Linked by David Adams on Thu 25th Sep 2008 18:03 UTC, submitted by snydeq
Neil McAllister delves into the Android and iPhone SDKs to help sort out which will be the best bet for developers now that technical details of the first Android smartphone have been announced. Whereas the iPhone requires an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.5.4 or later, ADC membership, and familiarity with proprietary Mac OS X dev tools, the standard IDE for Android is Eclipse. And because most tasks can be performed with command-line tools, you can expect third parties to develop Android SDK plug-ins for other IDEs. 'By just about any measure, Google's Android is more open and developer-friendly than the iPhone,' McAllister writes. This openness is essential to Android's prospects. 'Based on raw market share alone, the iPhone seems likely to remain the smartphone developer's platform of choice â" especially when ISVs can translate that market share into application sales,' McAllister writes. 'In this race, Apple is taking a page from Microsoft's book, while Google looks suspiciously like Linux.'
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Member since:
2007-05-12
So what is the answer?. "
Of course there is no answer - there is no clearly defined question. If you are the kind of developer who wants to tinker with the device and the OS, who has an idea of neat app that does things it probably shouldn't do, who is planing on releasing the app as open source, you would be better off going with Android. If you want consistent and simple APIs and UI or if you are in for the money the iPhone is undoubtedly the winner. Despite the uncertainty whether your app will make it in the store and the rather bureaucratic process of becoming "accredited" iPhone developer, submitting stuff for review, etc., people are making good money selling simple and rather cheap apps.