Survey shows growing interest in Android tablets among app developers

By Aemon Malone January 26, 2011

Market research firm IDC and Appcelerator, makers of cross-platform app development programs, have released findings from a survey that shows that Android has nearly pulled even with the iPhone in terms of developer interest. The report shows that 92 percent of the more than 2,200 developers surveyed say they are “very interested” in producing apps for the iPhone and 87 percent say they are just as interested in developing for an Android phone.

However, riding a wave that saw some 85 new tablets unveiled at CES Android and Blackberry devices are gaining momentum and are poised to overtake the iPad’s status as the tablet of choice for developers. The study finds that developers who say they are “very interested” in Android tablets has spiked 12 percent over the last three months to rise to 74 percent. Interest in the Blackberry Playbook almost doubled going from 16 percent to 28 percent over the same period of time. Apple’s iPad still holds the most interest among developers with 87 percent claiming to be “very interested” in developing for the platform, but that number represents a gain of only 3 percent.

As far as app development for Android tablets is concerned, 57 percent of developers say price is the most important factor to determine success, 49 percent cite minimized fragmentation as most important and 33 percent say the capabilities of Android Honeycomb OS are of greatest importance.

With interest in the iPad still high, developers say they would most like to see the second-generation iPad feature a camera, with a USB connector being the second most desired feature .

While smartphones and tablets are hot, Internet TVs are decidely not — according to the survey, at least. As Google has hedged its bets on its Internet TV effort and networks have declined to jump aboard a would-be bandwagon, so too has developer interest slumped. Only thirty-three percent of developers expressed interest in making apps for Google TV and 30 percent said they were interested in Apple TV — drops of 11 and 10 percent respectively.

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