Android Closing Interest Gap Between Itself and Apple Among Mobile Developers

Watch out, Apple (News - Alert). According to a sample of 2,200 developers polled by Appcelerator and research group IDC, the Googleplex has nearly caught up to Apple in smartphone popularity, and is rapidly closing the gap in the tablet market, as well.

The joint mobile developer survey revealed that 87 percent of respondents said they were “very interested” in writing applications for Android (News - Alert) smartphones, compared with 92 percent who selected the iPhone as their device of choice. There are hard numbers to back this up: research group comScore has determined that the sales of Android handsets have officially passed those of iPhones in the U.S., reports eWeek.

To complete their research, Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,235 Appcelerator Titanium developers from Jan. 10 to 12, 2011 on their perceptions surrounding mobile OS priorities, feature priorities and mobile development plans in 2011. The survey was designed to foster understanding of how new entrants to the tablet market are changing application development priorities and how businesses large and small are accelerating their efforts to build a mobile application strategy to deal with an explosion in apps, mobile devices, operating systems and capabilities.

The survey also revealed good news for Apple, however: developer interest in Apple's iPad is still going up, rising three percentage points to 87 percent since the last poll three months ago. Android tablets still have a long game of catch-up ahead of them if they hope to chase the iPad, but developer interest in writing apps for Android-based tablets jumped 12 points to 74 percent during the same period.

A majority of respondents also said they are “very interested” in developing for Android tablets, though more than half of developers claimed that price will be the most important factor for success, followed by minimized fragmentation and the availability of the Android 3.0 Honeycomb build.

Price and minimized fragmentation could be big sticking points. Android platform head Eric Chu said Jan. 25 that he was displeased with the amount of money rolling in from paid applications.

Meanwhile, phone makers such as Samsung (News - Alert) have been slow to roll out upgrades from Android 2.1 to Android 2.2, which has been out since the beginning of the summer. Despite these issues and the immense popularity of the iPad, Apple will face challenges from several Android machines this year, said eWeek.

IDC and Appcelerator said “85 new, primarily Android tablets” were unveiled or announced at CES (News - Alert), though the Consumer Electronics Association compiled this chart showing more than 100 touch-screen computers. Two of those shown off include the Motorola Xoom, which is expected to launch Feb. 17, from Best Buy and Verizon, and the upcoming and as of yet unnamed Toshiba (News - Alert) tablet.