Developers: Up with iOS, down with HTML5

A just-released survey of more than 5,000 developers put another massive dent in in HTML5’s reputation as a development platform for mobile apps, locking in its reputation as one of the most overhyped technologies in years. Apple, though, still shines in the hearts of developers. Android? Not so much.

In the most recent quarterly survey of its own developer base, mobile application development platform vendor Appcelerator found widespread dissatisfaction with nearly every key feature of HTML5. (IDC conducted the actual survey.) Developers dissed the user experience, performance, monetization, fragmentation, distribution control, timeliness of new updates, and security. That covers pretty much the whole HTML5 app gamut.

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It’s worth remembering that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said that his biggest mistake to date was betting so heavily on HTML5, and so he’s moving the company to native code. Whether that’s really a blow to open standards isn’t yet clear. But given the enormous gravitational pull of Facebook, there’s no doubt that the move blew a huge hole in the future of HTML5. (My colleague Andrew Oliver has a very different view, saying Facebook blew it by not hiring enough top-notch developers.)

The only HTML5 features that earned a thumbs-up were cross-development capabilities and immediate updates, liked by a few points more than 80 percent of the respondents.

Michael King, Appcelerator’s director of enterprise strategy, says there is a future for HTML5, but it will be with a limited class of applications. Things like forms and other apps with a low degree of interaction are appropriate, he says, but not immersive and interactive apps. They demand a native environment to have the performance, look and feel, and easy access to native features.

Apple, yes; Android and Windows 8, maybe Apple maintained its dominance at the top of developers’ lists for mobile app development this quarter, with 85 percent of developers very interested in building apps for iOS smartphones and 83 percent similarly focused on iPad apps.

The survey was conducted in August, weeks before iOS 6 and the iPhone 5 were launched, so developers were unaware of the Apple Maps app fiasco. At the time of the survey, the iOS features developers said they were most looking forward to using were Apple Maps (37 percent) and enhanced Siri (22 percent). Despite the Apple Maps problem, “the massive numbers of applications that interface with or use Google Maps, such as Yelp and Facebook, will now rapidly migrate to Apple’s new mapping function, leaving Google a much smaller audience for Google-sponsored ads and Google information,” King says.

Android, though, did not fare well. Developer interest as measured by the survey has declined for three of the last four quarters. It appears that just under 66 percent of developers are very interested in developing for the Android tablet platform, and 76 percent for the Android smartphone platform. Google’s inability to curtail Android’s massive fragmentation, even with “Ice Cream Sandwich,” has forced developers to focus on the iPad as the leading tablet platform and on the iPhone first for smartphone apps,” King says.

As to Windows 8, King says, “It’s obvious that Microsoft has a lot of work to do to convince developers that Windows 8 will be a successful platform.” The developers were split right down the middle on Microsoft’s new OS: Half saying they plan to develop for the duo of the Windows Phone 8 platform for smartphones and the Windows 8 platform for tablets, and half saying no.

Insofar as there is interest in developing for Windows 8, King commented: “Going in, we expected it to be Microsoft’s support for the tablet and the fact that the Surface was launched to such rave reviews, but as it turns out we were wrong. What interests developers most about Windows 8 tablets is actually the shared development capabilities between desktop and tablet promised by Microsoft with the launch of Windows 8.” (I would part company with King on the claim of “rave reviews.”)

The developer reaction to Windows 8 tablets is indicative of a problem that Microsoft is just beginning to grapple with: Developers gravitate to platforms with a big market share. And unlike the desktop, Microsoft’s share of the mobile world is very small. As King points out, there’s not a lot of room for missteps once Windows 8 and Surface are in the tablet marketplace and Windows Phone 8 is in the smartphone marketplace.

RIM to developers: Please love us As you’d expect, RIM’s BlackBerry platform remains in trouble with developers. Developers saying they are “very interested” in building apps for the OS fell to an all-time low of 9 percent for smartphones and 8 percent for tablets.

“This decline in RIM interest is dramatic considering that almost 40 percent of mobile developers were very interested in developing for the platform in the January 2011 survey — again emphasizing the speed at which the mobile market is evolving. This highlights the fact that RIM has to deliver both a compelling experience and massive developer engagement with BlackBerry 10 to stand a chance with mobile developers and to return to relevance,” King says.

The survey is not good news for troubled RIM, which is betting heavily on HTML5 in the next release of the BlackBerry OS. The company is hardly unaware of developers’ issues with HTML5 and their reluctance to hitch their wagons to a fading star.

As an inducement to write for its platform, RIM is guaranteeing $10,000 in revenue to companies writing for BlackBerry 10. To qualify, the developer must first show $1,000 in sales.

Alec Saunders, RIM’s head of developer relations, says that BlackBerry applications are the least expensive to develop, averaging just over $15,000, while iOS applications cost 81 percent more to develop than BlackBerry applications. (He attributed the cost figures to Vision Mobile.) RIM, says Saunders, has increased the number of apps approved for sale on App World by 130 percent. Among enterprise-grade developers, about 10 percent earn more than $10,000 per month.

We’ll see if that turns any attention away from iOS.

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This article, “Developers: Up with iOS, down with HTML5,” was originally published by InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bill Snyder’s Tech’s Bottom Line blog and follow the latest technology business developments at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.