The iPhone without an ounce of doubt jumpstarted the smartphone category. So much so that smartphones are one of the fastest growing category of phones in the US market.
Earlier, mobile app development was restrained by closed platforms and proprietary OS’es. Now, however, it looks like the increasing number of mobile platforms might lead to a new, different problem. Increased fragmentation and confusion about which platforms to support. You already have Symbian, RIM, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone, WebOS (Palm), Mameo.
Now, it seems that Intel is planning to launch their own mobile platform. And LiMo seems to be picking up steam as well.
iPhone and RIM and Android dont seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Symbian is already seeing declining market share and it seems that even Nokia is looking to defect to Mameo – although currently, Symbian totally dominates markets like India and Africa.
The success of each platform will not only depend on what the manufacturers and operators support — but which ones the developers flock to as well. iPhone has already built a thriving apps community, but more and more developers are getting disgruntled with its app approval process and lack of openness. But then, at the same time, other app communities have hardly reached the level of success that the iPhone has.
Say if we’re talking about 5 years down the line – which one do you see as having the biggest potential ? which one do you think will dominate the Indian market ?
I disagree that Symbian is going to get out of flavor anytime soon.It is a dominant platform esp on Nokia phones and doesn’t see a second platform replace it in near future. I will leave iphone out as iphone is still way too expensive for Indian market.
agree symbian platform is more technological than java
dera ferr takl tima