Choosing Mobile Development Platform

mobileplatformThere’s been a lot of heated discussions in the blogosphere in the past month about mobile platforms from independent developer perspective. Which platform to choose, if you want to develop cool applications, reach a lot of users and maximize your revenues?

I previously wrote on this subject a year ago, when Android was announced, and three years ago, when I was really disappointed by a pretty much dead S60 applications market.

This time it started with a great presentation by Teemu Kurppa (a mastermind behind mobile Jaiku) at MobileDevCamp Helsinki – “Platform = Stage. How to choose a mobile development platform?“. It is a must see for every mobile developer.

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Google Android vs. Nokia Series 60 – what would it take to build a better mobile phone?

The long awaited Google phone turned out to be just an OS. What does it mean for us, mobile software developers?

Personally, I think this is great news. An open mobile platform is something that was long due to stir up the world of RIM-Windows-Symbian.

Android managed to get many things right from the very beginning, things that took several years for S60. While S60 initially took Microsoft-style approach to development community – with multi-level support, exclusive club membership with access to the source code, signing and licensing, Android is quite open and democratic.

When Google announced Android SDK – my first thoughts were – it’s a smart move to release SDK before devices are available. Google’s name alone would be enough to attract developers and hackers to this new platform, so they can create a developer community by the time devices are shipping. Then Google announced developer challenge with $10mln in awards.

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Symbian Platform Security – hacked?

(Via: Gábor Török and Antony Pranata) Well, hacked – sort of. Apparenlty it is possible to obtain AllFiles capability for your applications by changing a few lines in Nokia Software Update files and flashing your phone, as described here. For developers that means that with certain amount of effort they will be able to make …

Symbian OS Platform Security – good or evil?

In the past couple of months I’ve been doing internal trainings, and on pretty much every one of them I was getting questions regarding Symbian platform security. And to be honest, platform security is something that made me loose my sleep a few times over the past couple of years.

But I don’t want this to be yet another post about how bad the PlatSec is, and the reason for that is that I believe it actually is a good thing. Here are some facts.

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