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Whilst recently developing a proposal for an organisation in Australia, I conducted some quick research into demand for Smart Phone developers. What I found was not surprising. I have been hearing from colleagues in industry that they are “extremely busy”. Lots of organisations want Smart Phone Apps to complement their existing offerings, or a “me too” advertisement.

What Do We Mean By ‘Smart Phone?’

As of December 2010, when we say Smart Phone we mean iPhone or Android. The newer Blackberrys fall into this category, but from a developer’s perspective, they are the black sheep of the family (pun!) At a recent Mobile Monday meeting in Melbourne, the RIM marketing rep claimed the upcoming PlayBook used C# for development. Methinks the RIM corporate culture does not respect third party developers.

So narrowing the definition down to iPhone OS and Android OS devices, what kind of demand shifts are we seeing? Thankfully Recruit.net in Asia and Indeed.com in the US have some great tools for graphing keywords in job advertisements. This is really broad brush, but the steepness of the graphs don’t take a PhD in statistics to interpret. For each graph, the iPhone appears in BLUE.

What Are The Trends?

United States – iPhone, Android

Australia – iPhone, Android

Singapore – iPhone, Android

Tokyo – iPhone, Android

Some Outlandish Conclusions

Attention parents of new born babies: start teaching your children Objective C concepts using Lego blocks and lashings of encouragement! More seriously however,  for me this confirms that the last 12 months were the beginning of the demand spike, and also that the skills necessary are in short supply!

From a developers perspective, the bulk of the market is not there yet. On the supply side, corporates with websites and highly evolved marketing and IT functions are just starting to sniff around the iPhone / iPad / Android space. On the demand side, whilst huge numbers of people have smart phones, there are still many many hold outs still happy with their feature phones (we know who you are, please upgrade!)

Outlandish Predictions for the Next 12 Months

On the development side, Google and Apple will hopefully get improved authoring tools. Already there are many “cross platform” platforms like Appcelerator Titanium, ANSCA Mobile’s Corona and Phonegap to make things easier. However the first two take the “kitchen for hire” approach, as your apps cook on their servers and not your local computer. Whilst Phonegap is local to your computer, it is focused on creating customised HTML/WebKit apps and not fully native apps.

PREDICTION #1: In iOS world,  someone will enter the fray with alternatives or extensions to Xcode and Interface Builder. They are great professional tools, but the learning curve is a blocker for many.

PREDICTION #2: Google will release something to make development easier on both Android and iOS. Why? Because doing so will entice more iOS developers to the Android program. Android users are notorious for not wanting to pay for apps, and piracy is a lot easier than on the iPhone. These are real deterrents for small developers who are still looking for their first million dollars of revenue.

On the demand side, 2011 is definitely the year of the Pad / Tablet / Slate computer. A lot of companies are starting to see the possibilities of this great device. It heralds the true beginning of the move from creation devices to consumption devices.

PREDICTION #3: Requests for contract iPad apps will dwarf requests for iPhone apps. Likewise for Android equivalent devices.

PREDICTION #4: The Blackberry Playbook will see a flood of requests to hastily port Flash and Adobe Air apps to the device. Developing Adobe Air Apps on the Playbook will no doubt be harder than expected and fraught with unexpected issues. In particular, Blackberry’s culture will be a blocker for dealing with oodles of developers in the SME space (why bother with SME’s when I can hit my target by dealing with a handful of Fortune 500 clients?!?!)

PREDICTION #5: The companies currently putting effort into selling tools and services to developers will report some early victories. You know what they say: when there’s a Gold Rush, the smart money is on people selling shovels!

Review Scheduled For December 2011

Let’s plan to review these trends and predictions again in 12 months time. No doubt this space will only get even more interesting. It’s nice being at the center of it all.

Wishing you a Happy Xmas and New Year from Long Weekend
〜 あけましておめでとうございます〜

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 8:36 am and is filed under Technobabble. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.