Fragmentation And New App Stores, The Future Of App Development?

E-reader company Kobo, who are a Canadian tablet and e-book manufacturer owned by Rakuten, a massive Japanese e-commerce corporation, just announced the release of a limited edition e-reader with, they say, the highest resolution screen of any e-ink device. It’s being priced at $169.99 and will only be produced in limited numbers. Kobo have also announced along with this release that they plan to open their own app store soon, following on from a decent track record of sales until now.

Now, does it not seem that this is yet another new app store arriving on the scene?

Alongside Kobo, we have Firefox OS recently announcing their own app store, then right beside them is Ubuntu, and then we have Sailfish from Jolla and Tizen from Samsung. Then we have the individual app stores for Smart TVs and the various smaller app stores for individual devices like Nook e-readers.

There have always been more App Stores out there than most people realise, but in this modern mobile age it seems like they are popping up all over the place.

This isn’t necessarily a problem, after all the more stores, the more choice for consumers and the more competition there is in terms of pricing and product quality. It does, however, create a problem that all developers dread; fragmentation.

Android developers have had to deal with it more than perhaps any other mobile developer. There are thousands of different types of Android handset out there, all with different screen sizes, different performance capabilities and of course, different versions of Android. It’s taken until 2013 for Gingerbread to start being beaten out by the much more modern Jelly Bean in terms of number of active handsets. Even in iOS there are now different screen sizes and performance capabilities that developers are increasingly having to work with if they want an app that can work across the iOS range.

Then of course, as app developers, you might want to get your app onto multiple OS but that of course creates further problems as you either port or rebuild your app onto the other OS, and then you have to maintain multiple apps across different code bases.

It raises the question, do we need, or indeed want, more and more mobile OS and app stores?

It’s an interesting dilemma.

On the one hand, it will create more opportunities for app developers than ever before. Now you don’t need to compete in the flooded markets of Android and iOS, you can target a smaller, niche user base. New OS like Firefox and Sailfish give small and new developers an opportunity to cut their teeth in an environment that isn’t swimming with sharks and the giants of the app world and it lets more experienced app developers try out new ideas in a place where they’re more likely to be found.

On the other hand, the relatively small user bases could work against developers. They may be creating amazing apps and getting good traction, but they may just not be getting the numbers they need to be sustainable in a business sense. The newer platforms are also relatively untested and in the economic climate we have right now, it wouldn’t be the most unexpected thing to see a small OS go under or be swallowed by a larger cousin, taking all its apps with it.

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