Less than 10% of LBS Developers Will Port Apps to Palm & Symbian
Written by Skyhook Wireless
Wednesday, 08 April 2009
Accuracy and speed key for 21+ application types using location
BOSTON-- Developers of location aware applications are not interested in creating apps for the Palm WebOS or Symbian platforms, according to a survey conducted by Skyhook Wireless, provider of the patented hybrid location system XPS. High quality location results are key for these developers, who are using location to enable over 20 different types of applications.
Respondents' 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.
Founded in 2003, Skyhook Wireless has pioneered the development of the first hybrid positioning system to fully leverage Wi-Fi, GPS and cell towers delivering precise location data supporting the growing market for location-based services. Skyhook's hybrid positioning system XPS requires no new hardware, works indoors and outdoors, provides an instant location and is more accurate than current technologies in congested downtown areas. Skyhook Wireless is headquartered in Boston, MA, and is privately held. Investors include RRE Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Intel Capital and CommonAn
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