Of late, I’ve just been struck by how frequently new software development work is being done for the iPhone - whether it’s LinkedIn’s new mobile interface, Gmail’s latest mobile updates or Remember The Milk’s mobile features. All this is being done for a device with 2% or less of smartphone market share, and which is the only device with its OS. Compare that with other mobile operating systems like Windows Mobile, Symbian, RIM’s OS and even Palm and they all dwarf iPhone’s share.

Now, if I were a developer, I imagine I might quite enjoy the challenge of developing for such an attractive and highly-functional platform. But in doing all this, these developers are tying up finite resources in developing a platform which will serve only a small fraction of the userbase of their web services / sites. And although not all these companies’ mobile development resources are going into iPhone they often seem to launch for that platform first, and roll out the newest and best features there first too. Admittedly, this is partly because the iPhone is a much more capable platform than its competitors, but even so these companies are alienating the 95% plus of their users who are not iPhone owners but do want to use their mobile devices to access their services.

Now, I’m speaking here mainly as a non-iPhone-using mobile user. I resent some of this at a personal level, but that’s neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. The larger implication is that those other mobile platforms need to take notice of this trend and do something about it. Apple hasn’t released the SDK for the iPhone yet (though that’s imminent) and it has a tiny market share, but even so developers are paying attention and prioritizing iPhone development. This should tell those responsible for other operating systems and device platforms that they have some serious catching up to do in order to attract that kind of energy and attention. Just think what will happen when the iPhone actually has significant market share…