In the fourth quarter of 2009 world smartphone supply grew by 39% and reached a record peak of 54.4 million devices. Apple was the most active player in the smartphones market. Nokia was still on the first place by the quantity of produced devices (this figure grew to 20.8 million units, while market share was 38.2%). The second place gone to Research in Motion with 10.7 million smartphones. So the market share of the popular BlackBerry smartphone producer was increased to 19.6%.
According to the forecasts from business analytics more and more people in the world will gradually switch to smartphones. It means that mobile applications for such platforms as iPhone, BlackBerry, WM and Android will come to be in great demand.
Results for 2009: the companies produced 174.2 million smartphones and it was a 15% increase in deliveries comparing with the past year.
Steve Wozniak admitted in his last interview for NBC Bay Area, that he is a happy owner of the Google Nexus One smartphone. He so wanted to test this new gadget that bought it on the first day of Nexus One sales. Moreover, according to Mr. Wozniak’s words, now Google phone is one of his most favorite gadgets. Although he is still using iPhone as the main phone for communication.
Wozniak said that he regularly buys new models of mobile phones from different popular manufacturers. Besides Google Nexus One he used phones based on such mobile application platforms as iPhone and BlackBerry, also he tested the Motorola Droid Phone.
RIM products caused the most serious complaints from Apple founder. Mr. Wozniak has been using BlackBerry phone for a few months and as a result he has remained dissatisfied with it. And as for Droid and Nexus (which mobile apps were developed on Android OS), he considers them as excellent phones, stressing, however, that not every phone with the Android platform on board will be as good as Nexus One.
All mobile apps developers always face choice of the right platform. The existing abundance of mobile operating systems can easily throw you into confusion. Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian — which of them is the best one? And moreover we should take into account a large number of the applications and frameworks developed by manufacturers of cell phones, communicators, PDAs and smartphones. Let’s come to know the particulars of all this mobile stuff.
First of all, a developer should define the main objectives:
professional development of commercial mobile software or amateur development (open source);
target audience;
competitive abilities and competitive environment.
All this seems rather complicated. With relation to monetization (commercial development) it’s better to choose such leading OSes as iPhone and Windows Mobile. This variant has some significant pluses. For example: a large number of users who are ready to pay for their software. But at the same time you will have to compete with more than 200,000 developed mobile applications for Windows Mobile and iPhone. And as is well known Apple follows a quite tough policy of apps submission. That is why it may take a long time before your new program is approved and appears in App Store.
There were many predictions concerning IT in the network before the advent of 2009. First of all specialists expected to be surprised by the head of Apple, Steve Jobs.
Based on analysts’ predictions in 2009, Apple will please us with the following products:
- A simplified version of iPhone. It’s interesting to see what will be the segmentation of products in this niche from Apple, it already has iPhone and iPod touch, and those both are competing with each other;
- Cheaper MacBook (it doesn’t have a Netbook yet);
- Predictors are expecting a Netbook from Apple. It should be similar to the iPhone with 8-inch screen and keyboard, valued at about $ 900. It‘s expected that the new device will provide access to the Internet, email, media functions, as well as support services and the iTunes App Store;
- The new iPod Shuffle, which will be more compact than the existing device;
- In autumn a new MID from Apple will be presented, which will have a screen size of 7 or 9 inches and will be suitable for viewing media content, web-surfing and using applications from AppStore;
- Perhaps a major upgrade of Apple TV, at least, making this device as a video recorder. Apple is still looking for an opportunity to move the Apple TV from the «hobby» status into something much larger;
- Further development of Mac mini. This product is already beginning to forget. But Apple could start new life into the mini, releasing an improved version that would work with the new Cinema Display, and would allow you to extend the functionality. This could be a very attractive option for people who want something more than the iMac, but less than the Mac Pro;
- Further development of Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). But Apple itself has recognized that this update will not contain any major new user features. Particular attention will be given to the changes in the internal architecture of the OS.
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