iPhone is app development king

The iPhone operating system has come out on top of a new survey of application developers conducted by Ovum Research.

Ovum asked 217 mobile application developers from around the world whether they planned to use various operating systems in the near future for application development. Apple's iPhone OS came out on top, as 81% of respondents said they had already developed applications or where planning to develop applications for the platform. Following behind the iPhone OS were Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS, which attracted 74% of developers, and Windows Phone OS, which attracted 66% of developers. Android and Symbian, the two largest open source mobile platforms in the world, trailed the big proprietary operating systems by attracting 64% and 56% of developers, respectively. This is especially interesting for Symbian, since it's not only free to develop for; it's also still the most widely adopted mobile operating system in the world. Ovum analyst Tony Cripps suggests that Symbian's struggles have a lot to do with the rise of high-profile systems such as the iPhone and Android, as well as a perception that Symbian-based devices are losing favor with the public.