OVI store to have 20.000 applications on day one?!
Reportedly, the OVI store from Nokia, will have about 20.000 application on the day one launch. Although this number may seem overwhelming, this is only about 50% of the applications available from App Store – the iPhone marketplace. But the App Store was kicking for some time now, and it actually started with much less than 20.000 applications on day one.
Android market pales in comparison. It had only about 50 (!!!) applications on day one and about 100 after the first week when google were rapidly adding more and more. After they opened the gates for developers though, the flood of the applications followed almost immediately. Unfortunately, not necessarily quality ones. There are apparently not so many very quality applications on Android market, but fortunately this ration is rapidly changing with more and more talented developers flocking to the platform.
Ease of development is comparable to iPhone and there are many more Java developers that can easily leverage their existing skill than there are Objective C developers out there. However there are still much more developers for iPhone than there are for Android. This however will probably change when the platform will become “more sexy out of the box”. Support for multiple platforms will also contribute to popularity of developers. Surprisingly as it sounds, many developers just can’t afford a Mac to start develop for an iPhone.
I am advocating and will keep advocate that out of the box ease of development is a key factor in drawing more developers and creating a vibrant community of developers and enthusiasts around the platform, which is what eventually created the success of the platform as a whole. RIM – fails short both on ease of the development and support for multiple platforms, so no surprise there whatsoever. It is on the right track, but it keeps moving very slow and still has a lot to learn here.