Software development on WinMo vs iPhone platform

[Guest ronzo77]

Hi experts, would like some of your 2 cents on this topic.

I tried Asphalt4 HD on my Omnia the other day and thought, "Din't the iPhone have something like this months ago?" Currently, does anyone feel there are more interesting apps being sold for the iPhone as opposed to WinMo phones?

Are there more incentives for commercial developers to make software on the iPhone compared to WinMo? As I understand, Apple has a unified platform across its product range, so the same program is portable to the iPod Touch, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, and whatever possible future hardware release, no need to test on multiple handsets. Apple has the iStore distribution channel to its consumers. And it's got a multitouch screen that can open more possibilities for interesting software.

To make something work on WinMo, it has to be tested on many different resolutions across many different handsets, and compatibility will always be a challenge. Even if there are more WinMo devices, the potential market may be only a small amount of compatible handsets. I realize the homebrew development community for WinMo is very active, and thank goodness for that, but will these differences eventually push commercial developers to choose iPhone over WinMo as a platform?

[Guest dwethiswar]

guess this is the same as for OSX vs XP/VISTA/...: if you develop for OsX, your program will very likely run on any mac running OsX, because they all have the same hardware. Easy, isn't it? Developping for Windows/Linux on the other hand, there are a million of different configurations on which it runs, so it's more likely that it goes wrong.

Now, does this lead to less apps being developped for Windows? I don't know the numbers, but I'd say no.

Saying 'I'm going to develop for Apple because then I'm sure my app will run on all x hardware platforms' would be ignorant because then you're missing a huge part of the market. I don't know if there are already cross-platform APIs for iPhone/VM devices, but there are enough of them for PC-like platforms, and they work.

So a really clever company developping for mobile phones would first write a cross-platform lib that deals with the platform-specific stuff for iPhones/WM phnoes/Symbian phones, then develop apps on top of the lib and by doing that, target the *entire* mobile phone market at once instead of just a part of it.

Hmm, just came up with this idea, am I the first one?

[Guest ronzo77]

guess this is the same as for OSX vs XP/VISTA/...: if you develop for OsX, your program will very likely run on any mac running OsX, because they all have the same hardware. Easy, isn't it? Developping for Windows/Linux on the other hand, there are a million of different configurations on which it runs, so it's more likely that it goes wrong.

Now, does this lead to less apps being developped for Windows? I don't know the numbers, but I'd say no.

Saying 'I'm going to develop for Apple because then I'm sure my app will run on all x hardware platforms' would be ignorant because then you're missing a huge part of the market. I don't know if there are already cross-platform APIs for iPhone/VM devices, but there are enough of them for PC-like platforms, and they work.

So a really clever company developping for mobile phones would first write a cross-platform lib that deals with the platform-specific stuff for iPhones/WM phnoes/Symbian phones, then develop apps on top of the lib and by doing that, target the *entire* mobile phone market at once instead of just a part of it.

Hmm, just came up with this idea, am I the first one?

Hey good idea. How about then also licensing that cross-platform lib to other developers? $$$ :(

[Guest dwethiswar]

I know... If only I'd had spare time next to my job and hobbies I'd extend my current libs to mobile devices and get the effort back in cash..