Inaugural AppNation comes to a close in San Francisco

On the second and final day of APPNATION, the first major conference focusing on the App Economy and ecosystem, the issue of open or closed, and fragmented or uniform smartphone OSes was the most hotly contested topic. Also, Samsung publicly displayed their unreleased Galaxy Tab for the first time in North America—both on the APPNATION stage, and in the hands-on DEVNATION area.

Throughout the second day of APPNATION, Google’s Android OS was lauded for its surging user-base and openness, but criticized for its Marketplace and fragmenting platform.  “Android is an interesting beast,” said Joe Inzerillo, Senior Vice President of Multimedia and Distribution for MLB Advanced Media. “It’s not a single OS, it’s more like 10 or 12 different platforms.”

Apple’s iOS got high marks from many developers for its consistency across devices and its frictionless purchasing platform, but many expressed concern over the closed nature of the ecosystem.

Drew Ianni, chairman and founder of APPNATION, was particularly pleased with the debate. “Today we saw some interesting, differing perspectives on smartphone OSes, and that is exactly what we were looking for. We didn’t want to carry water for any one platform.”

The promise of HTML5 was also seen as a potential solution to the fragmentation problem facing some platforms.
Phil Newman, Director of Distributed Products for Weather Channel said, “We have a commitment to be on every major smartphone platform and we always have concerns about fragmentation.”

Newman continued, “But right now, we think that HTML5 is the current best bet to develop once and deploy across every platform.”  However, Newman was quick to couch his statement by adding, “Fingers crossed!”

The inaugural APPNATION was held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center North and had a registered crowd of over 1,200 regional and national app developers, media companies, ad networks, and other members of the app ecosystem.