This discussion is done.

This article is actually more interesting.

So, Adam is correct.

I’m excited about Android, it looks cool. I follow the RSS feed for developers. The risk of creating a commercial app is so extreme, I would not undertake it at the moment. There is no market what so ever and no market means no revenue. There is no prooof there will ever be a market. cf Trolltech and the greenphone platform.

Your iPhone store comments are pure conjecture. You don’t know any more than I do what will happen. But, yes there is a risk. But there is also a far, far greater ability to create revenue immediately. The install base is massive. The hardware is common and well known. The fact you have the cheaper iTouch as an option is a bonus.

The iPhone SDK is free. The right to install apps is not.

But there is no risk with Windows Mobile. And almost none with Symbian S60 (Nokia can request an app to get digitally signed in order to be included by default on their phones, but it’s not a requirement for a wide release). And let’s not forget that Nokia has 45% of the market. Microsoft, Google and Apple don’t come close to Nokia’s numbers.

So as a developer, I would find it less risky to develop for WinMob/S60, more riskier for Android, but even more riskier for the iPhone. And Android will be moved to the first category by this time next year. But I expect the iPhone to be at a similar risk position. If you piss off Apple, you are out, and this is not something that dev houses usually like.

Firstly, Eugenia’s facts are not right, as currently written. Apple has rejected no developers at all. The SDK is free and available today.

Secondly, no one has confirmed that the dev program beta will be closed until launch or that the participants will somehow have more access to the app store when all is said and done, that’s pure assumption.

Thirdly, the only people affected thus far are the “for profit” software people, and they still can build their programs the same as everyone else, they just don’t have a cert… yet.

Eugenia, in response to us pointing this out, has narrowed her conclusion to this: not everyone will have access to the App Store on day 1. Except, again, we don’t know that. All we know is that part of their SDK/Dev Program is in closed beta today, the exact same way Windows 7 is, the exact same way Windows Mobile 6 was, the exact same way most software is before it’s ready.

The concept of beta testing is not new. No one has lost jobs. No one is at risk. Apple is playing the same hard-core control game they always have, there’s no story here.

You don’t understand what I am saying. I know very well what CE is. The difference is in the business side of it. AND I DON’T CARE ABOUT CE. I am talking about WinMob here, which has A DIFFERENT SDK — even if it’s very similar to CE’s. The market between the two is different, and while CE can have closed partnerships, for WinMob the SDK is free for all. CE can easily have weird conditions like Apple’s, and can have closed betas with select partners and all that shit. But the WinMob version — which is the version we are interested here because it’s the version used for phones –, does not have such restrictions. So, STOP using CE as an excuse, and use Windows Mobile. CE’s SDK and terms are completely irrelevant to the phone world which is what we are discussing here — EVEN if it’s close engineeringly-wise to WinMob’s SDK. Please, don’t mention CE. It’s different. If Apple was doing generic embedded contracts/projects, then I would have NO PROBLEM with strict conditions, because the industrial embedded space is DIFFERENT than the consumer phone one! You see, the consumer phone world expects a certain openness. An openness that WinMob OFFERS (CE doesn’t, and that’s ok).

>Until Android has real hardware, there is an identical issue with the iPhone.

No, it is not the same thing. Android WILL have hardware (as in, 100% sure). And when it does, EVERYONE who worked on an app, will be able to release it and have an EQUAL chance for success. On the Apple’s side, if you were rejected, or Apple doesn’t like your app, YOU ARE OUT OF THE FUCKING PICTURE commercially. They CONTROL the third party application market. Don’t you see that? Are you that blind?

Why the heck don’t you understand this? Why the heck don’t you see that there is a MUCH bigger RISK developing for the iPhone than for Android/WinMob and even Symbian?

Look, I worked with CE and Mobile (what MS now calls ‘pro’) and also what they call ‘Standard’. With a few careful design rules and conditional defines, CE is close enough to Pro as to not make too much trouble. The UI is the only painful part, but this is more to do with screen size and the slight quirks of the Pro menuing system and memory residency. Standard is a complete rewrite of the logic. For pro/CE, if you use eVC, it’s quite a bit of work, but C#, absolutely simple to get both CE and Pro apps from the same base. CE is used on tonnes of devices. Until dotNet, MS charged more than Apple does for the paid program for the dev kit (embeded Visual C or VB ide, compiler and emulator.) So, no, you are not comparing things correctly.

Until Android has real hardware, there is an identical issue with the iPhone. Both platforms, I could develop an app for both and be in the same indefinite position. The risk is as high, no sane commercial developer would stake their careers on either platform as they stand. Fact. This is/was my point. Insulting me does not change that fact. At the moment, Maemo, Symbian and Win CE based OS are the only viable OS for handheld development. CE being the most viable, Maemo being the most open.