Developer interest in Android waning?

Is developer interest for the Android operating system going downhill? Well, the folks over at IDC and Appcelerator seem to think so. They recently ran a survey in which 2,760 Appcelerator Titanium developers responded, and for Q1 of 2011, developer interest in Android phones had dropped 2% to 85% while developer interest in Android tablets fell 3% to 71%. Apparently developers aren’t too keen on hopping onto the tablet bandwagon.

With the iPad dominating the tablet market share, it’s not hard to see why developers don’t really fancy the idea of coding to Android tablets – after all everybody wants to make apps that more people have access to so they can earn money right? Because one of the major concerns for developers is the skill fragmentation that is happening in today’s world – developers have to learn Objective C to develop for iOS and Java for Android, which makes it difficult for one developer to come up with the same apps on 2 different platforms, not to mention keeping both versions of the same app updated as well.

However, regardless of developer interest, Android is still the runner up to the iOS in terms of market share – it was only this month we saw the introduction of a new tablet OS – QNX on RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook. Later this year we’ll be seeing HP’s webOS as well, which should make things interesting.

George Wong
Categories: Tablets
Tags: Android, developer, Tablet