Robert Scoble has an interesting story on the subject of what smartphone platforms are best for developers. The founder of Pandora, Tim Westergren, reveals that Pandora is downloaded 20,000 times a day on iPhone, 16-17,000 times a day on BlackBerry and 8,000 times a day on Android.
Our first thought that came to mind was: Wow, those Android numbers are huge.
The App Store effect is already well-documented by Apple, but we're not sure download numbers alone is sufficient to measure what platform is best for developers. There are easily five more aspects of significance to take into account:
Buying trends amongst big spenders
Carrier support and marketing
Platform stability and capabilities
Short-term ROI
Monetization dynamics
It's no secret that 99% of developers out there fail to meet their own expectations. While being a developer might sound like a fun occupation, timing and luck plays a bigger role than those who succeed might be willing to admit.
However, if we should select one of the above-mentioned aspects as perhaps the most important, it would be short-term ROI. The more competition an app has, the quicker you need to generate revenues to get the next big thing out the door. If an app doesn't get instant success, it might be time to rethink the entire app strategy shortly after launch.
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