Developers leaving the iPhone? Not yet.

There have been a number of articles written lately about developers leaving the app store in frustration. ArsTechnica Facebook Developer The reality is that these folks leaving are very much a minority and will make very little difference in the short term. It is kind of like an employee that leaves a company because the employer is treating the workers like crap. The question is why do the other folks not leave? And will that change?

The reason is that there are over 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches. iPhone sales numbersOver 50 million potential customers. No other app store can match this right now. Trism

Fast forward 12 months. Because Android isn't locked to just one carrier or even one manufacturer, the number of Android devices will grow significantly over the next year. Apple is leaving money on the table by locking themselves into AT&T. Sure, they are more profitable per handset sold, but the cost of not having sold twice as many devices will catch up to them within a year.

Back to my employee/employer example... If an employer abuses its employees when the economy is down and workers can't leave, it will catch up with them as soon as the economy picks up. Apple will find themselves in this situation a year from now. A year from now the Android numbers will be high enough to make it every bit as appealing of a platform to business on as Apple's. At the end of the day it is all about the numbers.