Mobile Application Development and the Android Effect
Mobile application development sector is growing dramatically. This is just because the rate of smart phone sales is much higher than that of desk top PCs or laptops. Studies have revealed that the sale of smart phones per year is more than thrice the number of sale of desk top PCs per year. Google has emerged as a leading search engine with processing more than a billion requests for search per day. Google is already a dominant player when it comes to the desk top PCs but this is not the case with the smart phones. The market of smart phones is just emerging and on the other hand Google would never like its dominance to be threatened. It is because of this that Google has ventured into the upcoming smart phone market with the Android operating system.
The unique selling proposition of Android is open source. A close look at the scenario will reveal that the experience of mobile applications is much inferior to that of the desk top applications. Google was the first one to identify and recognize the main cause of this. According to Google the developers of mobile applications were being subjected to a lot of restrictions and this was limiting their creativity. The restriction on the application developers is best exemplified by Apple’s strategy of not approving programs by third party. It is most probably because Apple fears that these applications could replace the inbuilt iPhone features. On the other hand android is an open source platform that facilitates the application developers to create Android applications without paying any license fee. The policy of Android is such that it motivates the developers to develop new applications by combining information from different sources like other smart phones and the internet.
Most of the smart phones operate on a closed system. This means that the applications that have the manufacturer’s approval can only be installed on the smart phone device. For availing this approval it becomes mandatory for the application developer to get the certificates for code-signing. The procedure to get the code-signing certificates is time consuming as well as involves a lot of expenses. This is not the case with the Android application development. Once the application developer has developed an Android application he/she can install that application instantaneously. Since Android application development saves time, money and resources the developers find Android application development to be cheaper than developing application for other operating system and platforms.
The Android applications pose a threat to the mobile network providers and the device manufacturers. Text messaging if offered free by Google Voice a Android application. This implies that the users of Android based phones need not use the text messaging service offered by the mobile network provider. The Android applications are such that they can totally change the features of the phone. The manufacturers want their phones to be unique and not changed according to the whims and fancies of others.
Motorola and Verizon have launched Android based phones and this has been a big boost to the popularity of Android resulting in more demand of Android application development services.
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