Compare Mobile Development Platforms: iPhone Development Vs Android Development Vs. Blackberry Development - Part 1

Hi all,

I have some time after a work again to write something I have learned and hope it would definitely help somebody out there.

In this post, I am going to compare the different mobile development platforms according to various aspects like, development options, user friendly, easy to develop and current market values of your mobile apps.

Why to know different Mobile Platforms

We used to program for the desktop on our initial days. Desktop programs were the  most demanded softwares at that time. Then after that, web came as a revolutionary communication medium. Today, we do develop programs for web. Desktops has been out-dated. Every we do now is online and we want it this way. So, it is believed that now the Era of smart phones is on the way. Coz, everything we do now can be done in different smart phones with easily portable facility. On the way of developing smart phones, the mobile developers has also increased their value. You can easily become a developer on any mobile platform and each money other than doing your salary based jobs. I would be writting  a new post on how mobile development platforms increased our (developers) opportunity in next post.

So, you need to know which platform is great, has number of consumers and turn your development work into money. After you completely read this and next part 2 post, I hope it will help you to choose your development platform or perhaps move from one platform to another if you are really upset with one.

Mobile Development Platforms

There are different mobile development platforms and programs. Developer platforms for iPhone/iPod, Android and Blackberry are the most versatile and dynamic platforms which has great number of market share. Along with them, Windows phone 7 is also gaining their ground for mobile platform. But I will not be covering it.

Currently among above there platforms, iOS (Apple's mobile OS) is the dominant mobile development platform than Android (Google's mobile OS) and Blackberry (RIM mobile OS). But it is hard to say who is going to be on top. Since google is open source software, it is gaining more popularity now a days. Besides it has many merits over iPhone, so who knows Android can win over iPhone. Whereas Blackberry has its own number of customers. Since Blackberry has secure BES/BIS system, enterprise level consumers will always prefer Blackberry than other phones.

Comparison

Here is a brief comparison table for comparing these three mobile development platforms. Mobile development has grown so rapidly in past 2 years that one can easily establish their career on this sector. Mobile developers can easily go out on market and sell their products on different markets. So before you take this step, it is very important to know and decide which platform is suitable for you. Below I have tried to create a comparison, hope it helps someone out there.

S.No.	iPhone	Blackberry	Android
1. IDE	Xcode	Blackberry JDE or Java Development Environment like Ecllipse, Netbeans	xPerfect, Java Development Environment like Ecllipse, Netbeans
2. Developers preferences	Friendly	Not much	Friendly
3. Community Support	A lot of Support	Not much	A Lot of Support
4. Mobile OS Dependencies	Not Much	Too much	Fewer
5. Host OS Dependencies	Mac OS X only	Win OS, Mac OS, Linux	Win OS, Mac OS, Linux
5. Carrier Dependencies	YES (US: AT&T, UK: O2, Vodafone and T-mobile etc)	NO (but most obey BB Data plans to use blackberry data services.)	NO

Remarks


This is just a little comparison table for those who want to have a quick look over it. If you want to read detailed comparison, please read this posts part 2.


Thanks for reading and Happy Sharing!

Regards,
Rajan