Compare Mobile Development Platforms: iPhone Development Vs. Android Development Vs. Blackberry Development - Part 2

Continue of Part 1.....

Here goes the description of the table elements of Compare Mobile Development Platforms - Part 1.

1. IDE

1. Xcode is the IDE for iphone development. It is only the iPhone development IDE which runs on the Mac OS X.
2. For Blackberry, you can develop it either in Blackberry JDE (IDE created by RIM for BB development) or use Eclipse after installing plugins from Blackberry. Same with Netbeans, but most preferred one is Eclipse.
3. For Android also, being Java development, Eclipse is the best and preferred IDE. You need to install android sdk for that. Whereas xPerfect is a new IDE which is an free to download specially designed for Android Development developed by MrHassell.

2. Developers Preferences

Being an Mobile developer, and since I have tried two of them and from my senior Bala dai's experiance for Android, the iPhone development is much more comfortable, than Android. Then it comes to Blackberry. It seems that RIM doesn't care for its developers and take time for providing better developing environment. Whereas recently RIM has conducted a survey among the developers comparing why developers prefer other platforms than Blackberry. Nice start, hope there is good things to come for Blackberry developers. For java developers if you ask which would you prefer between Blackberry and Android, they would definitely say Android for now.

3. Community Support

The iPhone development has been a well known platform and has as many developers due to its quality app in appstore. It has large support from apple's site for Library and documentation. There are also a large group of community which would help you through while you develop for iPhone. StackOverflow is one of the great community which would be great help for any developer.

On the other hand Android being a open source mobile OS developed by google, it definitely has huge community support. Today different phone companies such as HTC, Samsung, Motorola etc manufacture the phones using google's android OS. Being open-source software android OS releases are great, bugs can be solved very fast in next release, and community support always.

Blackberry is again a looser in comparison to other two in this aspect. Though blackberry has a support system, most people feel that they can't develop as fast as they would have done in other platforms, which leads to low developers and obviously low community support. Trust me, If you post a question regarding Blackberry in its forum, the answer would take a long time to arrive whereas in other platform like android and iphone, it would be just a minutes to get suggestion or perhaps answer :)

4. Mobile OS Dependencies

By Mobile OS dependencies here, I mean dependencies of your mobile apps on devices. Or simply when you develop your app, in which range of devices with its OS versions you can target your app. If you have a lot of dependencies in varieties of models, then that is not a good thing.

So, in this aspect here, iPhone has a best choice. It can target the devices with different iOS (Old version of iOS) easily. The most easy part in iphone is that it has only one Phone device and an iPad. For blackberry again, it is a head ache because, first of all it has number of device models out in the market and within those devices also there are variety of OS versions. (Let take this head ache later when you actually will be making app for Blackberry).

And For Android, the dependencies comes in between iPhone and Blackberry. But android being open source is lot flexible.

5. Host OS Dependencies

The host OS here I mean the OS needed to run your IDE.

1. The iPhone development can only be done in Mac OS X. Latest version of snow leopard is needed to run latest iOS SDK and simulators. So, if you want to develop for iPhone, you better buy a mac. I had already talked about it in my previous post here.
2. The Blackberry development was only possible in Windows OS, but lately in Mac OS also we can develop it. For more read this article by me.
3. For Android development, there is not such high OS dependencies. You can develop using free developing tool.

6. Carrier Dependencies

1. iPhones are basically carrier dependent on AT&T (Edited after update from Rj got on Verizon) and Verizon in US , O2, vodafone in UK and so on.
2. AT&T has always been a old carrier dependency for iphone, Verizon currently is very popular carrier in US for iPhone.
3. Blackberry where as does not have carrier restriction. However to use BES and BB data services (such messaging, email, security), the BB data plans must be followed. 
4. Android is open source software. So, no restriction of carrier Dependencies.

Well pals, this much for now. I guess I have completed this post after a long interval. Please feel free to give suggestions and enhancement on this post through comments. Happy Sharing and good going to mobile development.

Note: If you would like to know more comparisons on different development platform along with other platforms, you can read this article.

Regards,

Rajan M