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?...
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.
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.
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).
"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.
> Nokia.. pfft. ... I'm not seeing any one rushing to develop for either Symbian or MeeGo at the moment, though.
What I've seen (but then, I live in Finland) there are a lot of developers who are interested in Meego, because it's closest to PC Linux environment of iOS, Android, WinMo, BB and Meego. Thus I think there will be a good amount of Meego software. But danger is that Meego is riding an old wave, the software won't be simple and beautiful, that it's roots are in Linux desktop software.
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.
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.
