Sean Reichle

Apple has sold more than 187 million iOS devices over just the past few years.  Numbers like these are a testimony to the strength and potential of the platform which has been building components and features expanding the platform to the iPad, a clear favorite to both business professionals and consumers.  Although this isn’t the first time tablet computers have come to the market, it is the first time so many rival devices have been brought to market to capture a piece of this obviously overlooked niche of mobile computing.

iPad’s success however, isn’t rooted in the tablet market and some might say there is no tablet market as nearly all other tablet’s to hit the market have been utter failures, ipad withstanding.  Tablet’s based on mobile phone operating systems is a very new trend, but it actually makes perfect sense since these devices are inherently most useful as mobile devices and previous exploration of desktop platforms to mobile devices lacked the flexibility or transitional smarts of the user interface to cope with on the move computing.

Android.  Clearly a strong contender in the mobile OS market is not only having fantastic success with it’s mobile phones, but also proving that an OS designed for mobility can have success in the tablet market which has seen failure after failure.  Android’s advantage, or should I say Google’s.  Is that they have taken a page from a Microsoft book in developing a platform across multiple hardware manufacturers.  Samsung’s Galaxy tab and several other tablets have had success in the market proving again that it can be done when done correctly.

So what’s next?  Well…, RIM, makers of Blackberry, a long time contender with a strong foothold in the mobile phone market, released their own tablet computer called playbook, earlier this week.  Now, I’ve not yet had a chance to play with one myself, but from what I hear it’s got potential and might just be the device Blackberry loyalist pick up simply for it’s ability to sync with their mobile phone’s.  Although that software isn’t pre-loaded and I’ve heard it been plagued with issues, I’m sure it’s a key piece to their mobile computing solution and frankly, I can’t see the playbook having success without it.  Playbook, unlike the before mentioned tablet’s differs in one major way.  It’s OS is built new from the ground up.  i.e. no Mobile phone on the market runs the same OS as the playbook.  Now, history tells us, that’s the underlying failure of all tablet computers up until Apple’s success but if they manage to complete the phone <-> tablet dichotomy, they might just have a chance.

Through another door, Windows. Hundreds of tablet devices running the classic windows desktop operating systems have been windexed from existence over the past decade and it’s failures are likely the cause of all resistance to tablet computing by manufacturers as well as hesitation by consumers. Primarily because of it’s longstanding lack of usability in the mobile computing market.  The classic PocketPC, again running a stripped down version of the classic windows UI failed to ever reach market penetration over any of the major phone manufacturers.  Failing again to learn from their own failures, but again taking a page from the book of another. Microsoft has broken new ground with a new mobile phone platform not surprising named Windows Phone 7.  Honestly Microsoft, nobody thought of “Screens?” Anyway, their new platform is in it’s infancy and may someday be a real contender. Personally, I’m rather excited about it, it has the essential user interface ideas required in the mobile computing success recipe. For now though, it’ll have to simmer until it’s as tasty as apples. To truly give the phone a chance they’ll have to prove the OS on a lightweight, low power tablet, and that my friends, is likely the deciding factor of it’s success as a phone OS.

So what’s this all mean?  Apps.  With each and every OS platform comes a new bread of programming language, software development kits (SDK’s) and of course, app distribution.  Nobody installs mobile software with CD’s or DVD’s so the sun shines on those sitting in the right cloud.  Second to none is developer support!  I mean let’s be honest, if program developers don’t support a platform, the consumers soon learn, and abandon the technology as limited or dead. Proving once again, platform success relies almost entirely on developers.  Or does it?

A game changer to the developer/platform success paradigm might just be a site called appmakr.com.  Perhaps the first of many but the first of it’s kinds for sure. It brings forth a new age of non-development app creation so non-programmers can build native applications for mobile platforms and even put them to market on app stores with no programming knowledge or expertise. Still not entirely easy, and I say that in complete ignorance of what a laymen can do. It took me a mere forty five minutes to build my first app on their site and have it running on my ipad.  A breakthrough in my opinion since I wrote zero code.  It begs the question why any platform can’t have success in software support if app generation can be accomplished with such ease.  Yes, I know you can’t build every kind of app this way and development tools like DevForce for Silverlight are trying to bridge the developer gap, but if it’s any sign of the things to come… I’m going to need a new career soon.