What mobile platform should I start learning? [closed]

Answer 1

Here is Gartner's latest report on the Windows 7, Symbian and Android competion. I guess it's bad days for Windows 7. Sybian and Android are the ones who will grab the market:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/reviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227700245&itc=ref-true

Answer 2

Given the size of market share that Symbian phones have (not just Nokia Series 60) that would seem to be a good choice. There are pros and cons though. Symbian has a steep learning curve, steeper than the alternatives. The distribution channels aren't as good but are getting better (Ovi for example, Symbian Foundation Horizon).

The iPhone has the cool factor at the moment and a superior UI. The distribution mechanisms still aren't perfect though. You can only sell via the Apple store and they don't have a great reputation for helping developers get their app out.

Android, as mentioned above, is based on the Linux kernel. Given the Nokia Maemo platform is coming in phones in the near future, familiarisation with it may do no harm.

The main difficulty with mobile development is portability. It's simply very difficult. Realistically, if you are new to mobile development, it's probably best to pick one platform and run with it.

So, in short, my answer: Symbian.

Answer 3

My suggestion is that J2ME is best, because it is the extension or birth from the great Java. Nowadays most mobiles phones have J2ME support. For J2ME many Java and Java related forums are there which is helping to improve our J2ME skills, used to solve our application problems, etc.

If you know Java then J2ME is not difficult. It is simple, easy to understand and implement for Java users.

The main advantage of J2ME is that J2ME belongs to the Java family, and it is open source. Nowadays many companies are migrating to open source due to free of cost. So many companies suggest J2ME for mobile applications.

So choose J2ME.

Answer 4

iPhone, obviously. Putting your effort into another platform right now would just be fool's errand, or at best would be risky. Perhaps the Pre or Android have potential, but the iPhone is way past the "potential" stage. BlackBerry is another strong option, as they are already big and still have great things on the horizon, but the platform itself is limited and I don't know that a BlackBerry user is going to be grabbing as many apps as an iPhone user is.

Here's why I think iPhone, based on your criteria -

1. ease of use - the iPhone may be the hardest because it's unlikely that you would already know Objective-C. However, it's an object-oriented language and Cocoa is an MVC framework. After you get used to the syntax, it's not much different than what you probably already know.
2. popularity of platform - this is an easy one. The iPhone may not be the most ubiquitous, but it certainly is the most popular for people who actually use their devices to do things aside from make phone calls and send SMSs and are likely to want to be interested in whatever application it is that you are building. Nobody buys apps for the RAZR.
3. cost - The cost of iPhone development is owning a recent Mac and paying Apple $99. If you don't already have a Mac, they are very affordable for a software developer. People will make a case for Linux here, but it's a non-issue, if spending $1000 is a problem for you and you are a software developer you probably aren't making the best career choices.