On Jan 23, 7:31 pm, Fabrizio Giudici <[email protected]> wrote: > Karsten Silz wrote: > > On Jan 21, 9:31 pm, Stephen Chin <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Karsten, > > >> JavaFX has the potential to run on any platform where Java ME can run, > >> which is a pretty large spectrum. > > > I don't think mobile developers care about JavaME phones at this > > point. Sorry, but with the iPhone and Android wooing developers and > > RIM and Microsoft trying to keep up, that train has left the station. > > This is clearly false _today_ looking at the numbers. Maybe in future, > but _today_ Android is just a fraction of the market and I, as a > developer, wouldn't like to cut away e.g. the whole Nokia and BlackBerry > segments - criticized or not, they are still the two largets > manufacturers. Indeed I agree that if Oracle put some "muscles" on the > thing, paving the way for Android and many JME platforms, JavaFX could > grow a lot. Of course, depending on this and other things, in > perspective things may change.
When deciding what mobile platform to develop for, a number of factors come in: How easy is development? How big is the market? How fragmented is the market? How easy is app distribution? What percentage of users will install the app? If you want to get paid: What percentage of users will pay for the app? >From that perspective, Symbian is very expensive: development is hard (C? Qt? JME?), extreme fragmentation, broken distribution (Nokia will relaunch its Ovi app store after a year: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/11/nokia-taking-ovi-store-criticism-to-heart-planning-revamped-ver/), users not interested in apps on their feature phones and not used to pay for content. Similarly, development for Blackberry isn't easy (no visual UI builder until the middle of 2010: http://www.berryreview.com/2009/11/09/rim-announces-opengl-es-support-new-gui-builder-for-eclipse/), quite some fragmentation (I heard developers complain on a podcast that it's hard/impossible to write an app that runs across all Blackberries), distribution is somewhat hampered (high minimum app price in Blackberry store of $2.99, rather few "fun apps"), low percentage of users who will install the app (pretty much all business users will have their phones locked down for security/IT management reasons - that probably makes up about half of all 36 mio Blackberry users: http://crackberry.com/press-release-research-motion-reports-third-quarter-results), and users aren't used to apps or paying for content. >From that perspective, Android is attractive - easy to develop for, modest fragmentation, working distribution, high percentage of user willing to install and pay for apps (early adopters). This seems to outweigh the low number of devices sold. And look at it from a mobile phone vendors perspective: If you build a smartphone, you'll be measured against the iPhone, and right now Android makes you look best there (and it's free). Maybe this will change with Windows Mobile 7 at the end of the year at the earliest (which I think is not likely), maybe it'll change because Google pissed off their ecosystem by doing their own phone, but for now, Android is the "iPhone for the rest of us". So I think developer going for Android take this into account. But no matter what you or I think is rational for developers, by looking at the amount of apps in the respective app store you can gauge developer excitement. The numbers are inflated by these "one ebook is an app" and "one city guide is an app" apps, but this affects all platforms to a certain degree, so I think the numbers _in relation to each other_ are meaningful. Of course, that's where Apple is the king of the hill with maybe 135,000 apps today; I'm sure we'll hear an updated number on Wednesday. Android is surprisingly strong with maybe about 20,000 apps. Try as a I might, I couldn't get a current number for the Blackberry App World - I only have 2,000 after 3.5 months last July (http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/08/blackberry-app- world-now-home-to-2-000-applications/). I guess that it's a lot less than Android (5,000? 10,000?), if it was more, we'd heard it at the last RIM quarter result press conference. Nokia doesn't give out numbers for its Ovi store, and the Windows Mobile store numbers are pathetic (though most Windows Mobile apps aren't in there). Looking at these number, you could even argue that Android has the most developer love because despite just having a few million devices in the market and already seeing fragmentation, they racked up 20,000 apps in less than a year, where Apple has 135,000 apps after 1.5 years for probably 65 mio devices (iPhone + iPod Touch). That's why I said that developers clearly go for iPhone and Android. > Given that Android developers are already complaining about > self-fragmentation of Android itself (it has been discussed in a > parallel thread) and that they are running just a handful of models, > it's to be seen if they will able to keep fragmentation under control > with hundreds of models. Agreed. > -- > Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager > Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere." > weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici -www.tidalwave.it/people > [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
