apps created on RhoHub alone in the last month) are starting to deliver more quickly on more than one device. For example, Track-R (mobilized PivotalTracker from Koombea) was delivered on both iPhone and Android. Aeroprise’s BMC Remedy Service Management app was delivered on BlackBerry first and then iPhone.

In the early days of Rhodes developers definitely appreciated the benefits of portability more strategically. But the primary benefit of Rhodes was productivity (its just several times faster and easier to write in Rhodes versus Objective C or Java in native SDKs). Nowadays, especially with Android becoming a major force, portability is top of mind of most of our developers.

0 Comments | Posted by adam