Comment by zyb09 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zyb09 | Hacker News Reader

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Oh that's gonna change, no doubt. Produces can't ignore iOS, true, they'll suck it up for now, but the mobile market isn't gonna stay this way forever if Apple continues to behave this way.

I say 80% of all apps we do, we do now both for iOS and Android. While Android used to be a second class citizen a year or so ago - often just recieving a 'port' of the iPhone version (ok it runs, we're done) - now there's much more focus on making 'native' Android apps (no more Back-button in the navigation bar etc.). Android revenue is still behind iOS, but it's profitable and worth doing.

Since Android is growing already at a much faster rate than iOS and the whole tablet & smartphone business is only expected to get bigger anyway, you gotta wonder where we'll be in say - 5 years from now? Which will be the next Windows, the OS with 90% market share, that everybody is gonna develop for? Well it could've been iOS, but I don't think that's going to happen anymore.

> you gotta wonder where we'll be in say - 5 years from now?

Is it possible that the market won't coalesce and will instead stay fragmented? I wonder about the likelihood of that happening. It seems unlikely that either Android or iOS will capture 90% market share any time soon, plus, there is Blackberry to contend with (perhaps the Playbook will revive their fortunes somewhat) and you can never completely count out Microsoft either, as we've seen with the recent Nokia situation.

I think there are perhaps a couple of ways this could go. First, regardless of who executes best on technology, there may be a company who executes best on earning money for developers, and this economic factor could really boost the platform - if developers start coalescing around a platform, consumers may (will?) follow. (I think iOS has the edge here.)

Second, if the market remains fragmented it is going to be untenable for many companies, particularly small ones who develop software for clients, to support all of the platforms. They'll either have to specialize in one, perhaps two, of the platforms and avoid or subcontract work for the other platforms, or they'll need to start relying more heavily on HTML5 and workarounds like Phonegap. From that perspective, it may be in the best interest of web developers to see the platform fragmentation continue and perhaps get even worse.

See... I kind of agree with you but I had a different take on things... It seems to me the time is right for people to get better at making web applications that provide really rich functionality. I know right their don't seem to be web applications that are as good as native clients but if people really work towards that direction they can avoid the walled garden all together... Of course then they have to convince users to go to the webpage and 'install' it as an icon in the dashboard..

Many people have already made the comparison between the mobile wars of the 10's and the PC wars of the 80's, where Google is now playing the role of Microsoft and Apple is now playing the role of, er, Apple.

But what I find ironic is Microsoft's role in this new platform war. Microsoft and Windows Phone 7 has now taken on the role of what was the stodgy old monopoly that only cared to make products for enterprises: IBM and OS/2.

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