Which Phone To Develop For?

Rob MacKenzie writes "I have to decide on a mobile phone to develop for. We're building a house with some automation built in, and we want the mobile phone to be able to control certain aspects of it, and retrieve information on what's going on in the house. Our choices are the usual suspects: Apple's IPhone, RIM's Blackberry, Nokia's line (Symbian), any Android phone we can get in Canada, J2ME generic app, or a Web-based UI we would interact with in the phone's browser. What would you choose if you had to go with one? Which exact model? We will be buying a few to develop for, so price is a bit of an issue."

Comments

I'd go iPhone:

[nweaver]

You can target the iPod touch as well as the iPhone, and can develop on the iPod touch as well as the iPhone ($220 development platforms with no per-month cost).

You have some very interesting features (accelerometer, GPS, camera) which make for some particularly interesting ideas

You have a large installed base thats still growing rapidly.

And apple takes only a 30% cut of revenue, in exchange for a nice distribution mechanism.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[geekoid]

"And apple takes only a 30"

Only?

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[SanityInAnarchy]

You're practically self-parodying here...

You can target the iPod touch as well as the iPhone, and can develop on the iPod touch as well as the iPhone ($220 development platforms with no per-month cost).

Excluding, of course, the per-month AT&T contract.

You have some very interesting features (accelerometer, GPS, camera) which make for some particularly interesting ideas

All of which exist on other phones.

You have a large installed base thats still growing rapidly.

vs, say, J2ME, which has a huge install base that shows no signs of collapsing.

And apple takes only a 30% cut of revenue, in exchange for a nice distribution mechanism.

"Only" 30%? And they can pull the plug on your app any time they want.

All you've managed to do so far is to show that it could work, not why it's better than anything else.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[Anonymous Coward]

A little unclear from your post if you are trying to sell an application or if this is for your own house that you are building.

If you want to sell an application, Apple provides a great distribution mechanism albeit a currently buggy suite of tools to get your application onto the store.

If it's for personal use, they also provide an ad hoc means for loading applications on specific devices without having to post it to the application store.

Something to keep in mind is that if you want to develop on the iPhone, you need a Mac OS X Leopard development environment.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[alexj33]

You've got a nice long road ahead of you if you target the iPhone.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/09/how_apple_picks_which_apps_make_it_to_the_app_store-2.html

That is, unless it's a flashlight too.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[BitZtream]

How about one that won't cause you to be branded a DMCA criminal, or won't require you to give your code to the phone owner/maker or the hench-dog carrier? Or, one that won't enjoin you from selling your creation?

And which phone would you be refering to? Its obviously legal to develop apps for the iPhone since there are hundreds of apps available. Technically, Jailbreaking isn't illegal either so that can't be what you are refering to. If you are refering to sim unlocking, then you've broken your contract anyway long before you start to worry about DMCA violations, so thats not going to matter. And since you never have to send your code to Apple or AT&T, you just submit the binaries, I can't imagine that you could possibly be talking about the iPhone.

So what phone are you refering to? Or do you just like spewing ignorant misinformation so you look like a anti-fanboy?

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[Anonymous Coward]

Excluding, of course, the per-month AT&T contract.

That's why he said to develop on the iPod Touch. You don't need a contract with AT&T for that, and it can do everything the iPhone can (except it doesn't have a microphone).

All of which exist on other phones.

But it doesn't exist on *every* other phone. One of the huge advantages of targeting the iPhone is that you are guaranteed to have a specific feature set that you can rely on.

vs, say, J2ME, which has a huge install base that shows no signs of collapsing.

J2ME ain't that great to develop for, because you have no idea what sort of hardware you're targeting. Of course, it totally depends on what sort of application the OP wants to write, and if it's not particularly complex or processor heavy, then J2ME might work great. But if it's something that actually does require substantial processing time, or require certain features or hardware on your phone, then you could run into a situation where there's a lot of phones that either run your software horribly or can't run it at all.

Non-tech-savvy consumers don't like trying to figure out which software they can run, or which software will run well. They often don't understand, or don't want to understand, feature sets or phone specs. But on the iPhone, they know that every single program they buy will run exactly the same on every iPhone. And that's a HUGE advantage.

"Only" 30%? And they can pull the plug on your app any time they want.

All you've managed to do so far is to show that it could work, not why it's better than anything else.

Apple pulling the plug is a legitimate concern, and I agree that Apple's policy on how they handle rejected applications is pretty awful. But it depends on the type of application you're writing. Some types of apps so far have been completely safe, and only a few have been outright rejected.

As far as the OP is concerned, targeting the iPhone depends on whether or not the kind of customer base he wants to support is the kind that would use an iPhone or iPod Touch. The advantage is that the iPhone is rapidly becoming the most mainstream consumer level smartphone, and thanks to the huge amount of effort Apple put into it's user interface design, it's easily the most accessible, easy to use smartphone ever created. There's a lot of non-tech-savvy people who would never consider ever getting any other smartphone that would love to have an iPhone.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[bjackson1]

You're practically self-parodying here...

You can target the iPod touch as well as the iPhone, and can develop on the iPod touch as well as the iPhone ($220 development platforms with no per-month cost).

Excluding, of course, the per-month AT&T contract.

You have some very interesting features (accelerometer, GPS, camera) which make for some particularly interesting ideas

All of which exist on other phones.

You have a large installed base thats still growing rapidly.

vs, say, J2ME, which has a huge install base that shows no signs of collapsing.

And apple takes only a 30% cut of revenue, in exchange for a nice distribution mechanism.

"Only" 30%? And they can pull the plug on your app any time they want.

All you've managed to do so far is to show that it could work, not why it's better than anything else.

Excluding, of course, the per-month AT&T contract.

Yep, last time I used my iPod Touch I had to pay AT&T. Learn to read, please. You have some good points about J2ME, but spouting off non-sense doesn't help.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Yeah, I remember when that "iPod" thing was announced. I still feel bad for the suckers that bought one of THOSE things!

Oh, wait...

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[mattack2]

One's also legal, and one's illegal. (So is 'ripping' CDs you own.. I have never bought electronically distributed music [I have gotten some of the free tracks], but all of the music on my iPod is legal. I have considered buying the new songs on rereleased albums I already own the originals of, however... since the CD club I'm in doesn't seem to get most of the re-releases, or the Cranberries boxed set from a few years ago for example.)

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[mmurphy000]

vs, say, J2ME, which has a huge install base that shows no signs of collapsing.

Well, now, I wouldn't say that.

Looking at the smartphone platforms, iPhone doesn't support J2ME. Android doesn't natively support J2ME, though some folk are working on a J2ME compatibility layer. Windows Mobile supports J2ME, I think, but you have to believe that Microsoft would really rather you build apps using .NET. Only Blackberry and Symbian might consider J2ME strategic, and who knows what Symbian will do after their overhaul.

J2ME is in somewhat better shape on feature phones (things wimpier than smartphones), insofar as there is no aggressive competitor...yet. I predict Android will head to feature phones.

So, J2ME is a widespread option, but there are definitely chinks in the armor.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[FreeBSD evangelist]

Considering that they are taking care of all the billing, credit card processing, accounting and running the distribution/download site, yeah. I'd call that "only".

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"And apple takes only a 30"

Only?

He covered that with the bit about the 'nice distribution system'. Apple's training their customers to pay for apps. The real question is: Despite the 30% cut, would a developer still make more money? The amount Apple makes is immaterial.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[Sentry21]

Only, including the cost of development tools, distribution, credit card processing, bandwidth, etc.

You write your app and upload it, and then Apple sends you a cheque. Sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[cabjf]

Well, unless you're using specific iPhone features vs iPod Touch features, then it would work fine as they have the same interface and OS. That's like arguing against the J2ME platform because all those phones are different and have different features.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[omeomi]

That's like arguing against the J2ME platform because all those phones are different and have different features.

That's an excellent argument against the J2ME platform, and I've developed applications for J2ME, Android, and iPhone. With iPod Touch and iPhone, at least you have a good idea of the baseline capabilities of the device you're developing for. With J2ME, the devices are so different--and the providers configure them so differently--that you develop and test on a handful of different phones, finally get it to work on all of them, send it to a friend with yet another phone, and...it doesn't work. So you figure out what's wrong on his phone, and then you send it to another friend...and...it doesn't work. It's horribly frustrating. At least with the iPhone, you know if it works on your 3G iPhone, and it works on your original iPhone, it'll work everywhere. Hopefully Android will turn out to be somewhat similar. We'll only really know when there are a number of different Android phones available from different companies and different providers.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[XxtraLarGe]

Are you implying that developing and testing on a iPod will make the software sellable for iPhone?

Actually, that's absolutely correct. If you aren't developing an app that has iPhone specific features (camera, GPS or phone), then yes, developing for the iPod touch & the iPhone are the same for all intents and purposes. Quit trolling and do some research.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[EXMSFT]

You're kidding, right? Apple gives you a complete retail channel with a storefront and an end-to-end transaction that is brain-dead easy for the consumer, and leaves nearly nothing for the ISV to do besides make software, sign agreements, and "pay rent". You'd lose nearly as much if not more to a brick and mortar big-box store if you were wholesaling to them - and then you have to set up an entire retail channel - which ain't easy. People keep underestimating the value that Apple gives in this deal.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[lysergic.acid]

well, Android Market takes 30% as well. according to Google, developers are required to pay a one time $25 application fee when they register, after which they're free to upload their applications without any need for validation or approval. so instead of having to go through Apple's block box approval process, quality control will be implemented through a collaborative filtering system (user ratings) similar to Mozilla's extensions library.

it's been stated that developers will receive 70% of the revenue from each purchase, so that's inline with Apple's 30% service fee. though apparently Google doesn't receive any of the money made from Android Market:

developers will get 70% of the revenue from each purchase; the remaining amount goes to carriers and billing settlement fees--Google does not take a percentage. We believe this revenue model creates a fair and positive experience for users, developers, and carriers.

so again it looks like the cellphone carriers are trying to get their grubby little fingers on other people's money solely on the basis that they control the proprietary cellular networks the public depends on. well, at least it's good that Google is encouraging innovation and opening the platform to independent developers.

with the collective weight of the Open Handset Alliance (which is composed of pretty much all of the major players in the mobile phone/smart devices industry) behind the Android platform, it has a good chance over overtaking Windows Mobile and dominating the mobile devices market. i mean, Android has pretty much vertical as well as horizontal integration. they've got all the major mobile carriers, software developers, handset manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers, and handset manufacturers. the only big names companies that aren't behind Android are Apple, Microsoft, and Verizon. personally, i don't think they stand much of a chance against the OHA.

Apple gets their iPhone processor/chipset from Samsung and Marvell, both of who are now member of the OHA. and HTC, a major Taiwanese ODM that develops many popular Windows Mobile-based carrier-rebranded handsets has also joined the OHA. we know that their recently released T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream's Qualcomm MSM7201A processors (shared by the Palm Trio Pro) supports Android, so it's likely that other Qualcomm MSM line processors will also run Android. and it's reported that the HTC Vogue/Touch (Vodafone VDA Touch, Okta Touch, O2 XDA Nova, T-Mobile MDA Touch) can also run Android on is TI OMAP 850 processor. so chances are, other handsets based on the OMAP line will also support Android.

in fact, _all_ of HTC's smartphones, which represent a major segement of Windows Mobile handsets, use CPUs designed by other OHA members, including Texas Instruments, Intel, Samsung, Marvell, and Qualcomm. and if the one of HTC's Windows Mobile-based devices already runs Android, then the rest may will likely follow.

and a look at other Windows Mobile Smartphones shows that they all pretty much run on the same TI, Intel, Marvell, Qualcomm CPUs. so it seems these OHA members produce the vast majority (if not all) the CPUs used in mobile devices--or at least those currently running Windows Mobile. under these circumstances, i would not be surprised at all if Android starts supporting replacing Windows Mobile as the dominant mobile operating system.

Re:I'd go iPhone:

[SanityInAnarchy]

That's why he said to develop on the iPod Touch.

Actually, he said "You can target the iPod touch as well as the iPhone" -- and how many of the other toys (GPS, etc) are available on the touch as well?

But it doesn't exist on *every* other phone. One of the huge advantages of targeting the iPhone is that you are guaranteed to have a specific feature set that you can rely on.

That is, it's one of the huge advantages of targeting one specific machine.

That's like claiming Apple's homogeneous hardware is a good reason to target Mac instead of PC. Leaving aside the possibility that you might want to actually avoid vendor lock-in, and be able to choose a different manufacturer... If you really want to use exactly one line of computers, you can just buy a Dell.

Or, put another way: Take each J2ME phone individually. You've got tens, probably hundreds of possible targets to choose from, and it's probably trivial to port between them. Or you could go with the iPhone, which you can't even develop for in the same language.

J2ME ain't that great to develop for, because you have no idea what sort of hardware you're targeting.

Again: Why not? Pick one. Keep in mind, this is for a single person.

Non-tech-savvy consumers don't like trying to figure out which software they can run, or which software will run well.

...and I'll stop you right there. Non-tech-savvy consumers don't build home automation suites, and then write custom software to run on their phone to control it.

Regardless, most services come with some sort of store in which you can buy (or download free) software which has been tested on your phone. My current $1 phone can download from something called EasyEDGE. Android has an App Store, just like the iPhone.

Some types of apps so far have been completely safe, and only a few have been outright rejected.

That's a bit like saying "It's OK to have a dictator who can rape me anytime. I don't think he's gay, so my ass is safe..."

One: You don't know that.

Two: It's absurd that you should be asked to give away that right in the first place.

There's a lot of non-tech-savvy people who would never consider ever getting any other smartphone that would love to have an iPhone.

I'm not sure about that. I would guess a lot of tech-savvy people already have a "smartphone" of sorts, one which is ready to run J2ME apps. They didn't set out to buy a smartphone, and they certainly didn't pay hundreds of dollars (plus a contract!) for it. They just picked up whatever came free with a contract.

web based

[thetoadwarrior]

That way you can control things with or without the phone. Give it a simple interface and then you can use any phone or device with the web page.

Definitely Web-Based

[TellarHK]

If you design your system with a web-based system, you can even go ahead and add other types of device into the mix while still properly supporting a phone. Something that works with the aging Nokia 770's web interface, or even the newer 810 would work just fine with an iPhone, or any flavor of Windows Mobile.

In my personal experience, the iPhone would be a great platform for something like this - though the cost of entry isn't so great. However, the iPod Touch would do just as well unless you really need to have cellular access to things from long distances. The Mobile Safari interface is nice and clean, and the "Sliding" paradigm used in a lot of interfaces for it seems to be quite user-friendly and not too tough to work with.

Windows Mobile might be good for development of a standard application, and Windows Mobile devices are a dime a dozen these days if you don't mind going back a few versions. Unfortunately, the underlying OS is.. Windows Mobile.

YOu've missed the point

[geekoid]

Technology is becoming agnostic.
Build a 'phone' ready web page and stop worrying which device will connect to it.

Re:YOu've missed the point

[UnanimousCoward]

If you build a web app, it might not be able to take advantage of the phone's hardware, like the GPS. I originally built a web app but bit the bullet and wrote a native iPhone app for this very reason.

Re:YOu've missed the point

[Josh Triplett]

If you build a web app, it might not be able to take advantage of the phone's hardware, like the GPS. I originally built a web app but bit the bullet and wrote a native iPhone app for this very reason.

Fair point in general, but for the specific case of geolocation, some upcoming standards will allow pages to access that information if the user allows it.

https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_geolocation

Web Based

[Gat0r30y]

Id be hesitant to lock you into a platform before you even get started. That said, developing for the iPhone is pretty darn easy, if you are ready to get going, you can get off to a real quick start on it.

Windows Mobile?

[Flyskippy1]

Why not develop it for Windows Mobile? It doesn't have as many restrictions as an iPhone or blackberry, is well established, is widely available, and has a good sdk.

Though, I will say that the most flexibility would probably be from a web-based app. Then you wouldn't be limited to a phone. However, it wouldn't be too difficult to make something that could work both on Windows Mobile and desktop Windows.

Re:Windows Mobile?

[Arterion]

You don't have to buy a copy of Visual Studio to use the SDK. You can compile through the command line tools. It's just harder that way.

You can also use .NET on Windows Mobile phones, so your code can be portable to Windows and Mono -- which pretty much covers all the bases.

It is also possible to install a JVM on a Windows Mobile phone, and write your app in Java. Then you could probably use Eclipse, or what have you.

Unless you want to learn a new API

[w3woody]

Personally, having developed for Windows Mobile and the iPhone, my inclination would be to instead create a web-based UI.

The reason is simple: first, the web is pretty universal. You can (in theory) use it from almost any device with a web browser.

Second, it's going to be a lot easier to quickly prototype the control software than a custom client/server architecture with a custom protocol, which you'd get with nearly any mobile device.

And third, if you switch to a new brand of phone, you're not completely hosed; the worst thing that will happen are a few web page tweaks.

J2ME or Web

[jaminJay]

Seriously consider using either J2ME or Web-based content. You can never rely on any one thing, but standards like these should allow you to change target platforms more easily in the future when the company you've chosen to follow either busts or, more likely, drops one of the features you've relied upon and you have a large amount of rework ahead of you.

(My fantasies always revolved around the Palm, but that was the standard when those dreams began).

iPhone and OS X

[BWJones]

The cool thing about developing for the iPhone is that you are *essentially* also developing for OS X. So its almost a twofer.

Re:iPhone and OS X

[thetoadwarrior]

Or web based and go for everything rather than just two things.

Re:iPhone and OS X

[jeremyp]

Wrong.

The basic principles are the same (it's all Objective-C and Cocoa), but the GUI SDK for the iPhone is not the same as that of a normal OS X GUI application.

Re:iPhone and OS X

[BWJones]

Oh, please. You said it yourself: "The basic principles are the same"...

Of course it is not *exactly* the same in terms of the interface and some hardware specific calls, but the core code for the kernel is *essentially* the same.

I'm doing this too...

[wandazulu]

...and the "easiest" solution is to go the web route. You can determine, based on the browser identifier, what is connecting to your web server and adjust the CSS accordingly. In our app, for example, I use a CSS library from Google Code to make the app look like an iPhone app when I detect it's an iPhone. I use a different CSS file when it's anything Blackberry.

Your server, therefore, is what should be the controller. I'm assuming you want to connect somehow to things like the air conditioning, lights, etc. The web server can invoke a CGI program, as an example, which talks to whatever serial lines are necessary to control said equipment.

Even better, you don't need to buy the actual hardware; get XCode and you get an iPhone simulator. Likewise, RIM has a simulator for every freaking model of every phone they've ever released (as well as for the different carriers).

Total cost to you should be zip for development purposes.

So your house stops working if your phone breaks?

[Jazz-Masta]

I'd go web-based or Java, since many phones support it.

Think of the problems if you develop for a specific platform and it becomes obsolete. I imagine your home will be around for many years, but I doubt any interation of Android or the iPhone will be. Unless you plan to change around your programming when you get a new phone.

Anything that has strong ties to legacy software or hardware will be supported for a longer period of time. Look at user-base, ease of installation and repair, and of course, the track-record of the company...Apple would be a bad choice, I can see them switching things up without notice and all of a sudden you can't dim your lights.

You'll live in the house for decades...

[swb]

...but how long will any mobile phone technology last? Will you find yourself having to re-do it all every 5 years as phone/carrier makers obsolete what you developed for?

Web based makes sense since you could possibly transition to some other technology, or, more likely, a mobile device's web access will only get better making it in-place upgradable for a long time.

Building your software to target a specific phone technology just seems terribly shortsighted for something like a house.

(IMHO, the real answer is "none" -- home automation is of limited value past a programmable thermostat and ultimately an albatross of shit that doesn't work and is expensive and time-consuming to fix. Its frightfully expensive to maintain ordinary systems like windows, gutters, and roofs, let alone a whole complex automation system).

Re:You'll live in the house for decades...

[vux984]

Web based makes sense since you could possibly transition to some other technology, or, more likely, a mobile device's web access will only get better making it in-place upgradable for a long time.

I'd teir it. A web service tier that does all the actual work. A web based front end, lowest common denominator UI for any device including a laptop, it uses the web service to get things actually done.

Then you can just build a phone UI directly against the web service for any device you want a more 'slick mobile application' for than accessing it via the web.

Web-based, then iPhone, then nothing.

[kuleiana]

I might be biased, as we've developed over seven web-based apps for iPhone + mobile and it seems to be the best solution. If you have the budget for several platforms, I'd next go with iPhone. Widespread Android adoption will be a slow process, and a little too exclusive (did I just say that, even though I'm an iPhone user?!? ha). Other platforms, unless your ecology currently has a wide adoption of some particular platform, aren't widespread enough, and there's plenty of iPhone adoption that's already happened/happening.

But again, the Web is your best bet. It is the only one that will work on all your phones. Otherwise, it's the iPhone because all your base will belong to us. Mwahahahaha!

Here's an interesting article on the advantages of mobile AJAX, that I enjoyed reading: http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/getting-started-with-mobile-ajax

iPhone: low hanging fruit...

[AliasMarlowe]

>

You have a large installed base thats still growing rapidly.

A good fraction of said installed base has money to spend. All of them have a track record of being separated from their money with only moderate effort.

And separating other people from their money is the primary motivation for going into any business.

Because you're locked in

[dreamchaser]

Except with many smartphones you aren't locked into a single point of sale. There are plenty of very good Windows Mobile applications that vendors sell directly to the consumer, for example.

Re:Because you're locked in

[SQLGuru]

Plus, if you are already a .NET developer, the learning curve is almost nil. The number of phones is still large (and, if coded right, is just a recompile to run on things like netbooks and MIDs)......and you can make a desktop version, too.

Layne

Re:Because you're locked in

[i.of.the.storm]

Eh, the mods must be crazy. Why is this modded funny?

Re:Because you're locked in

[droopycom]

I do not have an iPhone, Windows Mobile Smart Phone, or Blackberry. I have a Nokia phone, and in the past i had a Motorola phone with Java.

The thing is, as a user, I dont know where to shop for Windows Mobile apps or Symbian Apps. The only app i ever downloaded was google maps on my Razor.
On the other hand, I do know where to shop for iPhone apps.

I'm sure there are thousands of places to buy or get mobile apps for the other platforms, but the thing is nobody is really promoting them to the consumers.

Apple is promoting its App Store directly to consumers, so if I was a developer trying to make money by selling to consumers, I would probably choose Apple.

But Microsoft, RIM and Symbian probably offer have better services and tools for developers (such as no stupid NDAs). If I wanted to make money by selling mobile enterprise apps, I might consider RIM or Microsoft instead, and target my advertising directly to potential customers.

Re:Because you're locked in

[Tubal-Cain]

Eh, the mods must be crazy.

You must be new here.

Re:Because you're locked in

[i.of.the.storm]

Says the guy with the UID 30% bigger than mine. But seriously, what? The guy made a valid point, and he gets modded funny? Also, wtf I got modded funny? Smartphones are serious business people.

Incidentally, I've been noticing that "Iceweasel for Windows" link in your sig every now and then, what's really the point of using "completely free" software on an unfree OS? Not trying to start a flamewar or anything, but I don't really see the point of Iceweasel in the first place, and IceWeasel on Windows even less.

Re:Because you're locked in

[Xemu]

Says the guy with the UID 30% bigger than mine.

Slashdot must be the only instance where men compares sizes, and smaller wins.

Re:Lots to consider...

[doricee]

Sorry about the repost, forgot to preview and put up that unreadable wall of text...

Apple's IPhone, Obj-C and you need an intel mac dev platform + Apple dev license. But if you got those yea it's pretty fun to dev on. Not really the same as the others though.

RIM's Blackberry, supports generic j2me and has it's own incompatible java api too.

Nokia's line (Symbian), supports generic j2me.

Android phone we can get in Canada. java based but not the same as generic j2me.

J2ME generic app. Preferred if you just want to make the app once and have it support the largest number of devices. (doesn't allow the really cool stuff though)

Web-based UI. Never tried this since I only work on mobile games.

The other dev handles WinMo though it seems pretty easy to work with.

Also keep in mind that Verizon likes it's apps in BREW. (the biggest money maker in the US by far, though At&t is pretty big too)

And if you're going international, most support various versions of java. (often incompatible though)

WAP & TAP

[Marxist Hacker 42]

For this purpose, I'd go dual interface, and not bother coding on the phone itself.

WAP (a cut-down version of HTML) works on all small-format web browsers, and should be your *high end* phone interface. But also, you should have a secondary interface, based on a voice modem, that is audio/keypress, and which would work with all phones hands down full stop.

Re:Go with what makes you comfortable

[Z00L00K]

The devilish thing is that mobile phones today are as the personal computers were before the IBM PC and MS-DOS appeared on the market.

Not that it was the best product that took over then, and we are still waiting for the 'killer phone'.

Apple could have taken that path if they were more open but from the perspective of a developer they are a locked-up dead end.

The phones that I think are the ones that's easiest to develop for are the Windows Mobile phones (horrible thought), but I haven't seen the Android yet, so I can't say it's better.

As for Symbian - I suspect that only Nokia will run that and that it eventually will die.

SonyEricsson is today targeting the Microsoft track, so they will essentially be diminished to a software shell and styled HTC phones.

None of the above, because it's stupid.

[Beardo the Bearded]

Consumer-grade crap is crap and it'll fail.

Get a real automation system and wire your house up properly. Hell, with what you're spending on your phone "solution", you could easily get some PLC controls and wire up your house so that it will last for the life of your house.

Here's some less-expensive stuff, but still of very good quality:
http://web4.automationdirect.com/adc/Home/Home

Of course, I'm just an EE that works in automation and control. What do I know?

Since you're buying more than one

[0xdeadbeef]

Buy a G1. It has the best tools (Eclipse) and the cheapest development costs ($25, and that's only if you want to distribute in the Android Market).
Blackberry is free unless you want to access certain APIs that require signing, then it's a one-shot $100. Their development environment is somewhat primitive, but you can use Eclipse and command-line tools as well.
iPhone, of course, requires a yearly $99, and they can reject you or your applications. You'd better like Objective-C and Xcode.
Series 60 (Nokia) is a PITA to develop for, though with them moving over to Qt that will get better. But don't expect their phones to be upgradeable.
Windows Mobile is easy to develop for, but Visual Studio will cost you.

Re:Since you're buying more than one

[AgentPhunk]

There is no Mobile development with VS Express. You either need VS 2005 Standard or VS 2008 Professional.

bash & ssh

[ngworekara]

I use midpSSH (a j2me app) to control a number of bash scripts/command line programs for my media center computer from a non qwerty phone. The program allows commands to be saved into command lists, suits my needs, and let me sell my samsung blackjack (received for free from an AT&T upgrade) and downgrade to the slightly less ostentatious samsung a707 sync. It seems like you might want to write the code for the fun of it, but if you're looking for a quick solution, anything you can do from the command line can be done with this arrangement.

Re:Openmoko Freerunner

[pipatron]

Thank you! I was reading retarded reply after reply, and was wondering why no one was mentioning the obvious.

The openmoko is clearly the best choice here, since you need to be able to have full control over your application if you want to do stuff like opening doors. Who knows what backdoors are hidden in the closed phones.

No need for overkill

[Drasil]

You gave the answer yourself: use a web interface and any phone with a browser.

Go with what you know

[Fross]

My advice is, developing for mobile phones is generally more fiddly than for most platforms. Eg if you're used to developing J2EE/J2SE, J2ME is going to be familiar but irritatingly different.

The low hanging fruit is definitely the iPhone. I tried to develop for it. I failed. Here are my personal pros and cons:

Pro:
Great API exposing all the unique functionality quite well.
Good quality documentation, when you can find it. (See below)
That functionality itself is great too.
Easy to develop free apps and getting them into the iTunes application store is actually pretty reasonable and easy.

Cons
Objective C. I really just don't like it. REALLY don't like it. As a Java developer, it has some niggles that set my teeth on edge.
The development environment. If you're used to Eclipse for instance, you might not like XCode. I didn't.
Documentation on slightly deeper subjects is not always easy to find. I was sometimes left scratching my head at strange behaviour that seemed undocumented, with no recourse to investigation other than Google. This is poor.
Buying an iPhone is not cheap, specially with the contract. Guess you could get away with an iPod Touch for most functionality.

YMMV. I decided to use someone else's apps, who was already developing something close to what I wanted to do anyway. Pity, but it just wasn't worth the pain to me.

Re:Lots to consider...

[Octorian]

The BlackBerry-specific API exists because J2ME has traditionally been far too limited and incapable for what they want to do with the platform.

That being said, I just came from the BlackBerry Developer Conference and have an interesting tidbit to share...

Whenever they were implementing some new feature, whenever possible, they did it based on a JSR, and not their own home-grown API. Seriously, the presentations were littered with references to JSRs.

Re:Openmoko Freerunner

[jeremyp]

I don't know, I'd prefer to develop for a phone that people are using.

Developing for the iPhone or J2ME means at least you have quite a large installed base for selling your software.

PalmOS

[RomulusNR]

It's the granddaddy of PDA OS and it's making a comeback.

I said it's making a comeback, dammit.

Grr.

One app to rule all phones?

[Heembo]

Build a bare-bones web app. Works on all phones and you can tweak it as your taste in phones change.

do NOT choose a phone

[ChrisA90278]

Don't design around a any phone that is on the market today. design around some standard interface. the you program whatever phone is popular this month to use that interface.

Western Electric 500 Series

[John Hasler]

Solid and reliable, if a bit lacking in features.

Which audience is more likely to buy a phone app?

[aaandre]

Apple users are well-trained to pay premium for everything, from the iphone accessories to the software applications.

I'd go for the well-paying techno-lusting, in-love-with their device user base.

While the bberry is highly addictive, it's used almost exclusively for the simple tasks of email/calendar/phone.

May I interest you in developing a $10,000 application which will display a message saying "I am filthy rich and you are my bitch!" on said device?

Good luck!

Re:Openmoko Freerunner seems like trash

[Tetsujin]

You can get the phone in Canada RIGHT NOW, you don't have to hack it like an iPhone or beg someone in the USA to send you one like the G1, and it is completely open source so there is no stupid EULA's to get in the way.

You know, in some ways that phone is real appealing... Particularly the whole "hackable" aspect. In other ways it looks like complete garbage, at both the hardware and software levels... I have trouble these days getting past the lack of a keyboard. I mean, I was a Palm fan until they decided to stop meaningfully improving the OS, so I'm down with pen computing - but I've also been using a Treo 650 for a couple years now, and I use that built-in keyboard all the time. I hate the idea of being without that.

I would be all over the G1, personally - except I hate the idea of a mobile device that doesn't allow you to develop and install native code. I don't like the idea of a Linux system that can't run "bash", or run the same software I run on my Linux machine at home... And I don't like the whole idea of my phone having to waste cycles converting one instruction set to another. I've had enough of that on the Treo with PACE.

Of course I recognize the benefits of a virtual environment for sandboxing, and of an API that's really designed for phone use... But to me the point of running Linux on a device is to be able to do Linuxy things with it...

All this is almost enough to make me turn to Windows Mobile - it doesn't require everything to go through an emulation layer like Android does, its operating software is a lot more mature than OpenMoko, you can get decent hardware for it (sliding keyboards, etc.)... Basically, it's still more of a "portable computer" system adapted to work as a phone (like PalmOS on the Treo) rather than "high-functionality phone" system like Android...

Why they gotta make this so hard? Android looks great except the whole "Linux appeal" is negated by the fact that you apparently can't actually get at it...

Nokia, or 100% WAP

[hydrofix]

Depends a bit on how compilicated the software will be. If it's very simple and a slow interface is not a problem, WAP + server-side PHP would be nice and the customers could choose any phone that supports WAP and GPRS (or whatever 3rd generation tech is used in the US) - which is practicaly any new phone in the market.

If you want to write the bulk software to run on the phone, I'd say Nokia's Symbian S60 line on Java, C/C++ or Python is a very good choice. It seems the C++ they use is a bit non-standard, but they also support Java ME which is much easier to learn. And Python.

Nokia has a pretty clean company portfolio, their SDK is based on Eclipse and all the relevant APIs are open, seem to be well-documented and full with developers manuals and code examples. forum.nokia.com is their the developer's site. Personally I have never developed mobile software, but I know some people who do mobile game development, and at least their employers seem to prefer Nokia S60. S60 has a very extensive range of phones, including touch-screen phones, and there's also a free emulator available. Sounds good, but I have no first-hands experience what so ever.

iPhone

[FreeBSD evangelist]

You guys didn't read the question. He's not asking which platform has the largest installed base or anything like that. He's asking the best way to scratch a personal itch.

The iPhone SDK running on a OS X Leopard machine beats the development platform of those other phones hands down. The only drawback is if you =don't= want to distribute through the apps store, or Apple rejects your app, you have to buy the commercial developer's license so you can get your own signing key. But you don't have to pay anything (nada) until after you've got your application completed and running in the emulator. Then it's $99 to submit to Apple, or $299 to sign and distribute yourself.

And, at https://developer.apple.com/iphone are video tutorials, reference libraries, sample code, how to's, tools, etc.

Make it easy on yourself.

Re:You're missing one.

[DECS]

Problem with Windows Mobile: the software market is dysfunctional: no central app store like Apple for at least another year, sites like Handango take 40-70% of your revenues, and WiMo market share is dying. Dropped from 24% in 2004 to 12% this year. Look at apps that are available: ugly, expensive, and lame-o. Consumers aren't attracted to that, and the installed base is falling apart. Microsoft sold 18 million in the last year, not even twice as many as the iPhone, except that the iPhone is one platform; all the WiMo devices are slightly different, with different features and capabilities, from non-touch tiny Smartphone screens to larger Palm-style Pocket PC form factors.

Look at RIM: Apple just passed them in sales this quarter. RIM sells replacement phones to a relatively slow growing base (19 million subscribers total, again less than double Apple's sales this year). Its installed base is also spread across a variety of different models.

Palm is dead.

Symbian is big but struggling. Difficult to develop for, has the same problems with marketing apps as WiMo. Nokia sells a lot of phones, but most don't run Symbian but only the feature phone Nokia OS. It's Symbian products are split between different hardware types, and the overall Symbian market is currently split between three platforms.

Flash Lite and Java struggle to run on hundreds of slightly different phones, which all have the same software marketing problems. Android is basically just a semi-consistent version of Java ME, the hardware will still be all over the place. Installed base is currently very small, and the G1 isn't going to help in that regard.

Apple's iPhone has a single installed base of over ten million units, and growing dramatically. It has a wildly profitable marketing system for software, good development tools that share a lot in common with Mac development, and a customer base that spends money. There is no real variation in hardware to deal with, nor problems between the software/hardware vendor.

So if you want to do mobile software to make a political statement, or because you like a certain technology, or just want to keep yourself busy, you have several options. If you want to make money, you write iPhone software and sell it to the ten million iPhone users and several million other iPod touch users.

Five More iPhone Myths
Myth 6: iPhone Developers will Flock to Android
Myth 7: iPhone Buyers will Flock to Android
Myth 8: iPhone will lose out to Steve Ballmer's Windows Mobile 7 in 2010
Myth 9: iPhone Unable to Penetrate Europe Due to Symbian Dominance
Myth 10: RIM's BlackBerry Will Contain iPhone Expansion

Comments on Blackberry, Windows Mobile

[Dan East]

I've developed for both Blackberry and Windows Mobile. You can develop for both platforms for free, and do not even have to sign applications. With Blackberry you do have to sign your application to use certain Java classes deemed "secure". It costs $100 for a license allowing unlimited signing. However, you can do full J2ME (plus some BB APIs) for free. Blackberry UI, processing speed and graphics capability is very, very poor. I have recently been experimenting to push Blackberry graphically, and have hit nothing but dead-ends (for example, the native display is 16 bit RGB-565, but all APIs to push raw image data are 32 bit ARGB 8888, so a very slow conversion is done by the system). However if you stick to API-supported rendering (basic font rendering, blitting with alpha channel, simple drawing primitives) then you can do quite a bit with good performance. Just don't expect to be able to do your own bitmap-level rendering in realtime (like rotozoom, bumpmapping, texture mapping, etc). All development must be done in Java.

Windows Mobile offers a ton of CPU power and RAM (I've ported both Quake I & II for example). Devices are available with 3D accelerated GPUs, touchscreens, VGA-resolution displays, CF, SD, Wifi and Bluetooth (all in a single device even). So as far as raw options in hardware capability and form-factor, Windows Mobile gives you the most choice. If your app will do some really heavy lifting graphically then Windows Mobile is the better choice. You can develop in the widest variety of languages for this platform - C, C++, C#, Java, ARM assembly, Pocket C, and Visual Basic (just to name some off the top of my head). With both iPhone and Blackberry you are restricted to a single language.

As far as iPhone goes, I've not delved there at all. Things I've heard that concern me are a non-standard programming language, restrictive distribution policy, and whether or not you can simply write and build an app and stick it on your own phone or not without having to sign it or otherwise register it with Apple.

Re:Comments on Blackberry, Windows Mobile

[phantomfive]

Things I've heard that concern me are a non-standard programming language,

Non-standard programming language? Come on, if learning a new language puts you off, then you really need to work on your programming skills. What is a 'standard' programming language, anyway? C#? Objective C is 100% backwards compatible with C, and will take you an afternoon to learn. Your much bigger problem will be figuring out the API, since it is significantly bigger.

Re:Comments on Blackberry, Windows Mobile

[GenP]

Weird, RIM's site says $100 for a signing key, and then $20 on the order page.

Why would you pick the iPhone?

[coppro]

I don't know about everyone else here, but from reading TFOP, it looks like he's working for a housing developer trying to build a house that can be controlled from the client's phone (it's not clear whether they are building for a specific client or attempting to sell, but it's irrelevant). As such, the iPhone (or iPod Touch) is the worst possible platform, as the idea is clearly to provide a specific application for one client, and Apple's distribution methods simply do not allow for it. A web-based interface is surely the best, as the client then doesn't need to buy a specific phone, but I would in the near future recommend Android from a moral standpoint, to try and support it and help kick Apple's dominance (which is stupid).