Some companies are taking a do-it-yourself approach, which will create a healthy buzz around their platforms
Apple only makes 11 of the 350,000-plus apps available on its app store, preferring to focus its energies on new hardware features and applications programme interfaces (API) for its community of mobile operating system (iOS) developers to use.
Its rivals are eagerly courting those companies to port their apps to Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, webOS and the rest, while pitching the merits of their own developer ecosystems. However, in parallel with that strategy, they are also taking a do-it-yourself approach to ensure they have some apps that aren't available on Apple devices.
Microsoft is the latest example, as outlined in a New York Times (NYT) feature this weekend. It describes the company's policy of encouraging staff to develop Windows Phone 7 apps in their spare time, keeping 70% of the revenues and (just as importantly) 100% of the intellectual property, rather than taking ownership itself.
"We tend to have strict moonlighting rules," Microsoft's Brandon Watson tells the NYT. "But we've changed those rules so developers can do this in their spare time, and have the financial benefit and outcome of the work."
The example given is Instagram-esque photo app Bubblegum, but Watson says there are more than 840 employee-developed apps already available for Windows Phone 7 (WP7), with 3,000 staff having signed up to the scheme.
Microsoft is far from the only company adopting the do-it-yourself approach to its apps platform. Many of the apps pushing the boundaries of Android the most are made by Google ? compare the downloadable Google Maps app for Android with the preloaded one for iPhone for example.
Google's famous 20% policy of allowing employees to pursue their own projects in work hours will fuel more good app ideas, while in January, the Wall Street Journal claimed Google is actively recruiting small teams of developers to make Android apps too.
Meanwhile, Research In Motion's (RIM) latest self-made app is BlackBerry Radio ? currently in beta ? while it has also built bespoke apps for U2 and even Facebook, as showcases for some of the BlackBerry APIs available for other developers to make use of.
Nokia's Beta Labs teams have been responsible for innovative Symbian apps like Nokia Sports Tracker and Point & Find in the past, while more recently, the company has worked with digital agency Marvellous to make apps for its Ovi Store.
Few homegrown apps ? RIM's BlackBerry Messenger excepted ? are likely to convince significant numbers of people to choose one smartphone over another. It's probably still more important to secure ports of the key apps from iOS, as shown by Microsoft's announcement last week that Angry Birds, Doodle Jump and Plants vs. Zombies will all make their WP7 debuts in April.
Even so, a flow of original, innovative apps will create a healthy buzz around the platforms of Apple's rivals. Could the next Foursquare, Instagram or Angry Birds be spawned within Google, RIM or Nokia, rather than without? That might sound like crazy talk, but there's no harm in trying.
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