Developers of location aware applications (LBS apps) are not interested in
creating apps for the Palm WebOS or Symbian platforms, reports Skyhook Wireless.
Developers primary application development environments included
iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, J2ME, and Symbian. These developers
are using location in 21 different types of applications, ranging from
education to entertainment, finance to music.
Only a few years ago
location was most widely used in navigation applications. Today,
location capabilities are widely available on smartphones and
developers are enhancing these types of applications with the context
of current user location.
Seventy three percent of respondents' applications require exact
location. Neighborhood level positioning is required by another 19%.
Very few want a broader city- (3%) or country-level (5%) approximation.
Similarly, 73% of developers agree that very fast location results are
important to their application's performance.
Developers are taking advantage of location in a huge variety of
apps," said Kate Imbach, director of marketing and developer programs
at Skyhook Wireless. "As developers make plans for investing in new
platforms, location capabilities play a big role in their decision
criteria."
Over half (56%) of respondents will port their applications to other
platforms. 58% of non-Android developers plan to port to that platform,
while 40% of non-iPhone developers plan to port their application to
the iPhone.
Developers are least interested in Palm and Symbian, with only 8%
and 9% of developers planning to port their applications to those
platforms, respectively.
The full survey report is available at http://www.locationrevolution.com/stats/SkyhookDevelopersSurvey2009.pdf