Appcelerator/IDC Q3 2012 Mobile Developer Survey Reports Majority of Developers Believe Mobile Start-up Could Disrupt Facebook

World’s Largest Mobile Developer Survey Reveals Most Popular App Form Factors for 2015, Apple and iOS Dominance, and Ongoing Issues Developers Face Supporting Multiple Platforms. These are just a few key findings.

In conjunction with IDC, we are pleased to share results of a joint survey of more than 5,500 Appcelerator developers – the world’s largest mobile developer survey conducted to date. Findings reveal that a majority of developers believe a mobile-first social startup may disrupt Facebook. The report also states that developers predict they will be building mobile apps for form factors such as televisions, connected cars, game consoles, Google Glass, and foldable screens by 2015. Apple continues to reign as the platform of choice, while Android development remains in decline, and interest in developing for RIM sinks to an all-time low.

Opinon piece by guest blogger Carlos Icaza, co-founder and former CEO of Ansca Mobile, creators of the Corona SDK cross-platform mobile app development toolkit.

Apple recently announced its Q3 2012 earnings and, depending on who you asked, it was either great news or slightly disappointing.  On the disappointing side, Apple surprisingly fell short of Wall
Street expectations pulling in $35 billion in revenue compared to the predicted $37.2 billion, and selling just 26 million iPhones to Wall Street’s prediction of 29 million mobile devices.  The Cupertino company did however manage to completely shatter records of iPad sales, shipping out over 17 million tablets between April and June, representing an 84% unit increase from the same quarter of last year.  What prompted such a spike for the revolutionary tablet? Apple CFO Steve Oppenheimer points to adoption from enterprise, and according to the Appcelerator/IDC Q2 2012 Survey, Titanium mobile app developers resoundingly agree.

Sorry Dunder Mifflin, the age of paper is coming to an end in yet another industry.  Thanks to the people at GlobeSherpa and their mobile app TransitSherpa (created on Appcelerator Titanium), soon the process of purchasing tickets and traveling will be paperless for the users of the TriMet in Oregon. TriMet has the aim of partnering with GlobeSherpa to automate the ticket buying and browsing process, allowing transit users to organize their journey entirely from their mobile device. Though TransitSherpa has yet to be released, it has already earned GlobeSherpa well-deserved attention.

Alright UI/UX Designers, Guru’s and Mobile Mavens. Here is a quick list of the top five DON’Ts when designing a mobile app. While we all hear about what we MUST do to create the perfect app, we rarely hear the common pitfalls that ALL of us make from time to time. As a reminder to myself, I created the top five mistakes I try to avoid when designing apps for our clients.  As I have been told, this list is GOLD and should be bookmarked. [hint, hint]…. Come back, enjoy and certainly add to the conversation in the comments section.

As head of Appcelerator's Alliances team, I have the privilege of working with many of our talented technology and integration partners as they build out our ecosystem and leverage the Titanium platform to deliver rich mobile applications for their clients. I am constantly amazed by the energy, excitement, and unique point of view (POV) these dedicated entrepreneurs bring to our community. Today, I'm pleased to introduce one of our integration partner luminaries-- Brad Weber, founder and president of InspiringApps (based in Boulder, Colorado) to guestblog on a topic where we are seeing increasing interest-- enterprise applications. I met Brad a few months ago, and was immediately struck by his experience with, focus on, and passion for delivering engaging, rich business applications to his clients. So I asked him to share his perspective with the Appcelerator community at large: business applications — the past, present, and future.

Earlier this morning Apple CEO Tim Cook started the WWDC party with the keynote address in San Francisco.  While impressive updates for MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and OSX were announced, it was clear that the focal points of the event were the mobile apps and the 200 new features of iOS 6.  Cook stressed the way mobile apps are changing our world by choosing to open his speech with some surprising stats: