Following up on my last post, what "web hacking" trends are coming in this new year?
Two obvious picks – because they've already been announced:
- iPhone native apps – official SDK slated for Spring 2008
- Google Android mobile platform, jump-started by their developer challenge
Android looks like it will be a great little platform for app innovation. It won't be on billions of phones just yet in 2008, but I suspect that every now-shipping Linux handheld will adopt it sometime this year. It just makes too much sense: why not adopt a JVM (Dalvik) that actually runs well on handhelds?
As that occurs, I predict that Java ME development will decline, because sane developers will finally admit that Java ME is lame and crippled. JCP shills will wail and gnash their teeth as the world moves on.
Another clear trend – Amazon Web Services will continue to kick ass in 2008. Last year, EC2 was just a bit too bleeding-edge to be widely adopted. SimpleDB and other developments will smooth out the rough edges, making it a no-brainer for startups to pick AWS first for web hosting. Then after startups, corporate IT will follow.
That's all I can think of right now. What other trends are clearly coming to fruition in 2008 which every web hacker should pay attention to?
Update – Here's a sweet analysis on Dalvik vs Java ME licensing issues. But this isn't totally new: the T-Mobile Sidekick (Danger Hiptop) also uses a non-standard JVM under the hood. Andy Rubin was responsible for both devices.
