Coders tip Google Android for eclipse of the Steve

Seventy-two per cent of developers believe that Google's Android is "best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future," whereas only 25 per cent favor Apple's iOS, according to a new study.

Appcelerator – the outfit whose Titanium dev kit was recently freed from the threat of Jobsian destruction – has now teamed with tech research mainstay IDC on its regular mobile developer studies, and their first joint effort indicates that although developers are currently more interested in Apple's platform, they see lots o' Google in the future.

The survey polled over 2,400 Titanium developers, and 91 per cent said they were "very interested" in iOS, compared with the 82 per cent who said the same thing about Android. But 59 per cent favor Android’s "long-term outlook," compared with only 35 per cent for iOS. This gap, Appcelerator says, has widened 10 points since its last survey, just three months ago.

The gap has widened in part because these coders believe Android is better positioned in the fledgling connected TV market. Forty-four per cent said they're ‘very interested’ in developing for Google TV, compared with 40 per cent for Apple iTV. Apple's platform has a head start of sorts, but the first iOS incarnation has yet to ship and Google's Android-based platform may arrive at around the same time.

Sixty-two per cent of those polled said they were "very interested" in developing for Android tablets, which puts it well ahead of future tablets based on HP's webOS (16 per cent) or some sort of BlackBerry OS (also 16 per cent). But it would appear that devs are still concerned about Android fragmentation. Seventy-four per cent described Apple's iOS as the "least fragmented," with only 11 per cent saying the same about Android.

Four out of five developers polled said that their users prefer native applications to web apps. Titanium is a platform for developing native applications with traditionally web-happy languages. Meanwhile, ninety-three per cent of developers said that Oracle's lawsuit against Android has "little or no impact on enthusiasm" for Google's operating system, and eighty-three per cent said that Apple's decision to lift certain developers restrictions earlier this month had "little or no impact" on their love for iOS.

But we find that last bit hard to believe. Before Steve Jobs lifted his ban on code translation, we have no doubt that Titanium developers were very worried indeed.

You can view the full report here. ®