The world of communication is experiencing a phenomenal revolution which has redefined the whole perception of communication, thanks to the mobile application development platforms.
There is no single platform for mobile application development which is not being pushed by tough rival competitors. Till a little earlier, the only market leader was Apple’s iOS. Now it is hugely shared by Google’s Android. Symbian, Blackberry and Windows Phone are also marking their presence in the market. Its market is getting such viral that even Facebook is planning to facilitate a mobile application store.
Top 6 Mobile Application Development Platforms (Smartphone Operating Systems) which have covered more than 99% of the global smartphone market share are as follows:
1. Android of Google Inc
Android is an open source operating system which belongs to Google Inc. Android and iOS are the two major mobile application development platforms which cover almost 89% of the whole operating system market share.
With its fairy-tale like popularity among the users, Android alone has captured as high as 56.1 percent of global Smartphone Operating System market share.
Android has millions of applications with more than 10 billion downloads and around 1 million activation every day.
You can pretty much say Google has the volume while Apple has the profits.
2. iOS (iPhone OS) of Apple Inc
iOS is the mobile operating development platform for all iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices having about 315 million users worldwide. It’s a closed source smartphone platform having 800,000 applications, with 30 billion downloads from its application store. It has covered 22.9% of global market share.
3. Windows Phone of Microsoft
Windows Phone is a closed source mobile operating system, ruling the global market with 1.9% of its share. It is developed by Microsoft, and it has been integrated with Microsoft services as well as with some non-Microsoft services.
4. Symbian of Nokia
Symbian is an open source operating system which belongs to Nokia. Around 8.6% mobiles of the world are running this mobile application development platform.
5. BlackBerry of RIM
Globally, about 6.9% mobiles are running a BlackBerry operating system. This closed source mobile phone application platform has around 60,000 applications available in its application store, with over 2 billion and counting downloads. Its application store witnesses 6 million downloads per day, on an average.
6. Bada of Samsung Electronics
The Bada Operating System is a closed source platform developed for mobile application development. It is developed by Samsung Electronics. Currently it is supporting over 40,000 applications and enjoying worldwide share of Bada OS based Samsung phone by around 2.7%.
By now it has bagged around 100,000 applications. It is expected to grow in great pace because of its association with Nokia in the coming days.
Every operating system has its own strength and limitations. However what makes one more popular than another is entirely dependent on what end users prefer. The trend of their taste has shown that they prefer smartness and easiness over the number of features. Being good is not enough, even looking good is not enough; end users should ‘feel good’ for every feature being delivered to them.
