Mobile Developers – Still no number 3.

Windows Phone is still shunned by developers.

• The latest data from appcelerator shows a worrying trend.
• While everyone seems to want a third ecosystem to emerge, the developers don’t seem to care which makes it more difficult to convince users to take-up something different.
• All developers care about is getting paid which is why iPhone and iPad are at the top of the list again with 80% of developers “very interested” in building applications for those systems.
• Next up is Android phones at 71% and then Android tablets at 59%.
• The surprise entry is HTML 5 Mobile web applications which scored a hefty 60%.
• This is a good sign for Mozilla and the Firefox OS as long as the vital promise can be delivered upon (see here).
• However Windows Phone is languishing at 26% and has declined by 3% since the beginning of the year when the last survey was carried out.
• One can make all sorts of criticisms of this data but if Windows Phone is to emerge as the third ecosystem this number has to rise and rise a lot.
• Lack of decent applications is the number one reason why a Windows Phone is returned to the store and having owned one for 2 months I can see why.
• The Nokia-written applications are superb but the rest is very low quality.
• Even Microsoft’s own Skype application for Windows Phone is far below the functionality and performance that it has on Android and iOS.
• The application developer / phone cycle is a virtuous one but one that has to be primed.
• The more phones that are in the hands of users, the more application developers will write apps.
• The apps there are, the more attractive the platform becomes. And so on.
• To get this cycle going requires vast amounts of investment especially in this day and age and this is what Microsoft needs to get on with.
• Numbers are not good enough. The applications have to be of decent quality.
• I am hopeful that Nokia devices becoming part of Microsoft will encourage Microsoft to really invest in getting this platform off the ground.
• This is a platform that is worthy of substantial investment unlike the white elephant that is Windows RT.