Re: the big question

Full disclosure: I work for Appcelerator, on making the iOS part of the platform, but if it matters, my personal phone is an HTC Amaze. I'm still waiting for Ice Cream Sandwich. My views do not reflect that of Appcelerator, IDC, yadda yadda yadda, and I should probably get back to work.

I won't comment on fragmentation being real or not, it being FUD or not, because that I can't state from fact. I can state the survey was of the perceptions of the developers that use Appcelerator's product, Titanium, and may be influenced by what Titanium currently supports on each platform. But mostly, I want to clarify the purpose of the survey, and dispel beliefs that it's paid-for.

Follow the money: Appcelerator makes a platform/frameworks that runs on iOS, Android, Mobile Web, and a few others that haven't been announced yet. That's the bread and butter; that's the money source. Nobody 'pays' for the survey in terms of influencing opinion, because if they want to influence company decisions on whom to support, there's more effective means. The survey's primary focus is to internally know how the company's doing and determine what other platforms to support/focus on; the actual survey also included developer opinions on documentation, SDK, IDE, support, etc. The secondary focus is to get media attention and free advertising by people covering the report. Whether or not the report is favorable to iOS, Android, or the Commodore 64 doesn't matter; it'll still get media coverage.

If you want to be most cynical about survey-rigging, it would be in Appcelerator's best interest to indicate a cross-platform solution like Titanium is best. That would involve a survey showing all the platforms neck and neck, and NOT to show iOS taking a larger lead.