Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 1

Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 

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Appcelerator / IDC 

Q1 2011 Mobile Developer Report 

Summary 

Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,235 Appcelerator Titanium developers from January 10-12, 2011 on perceptions 

surrounding mobile OS priorities, feature priorities, and mobile development plans in 2011. The survey reveals how new 

entrants to the tablet market are changing application development priorities and how businesses large and small are 

accelerating their efforts to build a mobile application strategy to deal with an explosion in apps, mobile devices, 

operating systems, and capabilities. 

This quarter’s report shows that Google has nearly caught up to Apple in smart phone popularity and is closing the gap 

in tablets. Microsoft and RIM made solid gains through their product line update, while Google TV and Apple TV interest 

dropped off. As these trends unfold, it is also becoming clear that the days of mobile app experimentation are over. 

This year, developers and businesses expect to triple their app development efforts and the average developer is now 

building for four different devices. Meanwhile, a dramatic increase in the integration of geo-location, social, and 

cloud-connectivity services underscores new focus on sustaining user engagement, while increased plans to integrate 

advertising and in-app purchase business models points to a new focus on longer-term financial viability over free brand 

affinity apps. 

New Android Tablets to Challenge iPad 2 for Developer Mindshare 

With 85 new, primarily Android tablets announced at CES, developers are pushing these devices to the top of their 

priority list. Headlines from this survey round include: 


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• Tablet interest spikes across the board: Android Tablet interest jumped 12 points in three months to 

74% saying they are ‘very interested’ in developing for these devices. Interest in BlackBerry Playbook 

nearly doubled from 16% to 28%. iPad rose three points to 87%, while webOS Tablet interest remained 

flat at 16%. 

• With the Android Tablet market set to explode this year and the recent success of Samsung’s 

Android-based Galaxy Tab, 57% of developers say price will be the most important factor for success, 

followed by minimized fragmentation (49%) and then Android Honeycomb OS capabilities (33%). 

• For Apple, topping the iPad 2 wish list: new camera capabilities, a USB connector, and an improved 

retina display. 

• Android phone interest (87% ‘very interested’) rose 5 points to tie with iPad and close to within 5 

points of iPhone (92%). Yet Apple continues to be the number one priority with 10 billion app downloads 

to date. A common refrain: after iPhone, do I go Android or iPad? 

• While Tablets are hot, connected TVs are not. Interest in building mobile apps for connected TVs 

decreased across the board as Google dialed down its launch plans, TV networks blocked access to 

their content and developers increasingly focused on tablets. Google TV interest slumped 11 points to 

33% while Apple TV dropped 10 points to 30%. Developer interest in other alternatives like Yahoo TV, 

Boxee, and Roku was also minimal. 

• Windows Phone 7 rose 8 points to 36% ‘very interested’ due to a better-than-expected launch. 

Respondents said that Windows Phone’s improved UI was a critical factor for the increase. 

• Amazon’s newly announced Android Appstore shows early promise. While 82% of developers are 

interested in distributing their apps through the Android Market, 37% are interested in the Amazon 

Appstore, 13% for Verizon VCAST, and 9% for GetJar. 

• Interestingly, developers are about equally as interested in the Mac App Store (39%) as they are 

Amazon’s new Android Appstore. 

2011: The Race to Build a Mobile App Strategy 

The proliferation of apps, devices, platforms, and capabilities is causing businesses large and small to race to define 

a sustainable mobile strategy. This quarter, Appcelerator and IDC introduce a new “Mobile Maturity Model” to identify 

three phases of mobility adoption shaping up in the enterprise and consumer markets: ‘exploration’, ‘acceleration’, 

and ‘innovation’. 

Last year, most respondents (44%) said they were in the exploration phase of their mobile strategy. A simple app or two 

– typically on iPhone – and a focus on free brand-affinity apps was standard practice. This year, 55% of respondents said 

they are now shifting into the ‘acceleration’ phase. This phase is defined by the following trends and mobile strategies: 


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• On average, each respondent said they plan to develop 6.5 apps this year, up 183% over last year. 

• Businesses are increasingly taking a multi-platform approach. On average, respondents said they 

plan to deploy apps on at least 4 different devices (eg: iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, Android Tablet) 

this year, up two-fold over 2010. 

• Ubiquitous cloud-connectivity: 87% of developers said their apps will connect to a public or private 

cloud this year, up from only 64% deploying cloud-connected apps last year. 

• Always connected, personal, and contextual: in addition to cloud services, integration of social and 

location services will explode in 2011 and will define the majority of mobile experiences this year. Interest 

in commerce apps is also on the rise, with PayPal beating Apple as the #1 preferred method for payments. 

• Business models are evolving along with these more engaging mobile app experiences. Developers 

are shifting away from free brand affinity apps and becoming less reliant on $0.99 app sales. Increasingly, 

the focus is on user engagement models such as in-app purchasing and advertising, with mobile 

commerce on the horizon. 

• Outsource goes in-house: the enterprise takes control of its mobile destiny. 81% of respondents said 

they insource their development, with the majority saying they have an integrated in-house web and 

mobile team. 

These trends are summarized into four perspectives that any business can consider when building a mobile strategy: 

platform support, customer experience, development skills, and technology architecture. Understanding these perspectives 

will enable a business to maximize the opportunity that mobile offers while minimizing the challenge of proliferation 

and increasing complexity from the devices, capabilities, and operating systems that are analyzed in this report. 


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Survey Findings 

With so many product launches, new app stores, and a holiday season thrown in for good measure, our first area of 

focus is understanding how these events affect the broader mobile landscape. How did the news out of CES affect 

platform priorities? Do developers and businesses see Amazon or the new Mac Store as viable? Is Microsoft the 

‘comeback kid’? Here’s a deeper look at these and other trends that are shaping developer perceptions. 

After iPhone, do I go Android … or iPad? 

This quarter, Android phones equaled iPad in popularity. One of the common questions we get at Appcelerator and IDC 

is, “after iPhone, should I do an Android app or go iPad?” The answer typically depends on business objectives, but the 

conundrum is certainly highlighted in this quarter’s results (BTW: our common recommendation for pure market share 

and design reuse, think Android. For enhancing the experience, go iPad). 


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A look back at how perceptions have evolved over the past year: 

Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry phones posted solid gains on their new product launches. Compared to webOS tablet 

and MeeGo device no-shows, these two players remain solidly in the game for developer mindshare. 

How about those Android Tablets? 

The Android phone vs. iPad question is about to become even more complex as Android tablets enter the scene. 

Interest in these new devices shot up 12 points to 74%, clearly indicating a tablet showdown in the making. 

BlackBerry also fared well, nearly doubling the interest in their new device: 


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With Android tablets clearly on the minds of many developers, we looked at the critical success factors for these new 

devices from the developer perspective. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Android Honeycomb, Google’s upcoming tablet-focused OS: 

Fragmentation has always been at the top of the Android concern list, but price coming out on top of fragmentation and 

hardware/software capabilities was a surprising finding. We attribute this primarily to the sheer scale of what Android 

has become to the larger technology industry. From Samsung to Motorola to HTC to LG to Toshiba and countless others, 

if you add up the market capitalization supporting these new devices and look at the fundamental problem of how these 

players can truly differentiate, the biggest variable that will have the most impact (at least in the near-term) is price. 

Developers eye the enticing possibility of a sub-$100 tablet and think mass-consumer opportunity. 


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What about the iPad 2? 

No real surprise on camera support, but we found USB connectivity as number two to be interesting. With support for 

Airplay to be released to developers in iOS 4.3 and the possibility of a USB connector, the combination makes the 

iPad 2 much more extensible than before. Think of the iPad in a retail scenario as a point-of-sale device or in the living 

room as a command console for home entertainment and video games. Better support for 3rd party peripherals and 

content streaming will be a driving factor in keeping iPad ahead of the competition. 

Connected TVs: so promising three months ago 


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Last quarter, we looked in-depth at Google and Apple’s upcoming connected TVs. There was significant interest in 

the idea of reaching such a mass market on the same OS. Fast forward three months and this is no longer the case. 

Our read on the downturn in interest is that this is due to the avalanche of new mobile devices coming into the market. 

It doesn’t help that Google had some high profile missteps with engineering delays, TV networks blocking content, and 

TVs controlled with 50+ button remotes. 

New app stores spark developer interest 

Amazon and Apple have made significant news in the past few months on their new Android and Mac App Stores. 

Here’s a look at how Amazon’s Appstore compares to Google’s and others: 

And here are the findings around developer interest in the Mac App Store: 

What’s interesting here is that both Amazon and Apple’s new Mac App Store have about the same interest from developers 

(high-30’s). This interest level is about the same as Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry, but lower than initial enthusiasm 

for either the iPad last January or Android tablets late last year. In other words, we consider this to be a vote of 

opportunistic interest. Developers are saying, “I’m interested, but not enough to place a major bet”. As a side note, it’s 

interesting to see the relatively low marks for carrier app stores (in this case, Verizon). With 10 billion app sales to Apple’s 

credit, carriers will need to work much harder to show that they can make a significant market for developers than established 

commerce veterans Apple and Amazon. 


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More of Everything. Now. 

The Need to Accelerate Your Mobile App Strategy 

More apps, more devices, more operating systems, and more capabilities. Each year, Apple adds about 1,000 new 

capabilities into iOS. Each year, hundreds of new tablets, phones, and devices in-between make their way into, literally, 

billions of user hands. BlackBerry is up. Windows is up. Amazon is up. Even the Mac is up. What’s a business to do? 

This survey round, we took a deep look at how companies are responding to this explosion in new opportunity. We 

asked respondents across a range of issues on what they did last year in mobile and how their plans are evolving this 

year. We broke this analysis down into five parts. 

Building a Strategy, Part I: The Shift from the Desktop Web to Cloud-Connected Mobility 

This chart highlights three major trends: 

Trend #1: Rapid Innovation 

Last year, on average, businesses and developers created 2.3 apps per company. This year, that number is 6.5, or a 

183% increase in app development. Development lifecycles are becoming important. With so much innovation taking 

place at the OS and hardware level and app production on the rise, it’s becoming more important than ever to decrease 

not only time-to-market for an application, but the update cycle time as well. 

Trend #2: Cross-Platform Opportunity 

More businesses of all sizes are also increasingly going cross-platform, with total devices doubling from two to four (eg: 

iPhone, Android Phone, iPad, and Android Tablet) per surveyed company. As shown above, Android Tablets, BlackBerry 

phones, and even Windows Phone 7 are also on the rise. 

Trend #3: Ubiquitous Cloud-Connectivity 

As we enter a “Post PC” era, there is a rapid shift toward connecting mobile applications to the cloud. Last year, 64% 

of businesses said that they connected their applications to the cloud. This year, that number jumps to 87%. Even more 

interesting is that this increase is not limited to either the private cloud (eg: backend web services) or public cloud 

(eg: Facebook, Flickr, eg: YouTube), but both private and public cloud services. 


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What does this mean? 

As rapid innovation, app production, support for multiple devices, and cloud connectivity increase, businesses 

everywhere are shifting their energy away from a 3-tier web model to a distributed application model: 

This shift means dealing with several major information architecture issues, including: 

(a) Architectural changes from three-tier, browser-based web architecture to 

multiple device connected public and private cloud orchestration architecture. 

(b) Implications of data ownership and security as information moves into the 

hands of a distributed workforce. 

(c) Device management as ownership shifts from employer-liable to 

employee-liable/provided. 

(d) Changes from business logic in the cloud to a mix of business and 

application logic in the application on multiple devices and data connectivity 

and logic in the cloud. 

(e) Changes to application lifecycle management and the implications 

on tools, internal systems and skills. 

As a result of the challenges in moving from a centralized to decentralized model, it is becoming important to securely 

deliver new client-side services and data, develop a repeatable strategy for connecting distributed devices to the cloud, 

and embrace new, uniquely mobile, business models. 


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Building a Strategy, Part II: A Voracious Appetite for Services 

as Apps Become More Local and More Social 

In addition to cloud-connectivity, the use of a user’s location to set context and their social graph to drive adoption is 

becoming nearly ubiquitous. As well, the rapid availability and adoption of new mobile services like in-app purchasing, 

push notifications, and novel uses for the camera like barcode scanning is also increasing the need for a company to 

respond to the increase in application complexity by finding a flexible way to integrate new capabilities into their mobile 

applications as they become available. 

Building a Strategy, Part III: Beyond the Brand Affinity App 

The increase in demand for cloud services, location-based services, and social networking is also altering the business 

model landscape. Rather than selling a purely content-based application, these apps offer enhanced value based on 

deeper user engagement that drives additional and sustained usage over time. Concurrently this shift towards continuous 

value delivery to users lays the foundation for developers’ rapidly increasing interest in advertising and in-application 

purchasing. Developers are now demonstrably shifting into longer-term strategies through enhanced and continuous 

value delivery which in turn supports advertising, in-app purchasing, and mobile commerce business models. As a 

result, there will be fewer applications given away for free with “brand loyalty/engagement” objectives without a sense of 

how app development and support costs will be recovered, and less reliance on apps whose financial business models 

start and end with the initial app purchase. 


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Building a Strategy, Part IV: Outsource Goes In-house 

To stay ahead of the curve, more and more businesses are moving their application development in-house. Increasingly, 

integrated web and mobile teams are becoming responsible for a company’s mobile strategy in order to have complete 

control over campaigns that span websites, Facebook pages, and mobile devices. 

The other driver for in-sourcing development is to keep up with the rapid pace of innovation. Since application lifecycles 

can be as short as a year and the need for updates can be as short as a few days, companies are finding that outsourcing 

is a major headache after version one goes out the door. Short development sprints, internally managed by a team 

that has complete control over an app lifecycle is becoming more and more necessary to retain competitive differentiation, 

reduce complexity, keep up with the influx in device and service capabilities, and stay on top of the demands for 

rapid innovation. 


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Building a Strategy, Part V: Accelerating Through the Mobile Maturity Model 

All of these dynamics– from more apps to more platforms to more services to more business models – mean a fundamental 

shift is occurring in how businesses build and manage their mobile strategy. To put these trends into perspective 

and provide a prescriptive way to understand where your business fits, we’ve developed a “Mobile Maturity Model” that 

shows three levels of adoption: “Exploration”, “Acceleration”, and “Innovation”. We asked developers and businesses to 

identify where they were in 2010 and where they plan to be in 2011. We then define four different perspectives for viewing 

these maturity phases. As seen below, the shift to the “acceleration” phase is well underway: 


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Platforms 

“I need my iPhone app” was a common phase in 2010. No more. Cross-platform is mandatory, as is deploying to 

multiple form factors like tablets. In the third innovation phase, a business is thinking about possibilities across all 

major platforms and devices. 

Customer 

This perspective considers the shift away from simple content-based apps that inform or entertain to more complex and 

engaging applications that make use of location, social, and cloud services to transactional applications such as mobile 

commerce. As the customer experience evolves, so does application sophistication, customer expectations, business 

transformation opportunities, and the underlying business models. Free branded apps and a reliance on purely app store 

sales give way to advertising, in-application purchasing, and mobile commerce. 

People 

As shown earlier, there is an increasing shift from outsourcing to in-house development. What starts as a tactical outsourcing 

of development “to get an app done fast” quickly turns into a more strategic discussion around competitive 

advantage, control over a sustainable long-term mobile strategy, and rapid time-to-market considerations. 

Technology 

In order to meet the demand for more apps, new devices, frequent updates, and deeper customer engagement, a 

business needs to drive down costs, time-to-market, and complexity by developing and leveraging reusable components. 

For example, a media company needs to consider how to plug into its content library, backend analytics, video 

streaming, social connectivity, location-based notifications, and advertising systems in every application it produces. 

This enormously challenging exercise becomes exponentially harder and more complex for every new application and 

platform. Ultimately, this results in the need for a cross-platform, fully integrated mobile architecture that spans a 

company’s entire app portfolio. 

Concluding Thoughts 

As important as it is to understand what the mobile trends and priorities are and how they’re evolving, Appcelerator and 

IDC believe it is even more important to have a long-term, yet flexible mobile strategy in place to deal with the explosion 

of opportunity that mobile offers. The four perspectives discussed in the mobile maturity model above provide a foundation 

upon which a business can begin planning a well-constructed mobile architecture that stands the test of time. 


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About the Appcelerator / IDC Q1 2011 Mobile Developer Report 

This survey was conducted from January 10-12, 2011. Appcelerator and IDC surveyed 2,235 of over 100,000 developers 

who use Appcelerator’s Titanium application development platform on their plans, interests and perceptions of the major 

mobile and tablet OS providers. Developers were individually invited from Appcelerator’s user registration database to 

complete a web response survey. A raffle for a free Parrot AR Drone was made and only one response per user was 

allowed. Respondents’ answers were given freely with no incentive or compensation for their participation. 

Appcelerator developers represent a uniquely broad spectrum of backgrounds. 32% of respondents classify themselves 

as independent developers, with the other 68% coming from businesses. Appcelerator has a global audience, with 39% 

surveyed stating they live in North America, 43% in Europe, and 18% throughout the rest of the world. Note also that 

Appcelerator developers come from a web development background, so although they build applications with 

Appcelerator Titanium, they are used to working across multiple platforms. 

About Appcelerator 

Appcelerator is the leading enterprise-grade, cross-platform development solution on the market today, with over 1.5 

million developers using its software to power more than 10,000 cloud-connected mobile, desktop, and web applications 

used by tens of millions of users every day. The company’s flagship offering, Appcelerator Titanium, is the only 

open source platform to enable fully native, cross-platform development, from a single codebase, at web development 

speed for these three platforms. Appcelerator’s customers can leverage their existing skills and open, industry standard 

technologies to decrease time-to-market and development costs, increase customer adoption and revenues, and enjoy 

greater flexibility and control. For more information, please visit www.appcelerator.com. 

About IDC 

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events 

for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, 

business executives, and the investment community make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and 

business strategy. More than 1000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry 

opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 46 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to 

help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world’s leading technology media, 

research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com. 

Appcelerator is a registered trademark of Appcelerator Inc. Appcelerator Titanium is a trademark of Appcelerator Inc. 

International Data Corporation and IDC are registered trademarks of International Data Group, Inc. 

All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners 


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Report Inquiries: 

Scott Schwarzhoff 

VP, Marketing - Appcelerator 

sschwarzhoff@appcelerator.com 

Office: 650-269-5962 

Media Inquiries: 

Carmen Hughes 

Ignite PR 

Carmen@ignitepr.com 

Office: 650.227.3280 ext. 1 

Mobile: 650.576.6444 


Scott Ellison 

VP Mobile & Consumer Connected Platforms - IDC 

sellison@idc.com 

Office: 650-350-6440 

Michael Shirer 

IDC 

press@idc.com 

Office: 508-935-4200 

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Copyright © 2011 Appcelerator, Inc. and IDC. All Rights Reserved. 1

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