Why you're drawn to mobile development

I was originally drawn to it because it was resource constrained, and that was a fun challenge. The smallest version of Hecl runs in 74K, and I am working to slim that down. 'Resource constrained' means that 'bullshit walks' in terms of huge, astronaut-oriented architectural beasts. Creating useful code with as little waste as possible was critical, although I think that's changing some. Newer phones are orders of magnitude bigger in terms of memory and storage space.

I agree with nearly every point in that article and I particularly like this comment left by Pete Forde,

Speaking entirely based on my own opinion, I always thought Facebook apps were slow, not particularly good or interesting or even fun, and in fact just added clutter to a platform I otherwise use every day and adore. iPhone apps on the other hand likely have a stable future that will be measured in terms of years rather than months, simply because it’s a closed loop that doesn’t rely on dwindling advertising revenues. That it’s tied into an iTunes account for consolidated billing is just a home run IMHO.

What draws me to mobile development is that I'm tired of being tethered to a PC.

Yes, even laptops.

The iPhone is getting in the ballpark of a mobile form factor I can stand.