pouët.net

Is this good enough?

If random must mean "chance-based distribution", then I believe Random House has failed utterly.

Prediction: There will be one client windows 9
No Windows Phone 9
No Tablet 9
No Desktop 9
Just windows 9.

Symbian's share should be converting to WinMoPho share soon, as that is where Nokia went. Microsoft has been in the pocket computing buisiness as long as Palm and Blackberry, and is much more tenacious than either, so I'll disagree with the Buisness Insider slides.

what QUINTIX predicts

Unfortunately that's an overly simplistic look at the platform landscape. Just because Nokia used Symbian and now use WP7 this doesn't mean that all of the Symbian market share will automagically be converted to WP7 market share.

There is also very little chance of Microsoft merging all of their different platform versions of Windows, since each platform has unique challenges that require different solutions (like UI, compute power, battery life etc.). There is also no historical evidence to suggest they are making such a move.

Gloom: have you used windows 8? I'd say that's very strong evidence they're making such a move. It's a single platform for both tablet and desktop, with ARM support. A phone would just be a new screen size. And they're forcing desktop users to use the metro touch interface with a keyboard and mouse - why would they force that on people, if not to get them used to MS's touch interface so they're happy to use it on their tablets and phones?

I agree though, UI, power and battery life demands are very different between the platforms, hence apple making osx and iOS separately. MS seem to be reasoning that if they can unify the platforms, people will buy in because they're already using windows on their desktops, and they'll want to use the same system and apps on their tablets (and perhaps later phones too).

Maybe it'll work out, maybe it'll go badly, we'll see. They're in a bit of a tight spot now, because their main market (the PC) is starting to decline, and they have zero traction in the new markets (tablets and phones). Windows 8 is therefore a pretty critical point for them, they need it to go well.

Agree on symbian / WP7 too - I don't think people have THAT much loyalty to nokia. I suspect they bought nokia in the past because they had a good reputation and the OS had some consistency between phones - you could upgrade to something like what you had before, only better. You can't now, you have to upgrade to something totally different, and their reputation isn't exactly good these days, so lots of people are going to look at the competition too. Hopefully they'll do well though.

Also: if you look at the data -- Android-users (and developers) aren't loyal. They'll move to WP7 if it gets better / gains traction. iOS users and developers don't.

That just goes for users. Serious developers develop for any profitable platform within their scope.

Yeah, I'm with plek on that one. I'll develop for android if it gets more profitable and less hassle, and WP7 if it get more profitable and possible to make the stuff I do (no shaders = no love from me :)

Well, again -- the stats tells us otherwise: Android developers have no issues with "jumping ship" for WP7, while iOS developers stay put. I can't tell you _why_ it's like this, I can only tell you it _is_ like this :)

I'm sure some devs will be loyal, but most will be loyal while it suits them. Maybe they're loyal because it's a decent enough dev environment, a pretty good platform to develop for (minimal fragmentation), and the most profitable? There's not really much reason to leave iOS unless you want to do something apple won't allow. Supporting multiple platforms can be good, but you wouldn't leave the most profitable platform without a good reason.

What happens if that changes though? If android users start buying more apps, google forces the manufacturers to consolidate the platform more and a decent IDE is released it gets a lot more appealing - at that point I suspect a lot of devs would switch.

It's just like demo coding really. How many demo coders here consider themselves "loyal to windows"? Probably near zero, yet most code exclusively for that or support that first but go cross-platform a bit too. A smaller number write for linux or mac first, and they're much more likely to be cross-platform. If macs or linux started outselling PCs and VS was ported do you think everyone would stay loyal to windows?

The stats you're speaking about don't exist yet. You need to wait for iStuff to become not profitable. Until that you can't tell whether devs are loyal to apple or money.

What I'm trying to say is that serious developers (i.e. companies) do not give a flying fuck about this whole "loyalty" deal you're all so jazzed about, unless they signed a contract indicating otherwise (like game studios do with a console vendor from time to time).

And "jumping ship" isn't something they'd do either, unless perhaps it's a new and different project or it becomes a maintenance job of zero or less net worth (which would mean the platform's userbase declined drastically, which does not apply to either iOS, Android or WP7 right now).

So unless we're talking hobbyists and democoders here: loyalty generally does not mean jack shit.

plek: you have to take into account though how many mobile devs *aren't* a big company. There's a huge number of small places and bedroom coders making some great stuff out there, because the app store seriously levelled the playing field. It's possible for some guy in a bedroom to make the top-selling app on the store.

Yeah that's true, and I knew it, but I was on an angry streak all afternoon :)

Still I'm guessing that loyalty only goes so far with sane people and most certainly stops being a factor as soon as a project becomes a success.

You could also say loyalty goes up when they pay you more, but yeah that only goes so far.

And LOL at the angry streak - I had visions of you running around a football pitch naked while shaking your fist at the referee and being chased by a bunch of policemen :D

As a developer who had experience with all major mobile platforms (Symbian, a little bit of Windows Mobile 6.5, Android and iOS) I must say, that iOS is aeons ahead of anything else out there in terms of both developer environment/documentation/stability and consequent user experience.

Interestingly enough, as a long-term Linux user I'd really prefer to use and develop for Android, but my experience with it was quite painful, and I can write a rather long list of what is wrong with Android, but I won't, because I don't know even where to start :D.

Anyway, as for topic-related WP7, I think it will remain pretty much dead to developers until MS releases at least C/C++ support. That's the major stopper for a lot of us.

Objective C vs. Java?

Java is slow as hell. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.
Objective-C is merely a syntax sugar over C, a native compiled language. Obj-C also very easily interoperates with C++, and when you have some 100MiB of pretty advanced C++ code to reuse, you win for free.
Ofcourse, there's also an NDK for Android, but it has quite "funny" issues of its own.

Bringing a VM or interpreted language to a mobile platform is one of the dumbest idea I've ever seen.

One of the brightest examples of this dumbness is a FSO phone daemon for Neo FreeRunner phone. It was written in python, took around 5-7 minutes to start and 80-100Mb of memory (of 128 total) when running leaving pretty much nothing to other stuff on teh phone. I've always wondered, where do people get this this idea from? How doesn't it get filtered before even reaching consciousness?

w23: my thoughts *exactly*.

I'll do you one better: the mere idea Google had that Java would be a good plan for their mobile OS is worth 30 years in a Turkish prison.

And then there's this much heard argument that actual development is accessible to a larger audience through these higher level languages (probably the same train of thought MS had with WP7). Maybe I don't want every fucking clueless nitwit writing an app. and rather have the stuff that really matters run a bit faster and use less memory. Anyway, I digress, sorry!

*cough * linux kernel *cough* safety *cough* sandbox *cough*

I'm not saying Android is doing everything right when in fact it is doing many things wrong, but Java and the VM is not to blame. I'm not a Java-fanboy AT ALL, but with a JIT it is actually quite fast. The SDK and the toolchain is good, the documentation is too. What's there not to like?

Java is a wankstain of a language, but that's not important here.

Other than that 1 thing still stands: every cycle or megabyte wasted (and evidence taken from actual high profile applications suggests this happens on a grand scale) on a still very limited (in proportion to what it's supposed to do) device is a crime.

Another major problem Android has is that every clown phone vendor can take some version, rape it with their own skinning shit and then release it to the public without owing Google any responsibility in terms of update mechanisms or, very important, strict usability QA (such as console games have been doing for the past 20 years). Because obviously second parties aren't really keen at doing their own QA.

Apple on the other hands keeps a tighter leash, and that's why it's way less of a trainwreck. Among many other reasons. Not that I like Apple so much, but they have a sane approach that doesn't stink of free love and hippies who could stand being kicked in the crotch a time or two.

I'm an angry man today :)

keen on / other hand :)