Some interesting stats on the State of Web Development in 2010 including this snippet;
Nearly a third of respondents (up from 16%) use Mobile Safari, while Android use is at around 4%.:
From todays Google earnings call notes:
Android powering 34 devices from 12 OEMs. Over 60,000 Android devices sold/activated a day. Our mantra w/ Android is “open”. The platform and Market. 38,000 Apps, up 70% quarter over quarter.
Jon Stokes of Ars Technica on why Palm is dead. He’s know, he was an actual user. Stokes sights many reasons for the decline, but a focus on the wrong demographic (woman), limited app selection, poor product quality, and no real differentiation over the competition.
So stick a fork in Palm—it’s done, the dream is over. It’s only a matter of time before the company is acquired or goes belly up.
Jean-Louis Gassée, ex Apple employee and CEO of the now defunct BeOS describing the repaid decline of the once great and innovative Palm.
I’m afraid Palm will be twisting in the wind for a short while and then call it a day. A sad ending for the company that once led the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) world and then made substantial inroads into the nascent smartphone industry with its Treo.
According to Gartner Inc, demand for the iPhone and Nexus One will ‘help propel smartphone sales past those of personal computers in two years.’
Smartphone sales will more than triple to 491.9 million units by 2012 from 139.3 million in 2008, according to the Stamford, Connecticut-based research firm. The PC market will expand to 443.1 million units from 290.8 million in the same period, Gartner predicted on March 4.
David Braue, reporting for the SMH on big businesses adoption of iPhone apps;
Nearly every company Sydney marketing consultancy Marketing Mechanics works with is exploring its iPhone options these days, according to managing director Diane Costa.
Johan Sanneblad makes some good points here:
- For consumers. Applications you buy now will not be usable on your next phone.
You will have to replace your entire application library when you switch from Windows Phone 6.5 to Windows Phone 7 Series.- For corporations. You will soon have to change your entire mobile infrastructure to move away from Windows Mobile.
Do you trust Windows Phone 7 enough to switch in 2011, or will you like many others jump on the iPhone bandwagon?- For developers. Applications you develop now will not run on new phones that will be on the market in 6-9 months.
What do you do now? Continue developing for Windows Mobile when your sales will be equal to zero in a year. Or begin to develop for Windows Phone 7 Series which will have zero users upon launch. Or move to another platform?
Garry Barker, reporting for The Age
IN THE old days — just after the dinosaurs departed and we got flush toilets, and biscuits came in tins and the grocer was good for a tuppenny bag of broken ones to take to school — who made the bikkies and what they contained were not on our juvenile radar.
But now, grocers have been swamped by supermarkets and the little old lady in her country kitchen that features on so many food labels is actually a giant corporation. Thus, it is not always easy to know what’s good and what might only look good in the food we buy.
Shop Ethical!, our latest app has just hit #1 in the Reference category in the Australian App Store, and is now featured in the ‘New & Noteworthy’ section of the iTunes front page.
Kevin C. Tofel asks ‘Why should you care about smartphone market share as a consumer’?
There are a number of factors, but I think the main one is software…Developers are following the sales figures because the better selling platforms offer a wider audience interested in the apps being developed and sold.
He uses the latest Gartner market share data to illustrate that there are only three fast growing mobile platforms; BlackBerry, iPhone and Android.