Ina Fried

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As Apple, Google and Microsoft Kick Off Developer Events, Momentum Still With the iPhone

Monday kicks off the start of a three-week spree of events aimed at winning the hearts and minds of mobile developers.

Apple will get first crack with its Worldwide Developers Conference, which runs next week at downtown San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Next up is Microsoft, which plans to outline the future of Windows Phone at an event on June 20.

Google, meanwhile, will have plenty of Android topics on tap at its annual I/O conference, which runs June 27 to June 29.

Research In Motion is also hoping to convince developers to invest in its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 operating system. A traveling “BlackBerry Jam” developer event made a stop in the Bay Area on Thursday.

For its part, mobile development tracking firm Flurry says that roughly seven in 10 new projects are for iOS, rather than Android. That’s largely consistent with other recent quarters.

“Among the reasons iOS appears more attractive to developers is the dominance by Apple in the tablet category,” Flurry said in a blog post on Thursday. “Not only does Apple offer a large, homogenous smartphone base for which to build software, but also when developers build for smartphones, their apps run on Apple’s iPad tablets as well. That’s like getting two platforms for the price of one.”

Flurry also said that developers continue to be able to generate more revenue on Apple’s platform. Their estimate is that for every $1 earned by iOS developers, Android developers see only 24 cents in revenue, similar to its prior findings.

“At the end of the day, developers run businesses, and businesses seek out markets where revenue opportunities are highest and the cost of building and distributing is lowest,” Flurry said. “In short, Android delivers less gain and more pain than iOS, which we believe is the key reason 7 out of every 10 apps built in the new economy are for iOS instead of Android.”

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