Jason Ankeny:
Any discussion what’s hot is inevitably followed by a conversation around what’s not, and that’s Android. Appcelerator reports that 78.6 percent of developers expressed interest in building apps for Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) smartphones during the first quarter, down from 83.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and down from around 87 percent a year ago. Given that Android’s market share has continued to explode over the last 12 months, you can’t blame consumer disinterest for developer apathy in the platform; the culprit is–you guessed it–fragmentation.
Can’t blame them.
Don’t they know that fragmentation is just a myth?
I don’t have the stats handy, but isn’t it true that that iPhone/iOS users are more likely to spend money on apps than are Android users? I have to think that also contributes to developers’ relative disinterest in android.
Hmm. So the problem with those numbers is the sample size – 484 developers – and that it’s not clear whether it’s a consistent group (ie are they monitoring the same developers year-on-year).
Without a consistent sample, you can’t really draw too many conclusions. And without larger numbers, likewise.