Recommended for mobile developers
The iPhone is the most lucrative platform right now. Android is not closed yet. The # 1 game for sale on Android is Robo Defense, with a market entry of 50,000 to 250,000 downloads and a price tag of $ 2.99. Assuming the price was constant, this means that the developer was roughly between $ 100,000 and $ 500,000 (after the 30% commission was taken out). And yet I have iPhone developer friends who made more money than that, and those friends aren't even close to selling the best selling iPhone apps on the iPhone.
Part of the problem lies in the number of phones: according to Gartner, the number of Android phones won't catch up with the iPhone until 2012. The second issue is conversion rates: According to Admob, Android users are only worth 60% of iPhone users in terms of moving from free unlimited apps to paid apps (presumably Admob is comparing identical apps in both markets).
This conversion rate is believed to be due to two factors: the type of Android users and the fact that Android is currently using Google Checkout for its market transactions (when in fact it should probably use Pay Pal and not Google Checkout ). But that too should soon change. With the release of Evvo (by Sprint), Android is going to be a great phone, and with it, it will start attracting some of the most senior users. Additionally, Android Market is starting to accept transactions using operators as intermediaries, so this should help eliminate some of the steps an Android user takes to purchase an app (at least I hope he will).
And note that I didn't even mention Nokia's Ovi store. Nokia sdks are still fragmented as well. The Ovi Store is a mess right now. Its three-star rating system is useless. All apps average up to two stars. They do not allow uploading screenshots. And the Ovi store is so expensive to download the app, which is $ 50 for Ovi + $ 150 for a certification subscription, so it doesn't encourage new developers to even try it out.
Also, I didn't mention Microsoft. Microsoft is a little wild right now. I can't say much about this, other than that LG, which should have had more Windows Mobile phones than anything else, now has more Android mobile phones than anything else. As such, Microsoft is better at mastering its ass if they want to stay competitive in the mobile arena.
a source to share
There is no general advice about this.
The recommendation clearly depends on your experience and a number of other factors. What programming languages do you know? What applications do you want to develop? Do you want to take the risk that your software isn't even listed on the appropriate app store (see Apple)?
There are several things to consider. I'll try to do a quick overview:
Android:
- Android SDK required
- Java as a programming language
- free marketplace (i.e. without prior control if your application is included)
- design any system you want
- open plate
- detailed information
iPhone
- iPhone SDK required
- Objective-C as a programming language
- pre-evaluating your app before saving it to the app store
- you need to have mac to develop for iPhone
- closed plate
- Additional Information
Windows Mobile
- development with .Net-Framework
- don't know more about this, but more information can be found here
Other Linux devices
- take a look at their specs, they often have their own SDK
Also don't forget about Symbian for Nokia. They recently launched an OVI store
a source to share
I would recommend Android as a growing market. Android development is well documented and newbie.
You can also find these streams:
Which mobile platform should I start exploring?
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/598252/most-promising-mobile-platforms
a source to share