The beginning of the development of applications for phones

Question

I have been developing applications for a long time, but now I want to move on to the development of applications for phones. There are four main candidates:

• Nokia Symbian
• Apple iPhone
• Google android
• Microsoft Windows Mobile Phone

Can someone suggest one, given the documentation, the market, the samples and the availability of emulators, I'm not a millionaire, so I can’t buy it if I don’t know what it will mean profit!

I don’t have as many preferences as for languages, but staying inside C # would be nice, however, I have been doing assembler for a long time, so it's hard for me to scare me :)

Answer 1

There are many factors to consider, for example, when is the largest market, and so on. But ignoring these factors and thinking about technical and monetary issues, a clear answer starts with Android.

Android SDK is completely free. IPhone dev tools need a Mac, so if you are not a Mac user, you need to buy a Mac. If you are not a Mac user, then this is probably a safe bet that you do not yet know the Objective-C that you will need for the iPhone. You don’t even need a phone, there is an emulator that works wonderfully. It is very rare that I did something that works in the emulator, but does not work or works differently on a real phone. Thus, the emulator works great.

Android programming is Java and is very similar to C #.

Android development is much more affordable and easier to develop (for starters, at least) than Objective-C and iPhone.

There are many online resources available, but the book Hello, Android is actually very good. However, it dates from version 1.5 of the SDK, and today we have 2.2, but the basics for getting started are almost the same.

You can go the other way, but in a few hours you can write your first Hello World Android program for free. Even if you decide to start working on a different platform, you are unlikely to be mistaken in making Android the first.

Another thing worth noting is that Android is easier to sell and distribute your applications than iPhone, which makes it better to get started. There is no process to announce applications with an Android site, so you can host your application for free without wondering if they will approve the credentials that will approve your first application for sale or give away.

It should be noted that if you go along the Microsoft route, your experience with C # will be almost completely transferred, and you will be amazed at how compact the SDK is for writing simple Windows applications. (At least that was in 2007, the last time I wrote an application for a Microsoft phone.) But forget that I did it - if you want to become a serious developer of phones for consumers, I recommend that you forget about Microsoft at least least at the moment.

Answer 2

At first you forgot RIM (Blackberry OS). You will find this graph useful for analyzing your audience (I think the graph is for the USA only): Image source

Microsoft Phone 7 will soon enter the market with new devices, so it's hard to say what market share they will take. Their IDE for Windows Phone 7 is free and supports C #.

I can not say much about other OSs, except for the fact that iOS has the most extensive fans and fanatics who want to buy these applications, but this information is only from what I read on the network and see from friends around me.

You can also find the beginning-phone-applications-development question.

Answer 3

If you plan to create and sell Paid applications, and not just free ones, do not forget to take into account and evaluate potential revenues and existing competition, and not just development costs for entry.

My local, and not necessarily statistically significant, example shows that more iPhone developers make more money than Android developers. The amount of money you get if you build an app about 10% of the apps in many categories can be much higher to absorb the higher upfront costs for the development system, certificates, and testing with iOS devices.

However, for iPhone development, you may have to create a backup application, since many application niches in the application store are already filled with several dozen applications. The absolute number of potential competing apps in the Android store is much lower in many areas. You will need to evaluate competition in your area of ​​knowledge or interests.

Answer 4

The Windows Phone 7 API will be based on C #, but most of the other things are still speculations.

Android has the lowest entry cost, essentially free, and will use Java (which is very similar to C #).

iPhone has a higher entry cost — you need to have a Mac (or somewhat less legally hacked OSX installation together). Plus, after you have developed your application, it costs $ 99 a year to become a registered developer, allowing you to place the application on real phones and sell it through the App Store. You also need to learn Objective-C, which uses a syntax that is slightly different from C # and Java.

On the other hand, the iPhone tools are very good and the market is huge, there are also some good online courses (including Stanford course videos available on iTunes).

I don’t know much about the Nokia toolkit, and I would not start developing for the old Windows Mobile now - this is a dead end.

Answer 5

Some thoughts:

• If you have a mac, then the choice is definitely the iPhone, as all development tools are free.
• AFAIK Android SDK is an extension of Eclipse and can work in almost any environment, as well as for free.
• Mirosoft charges a fee for its IDE and probably has the smallest audience.

I am sure you will find more community support for developing iPhone or Android.

Answer 6

There are also cross-platform options such as PhoneGap , which may be worth your attention.

Answer 7

With all the technical considerations that are roughly equivalent, the most “profitable” platform should be the one with the largest unused consumer base for the specific applications that you intend to develop.

Two factors come into play that you can evaluate.

• Size and market growth potential . There are many charts and articles on this site to help you make an assessment. If you can’t find them, just release those 4 topics that you indicated in Google Alerts, and for a while look at the incoming articles in your inbox.

• Saturation of the application market , in particular in the markets of your application addresses. Your own marketing research would be best to identify this.

The only other consideration that might apply to specific types of applications would be if there was a fundamental function required by your application for the platform, and if its respective platforms supported it. For example, you will not be able to make a flash player on the iPhone.