I agree with most of the posts here. True, Nokia sells a lot of low cost handsets but these are largely crap. Even the n95 is too bulky for what it is.

Nokia's efforts to date have been lame even after they got the wake up call from Apple back in Jan 2007. The Tube or 5800 was a damp squib, the only bright spot has been the n95. Yes, they may be back, but against a formidable competitor.

@magnus jern: as others have said, aggregate java ME numbers are useless. One does not write aggregate applications. The variants, even in the US are mind numbing: from Sprint to ATT to TMO. And Android thumbed their nose at J2ME and made their own VM. I think the writing is on the wall on this one, no matter what herculean effort Sun makes.

When we see two-year olds, grandmas, and even household pets swiping at the iPhone screen (as documented in various YouTube videos), we know that as a device it has achieved a new level of usability. Until other devices match this near zero learning curve, the iPhone and iPod Touch will attract a disproportionate share of developer interest, and not just because of the platform ecosystem.

"As far as those 400 million Symbian handsets are concerned, they are mostly crappy free non-smartphones on the cheapest possible plan in a third world country."

Err, Nokia's market share is, what?, about 40 percent, against Apple's 1.2 percent? Nokia's phones are popular for a reason - we are emerging from an era when phones were just phones, and Nokia handsets are fantastic at that. It's important for people outside the bubble to realise that, still, most people still just want to make calls and text.

A lot of the share the iPhone's picked up has been merely because it's considered cool. Nokia's been on an innovation down curve for the last couple of years, but the N97 is going to be great, they've got good ideas on social geoloaction and we'll see how the open up of Symbian works out. If it works, they'll get to bring good internet services and apps to a user base of *real* size.

Ovi will be great but if you have limited financial resources and need to start with one platform then iPhone makes the most sense.  You can reach all the iPhones and all the iPod Touch with a single version of your application, no porting required.

Discovery is a problem you have (or will have) no matter which platform you choose for your applications.

I have done better with iPhone than any other single platform to date. Will I work with others? Of course but for now limiting my efforts to a few smartphones, with iPhone number 1 on the list, gives me or my clients a better return on the investment to develop.

Mike Rowehl has written a great response to the suggestion that developers are foolish to ignore the possibilities of other phone platforms:

http://www.thisismobility.com/blog/2009/04/11/please-dont-mistake-my-apathy-for-a-lack-of-understanding/

"There’s an interesting discussion floating around that a fanatical devotion to iPhone is blinding mobile developers to larger potential markets. And I’m amazed. Really, just freaking flabbergasted, that the conversation could even be taking place. How can anyone seriously say “well, you’re ignoring all those potential millions of handsets out there running Symbian” and keep a straight face? I’ve been working, for years and years. And years and years and years and years, trying to get out to all those handsets, trying to build applications or websites that were able to hit a critical mass of users on all those handsets out there. Or at least enough users to run a profitable business. Lots of us have been trying to."

"So what’s the response from all those players who just got plowed under by Apple, sitting on the sidelines with egg on their faces? They start what sounds quite a bit like a FUD campaign cause they really don’t have any solid ground to stand on any more. Why should I start caring about the Ovi store now? I’ve done Symbian development in the past, I’m familiar with the handset lineup, I have an E71 currently, have been a long time user of Nokia devices, and I know what Ovi is the number of handsets out in the market.

You know what? I still don’t give a crap. And no, I’m not even sorry about not giving a crap. Actually I’m somewhat offended at someone impugning my foresight and knowledge of the market by saying I’m blind to other potentials cause I’m in love with iPhone. I know what’s out there. I’ve been running free events in the Bay Area for more than 5 years now to try to bolster the mobile community when nothing else would. I’ve been working in the industry for about three times as long. I’ve developed for just about every platform, and I know the ecosystem extremely well. It’s not that I’m blind to everything else. I know everything else that’s out there, and because of that I’ve chosen to develop for iPhone."

Very interesting perspective from a developer who has already put in the hard yards.

-Mart

@magnus jern

you should really think of java as DVD and the API's of the next generation smartphone as HD. Java is big, but it is now a diminishing market.

the software applications that are going to come out over the next 2 - 3 years will drive consumers into the next evolution of mobile telephony.

trust me - java is not part of this evolution.

1. The market context and stats for the US vs Europe vs Asia is currently quite different so decisions need to be made on market by market basis
2. Although the iPhone stats are extremely impressive there were still more java applications (incl games) downloaded 2008 than iPhone apps but in a more fragmented market. According to Ovum and Strategy Analytics the total number of mobile game players was somewhere between 166m to 230m in 2008 vs 20-25m specifically for iPhone
3. Nr iPhone and iPods sold may not be the greatest indicator of the iPhone app-store audience as a lot people first bought the 2.5G version and then upgraded to the 3G version and a fairly large

Don't get me wrong. We love the iPhone because big brands currently give us iPhone app development assignments at the rate of one new app every week. It's fun and fairly profitable to develop iPhone apps even though budgets are generally small. At the same time we often provide the same apps for other platforms such as Java and guess where most of the downloads come from? It is always Java and not iPhone.

This is easily explained. In Europe Java gives you about 94% reach of all devices and in the US about 70%. iPhone incl iPod gives you about 2% reach in Europe and 4% in the US… Do the math!

Don't forget that iPhone apps have one place for distribution (iTunes) and other apps have thousands of distribution channels including carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone etc), content provides (Jamster, Handango, etc), app-stores (Getjar, Mobile9, etc), SMS shortcodes, Bluetooth, WAP-sites, etc

With more than 100 apps delivered in 2008 launched across 30 territories I would say that we know the market fairly well. If you want more information then please feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Magnus Jern
CEO, Golden Gekko

Nokia counts a lot of phones as 'smartphones' just as they claim there are more Nokia 'music phones' than iPods - yet, how many tracks does the Nokia store sell versus iTunes ... so yea, Nokia spews a lot of numbers but they basically did nothing software wise for 10 years on their phones and now they want respect? Yea, they can count a lot of phones as smartphones (but other than photos, what did people use them for?) but they've also lost what 20 market share in 14 months? Nokia is dead except as a budget phone seller to developing countries.

As far as those 400 million Symbian handsets are concerned, they are mostly crappy free non-smartphones on the cheapest possible plan in a third world country.

In contrast, iPhone owners represent one of he most lucrative segments of the cellphone market - 17 million consumers willing and able to spend big bucks on an expensive smartphone and dataplan who buy enormous amounts of content.

As a developer, which market would you prefer to develop for - a few hundred million users fragmented over hundreds of different models of mostly very basic hardware or 30 million of the most app-hungry, connected, wealthy users on the planet?

I know which I’d pick.

Of course in order to target those hundreds of millions of Symbian users, you would need to write dozens of different versions of your app and certify it on thousands of different combinations of CPU, screen size, UI, carrier and even OS (there are currently 3 different incompatible version of Symbian) etc and have to write to the lowest common denominator which means terribly constrained resources and quality.

Even just writing for say the UIQ version of Symbian, you’re faced with multiple versions of processor, most without touch screen, most without accelerometer, most with tiny screens and low resolution, most without fast 3G connectivity and all with very constrained space for apps in internal storage.

Contrast that with all 30 million iPhones and iPod Touches sharing the same high level of specs as a base - huge 3.5” 480x320 multi-touch screens, millions of colours, built-in hardware graphics acceleration, Bluetooth, high-quality audio and video, gigabytes and gigabytes of storage, 128MB of RAM, accelerometer, WiFi, USB, the same version of the desktop-class OS X operating system etc.

It is not surprising developers say writing for the iPhone/iPod Touch and delivering to users is a quantum leap easier and more lucrative than any other platform.

-Mart

The iPhone OS is not 17 million strong, it was 30 million back in December counting the 13 million iPod Touches sold by that point, so by now it is actually more like 35 million iPhone OS devices.

Considering there have been 7x more iPhone apps downloaded in six months than the entire rest of the mobile industry gets in a year, I think concentrating on the iPhone market is a very sensible strategy. 

I certainly haven’t heard of any Windows Mobile, Symbian or Blackberry developers becoming millionaires on the back of a couple of month’s sales.

-Mart