Overcoming the Challenges of Cross-Platform Development

Overcoming the Challenges of Cross-Platform Development

 

This was a engaging town hall type session, featuring representatives from eBay, PayPal, and LinkedIn.

 

The following are some of the major bullet points of what was discussed today.

 

What products are PayPal doing?

 

Consumer Application

    Send/Invoince Money

    In-person payments via Bump

Merchant Checkout

    In app, rich authentication

    1-click payment, sign up and sign in

    Single Integration

    Auto-Detect mobile web

 

PayPal's global perspective

    Looking at trends worldwide

    Emerging markets is where mobile payments is taking off

 

Platform Survey

    iPhone

        Flagship platform for PayPal

        Easier for C/C++ & Mac developers

        Walled garden

            Good: Protected, unoform platform

            Bad: TOS causes confusion with every change

    Android

        Flagshio platform by 2011

        Easier for Java Developers

        Fragemtation - only going to get worse

        "Open Platform"

            Good: Flexible and adaptable

            Bad: Evolving security model

Mobile Web

    Mobile Web helps with portability

    Rendering technology helps with fragmentation

    Webkit has paved the way for great experience

    HTML5 brings rich experience

 

LinkedIn

    LinkedIn 3.0 for iphone launched this year

    Professionals are rarely at their desks

    In one year from now, the mobile web to be ubiquitous throughout various platforms

 

eBay

    Selling an item every second, selling 2-3 Ferrari's a month

    Upgrades to apps are being 100% adapted within a month of availability

    On all platforms via NetBiscuits

    1200 unique devices hit the mobile website per month