For Developers It's All Apple Vs. Google

Appcelerator recently surveyed 2,700 independent developers to get a read on what they liked - and disliked - about the different smartphone OS platforms.  The report didn't offer anything we didn't already know, but it does give one a good idea on where the future of mobile computing is going, and it isn't surprising.

• Interest in tablet application development has spiked since Apple‟s iPad debut in April.
• When stack ranking platform potential, developers give the long-term edge to Google.
• While iOS and Android maintained a high level of interest, second tier platforms lost ground.
• Large organizations are expressing even more interest in mobile than smaller ones.
• Porting applications across platforms is the number one developer pain.
• Multitasking tops the list of iPhone 4 features.

There is nothing startling in the fact that iOS4 and Android are the two platforms that developers most want to create on, with BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 coming in far behind. What is most surprising is that the iPad iOS (3.2) comes in second, just three months after the Apple tablet was released to the public. This means that in a few months the current count of 10,000-plus iPad apps will look very, very small.

While the headline here should be encouraging to Android, it is also clear that Apple has gone a long way to present the largest and most popular app developing and buying marketplace with its App Store. Although developers continue to knock Apple for its "closed" platform, this hasn't affected its ability to get new apps to its store.

There is nothing earth-shattering to report here, except to solidify the long-known fact that in the battle for mobile computing, it is Apple versus Google. The complete report is available here.

[Photo: Mashable]

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