Mobile App Development – Platform Selection

Mobile App Development – Platform Selection:

The growth of the smartphone has given birth to a whole new genre of application development, mobile apps are small applications or games which are build to be run natively on a mobile platform. Due to the superior User Experience they provide, they are quite popular on smartphones. Because of the popularity of these apps many of us want to plunge into app development to make some quick money. But remember that developing mobile apps is not everybody’s cup of tea. Conceptualizing an app functionality and turning this idea into a full blown app requires two complimentary skillsets. And after development completes, we need an effective marketing strategy to make our app successful. Hence a proper collaboration is required. If you have an unique app idea, it is like winning half of the battle, but conceptualizing the app is the most important part of the process.

Platform Selection

When we talk about mobile apps, we talk about apps for different platforms available for smartphones. Some of these platforms have larger installation base while others have larger availability of apps. Some platforms are easier for development and some are difficult. The various platforms have various user bases so depending upon the app you are developing and the audience you are targeting, you need to decide on the platform.

Platform Market Share

J2ME

This Java based platform has existed for quite some time and has the highest installation base. Almost all the mobile phones today support J2ME. This can be used to build smaller games and applications. This is the platform of choice for feature phones to provide additional functionalities.

Symbian

Before Apple launched iPhone or Android made any news, Symbian was the market leader. Symbian is a real-time, multi tasking mobile OS and runs well on resource constraint devices. It was the platform adopted by Nokia to power it’s phone. In 2011 it signed an agreement with Microsoft to replace Symbian with Windows Phone 7 to power its next generation Smartphone. The future of this look bleak as number of developers and devices adopting Symbian is dwindling rapidly.

iOS

With the release of Apple’s iPhone the Mobile Phone saw a complete revival. iPhone started the smartphone revolution and carried it forward. The usage of smartphone increased drastically. The platform that powers iPhone is iOS. It runs only on Apple hardware, that means it can run on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The mobile apps developed for this platform should be passed by Apple and has to be distributed through App Store. The non-approved Apps can run on iOS only when the device is jail broken. Current version of iOS is 5.0 and Powers iPhone 4S and iPad 2.

Android

Android is a Linux based mobile OS and is the platform of choice for most of the smartphone manufacturers. Though it is a late entrant to the arena, it has gained popularity quite soon and has reached to the top slot among all smartphone platforms. The current version of Android is ICS 4.0.3 and powers many beautiful smartphones and tablet PCs.

BlackBerry

This is another proprietary platform from Research in Motion and can run on their hardware only. It supports Push Email and Internet Faxing, which are the 2 biggest advantages. Because of this BlackBerry has higher adoptability in corporate users. The latest version of BlackBerry OS is 7. The number of apps available for BlackBerry is very low, so new apps can have greater visibility.

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile is the core of Microsoft’s Operating System for smartphones, which has been recently named as Windows Phone 7. As it is quite new compared to other big players, the number of users for Windows Phone 7 devices is less. The current version of Windows Phone is 7.5 called Mango.