The app war is not over yet. Yes, Android® has overtaken iOS® as the largest mobile operating system, and its app market is quickly catching up, however Blackberry® is battling to stay relevant and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7® is quietly stealing market share and growing.

The ‘app store’ concept is also quietly expanding beyond just smartphones and tablets as Apple recently launched an app store for Mac software, and Google® has given web application developers an easy distribution channel through the Chrome app store.

Also, in terms of mobile operating systems, the buzzword of the year is going to be "integration." Apple’s iOS is working to integrate seamlessly between the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Mac computers so that users can easily switch between hardware with little interruption to whatever software they are using.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 already has an extremely advanced integration service making it very easy to switch between Windows 7, Windows Phone 7, and the Xbox® 360 (through its Xbox LIVE service). This is also heavily rumored to be one of the main focus points of Windows 8, which will allow more seamless integration between miscellaneous devices and bridge the gap between mobile and desktop operating systems.

The webOS advantage

HP’s long term focus with webOS is integration (our buzzword for the year). As the largest manufacturer of personal computers, HP is hoping that it can join the operating system game by adopting an integrated web+mobile+desktop strategy based on its new webOS, which it recently acquired from Palm and has seriously enhanced since then.

In addition to launching multiple smartphone and tablet devices this year, HP is planning to ship its webOS operating system with every PC that they sell starting in 2012. At over 60 million PCs every year, this could potentially create a huge user base for webOS apps, which also creates a huge potential market for app developers.

According to recent statements, webOS will be integrated into Windows by running through a web browser by the end of this year, and it will also function as a stand-alone OS on tablets and smartphones, which will be released this summer.

Judging by recent previews of webOS and updates to Palm devices that were shipped prior to the merger, HP is serious about creating a very good solution for customers and for developers. HP has all of the infrastructure and services already available to support a truly integrated solution, and there is a lot of promise to what they might be able to accomplish.

The biggest challenge going forward will be getting customers to pay attention, and pulling them away from the Android and Apple platforms. HP is launching a series of webOS phones this summer, as well as a tablet which will be priced to compete with the iPad 2, which may act as a barometer for long term success.

Although the phones themselves look very promising, they will be the newest entrant into an already crowded market. Also, with very few apps, HP will be struggling to attract customers, which in turn will make it struggle to attract more mobile app developers.

Will there be a Potential Market for App Developers?

When Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 late last year, it came with only a very small app store. For developers with the foresight and ambition to be in the app store on launch day, there was a very large payout. Not only was there very little competition at the beginning, but they retained their "most popular" status for quite some time which kept them ahead of new apps.

Apple’s iPhone app store and its Mac app store also saw the same thing during the initial launch, and those that got there early often made big money with simple apps and retained their top positions for long periods of time even after superior apps appeared on the market.

Of course with Google’s Android 2.0 and 3.0, we saw the same thing there too, and Amazon’s Android market (which just launched this week) seems positioned for a possible repeat as well. From a developer point of view, this places a lot of trust in platform’s ability to attract a consumer market. HP’s promise of quickly integrating this into a desktop market provides some incentive of a long term strategy.

However it is obvious from an app design point of view that an app running on the desktop must be different from a mobile version simply because of the interface options. HP has promised to aid with this by making easy integration of multiple input sources (multi-touch, mouse, keyboard), but developers will still need to adapt accordingly. Even so, it sounds promising.

Have an app idea for webOS app? Or even an iPhone, Android or Windows Phone 7 app? Our custom app development team has developed dozens successful apps for businesses, entrepreneurs and startup companies around the world, and we’d love to help you develop your idea too.