Liat Ben-Zur is senior director, software strategy and business development, for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies

What do you think are the biggest challenges facing app developers today?
The three biggest challenges are monetisation, discoverability, and fragmentation. Discoverability of course is key for monetisation. With so many hundreds of thousands of apps out there, it’s getting harder for developers to build apps that rise above the noise because so many apps seem to do similar things. So how do you really differentiate, gain visibility and stand out? How do you get enough eyeballs to lead to meaningful monetisation opportunities? One thing that app developers relish is preloads or getting featured in app stores, this can bump up the user base for an app developer significantly in just one day.

The other big challenge is fragmentation. So many platforms mean more versions of apps which increases non-recurring engineering (NRE) costs and headcount required to scale. Everyone is working on these problems. The emergence of HTML5 is showing some promise for certain types of developers who are using native wrappers around their HTML5 web apps. But not all developers are fully sold on this as a viable mobile platform for their more complex and feature rich apps.

How is Qualcomm working to help tackle these?
With over 25 years in the mobile industry, we have deep relationships across the entire mobile value chain; from operators to device manufacturers, from app stores, to owners of key distribution channels. This means we can unlock massive discoverability and monetisation opportunities for developers.  

Our goal is to bridge developers who are building the most innovative apps with our device manufacturer and operator partners. We also believe that experiences are selling devices. As such, we want to help device manufacturers launch new devices with the hottest, most amazing apps out there. We have the Snapdragon Developer Program  through which developers can get support for their development challenges, optimise their apps for devices powered by Snapdragon (which powers more Android smartphones than any other processor) and, for those developers that show the most promise, we provide co-marketing opportunities and introductions to mobile operators and device manufacturers for pre-load opportunities.

With regards to HTML5, we are trying to help make web apps equal citizens to native apps by exposing more functionality from the hardware and leveling the performance differences. We are developing HTML5 API extensions to provide direct access to our Snapdragon hardware functionality such as camera, notifications, file system and extended audio. As such, we anticipate that HTML5 developers will increasingly be able to offer web app capabilities that are on par with native apps while writing far fewer versions of their apps. We also believe there will be more opportunities for web apps to be monetized outside of traditional, captive apps stores.  

How does Qualcomm engage with the app developer community?
Via QDevNet, our developer portal.

QDevNet is the central landing zone for developers interested in engaging with Qualcomm.  On the portal, developers can find tools, SDKs, tips and tricks for optimising apps, ways to reduce power consumption, next generation development platforms, forums and direct support from our engineering teams. We run code camps and participate in those organised by our industry partners.

We also have our own annual developers’ conference, Uplinq. This year, Uplinq is happening in San Diego from June 27-28, with a Mobile CodeFest & Hackathon for coders on June 26, the day before the main conference opens. Uplinq this year is at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel.

If you’re interested in joining us at Uplinq, please visit www.uplinq.com.

Can HTML5 provide the level of performance necessary for high-performance apps?
Yes, absolutely. Qualcomm has actually done a lot of work in the area of web technology optimisations to help level the playing field of apps that require advanced graphics, computer vision, high-end camera features etc. For example, apps porting to using HTML and WebGL from their native counterparts show only a 10% decrease in fps screen refresh, and for most users no visual difference. This is due to both the performance of the JavaScript optimisations done for Snapdragon’s CPU, and also the tuning of the browser’s WebGL code for Snapdragon’s GPU.

With Qualcomm’s Android releases, device manufacturers receive not just performance but also added functionality such as support for WebGL, Web Audio, Camera, and WebWorkers; all technologies missing in the base Android browser.

Do you see an opportunity for apps beyond mobile devices – connected TVs, for example?
It’s already happening. One of the big trends we are seeing today is the movement towards proximity based communications; whether it’s Wi-Fi-Direct, Wi-Fi-Display, DLNA, Beam, or any of the other technologies that are on display at MWC. Everyone is showing off and showcasing how mobile devices and tablets can communicate with other devices nearby.  Qualcomm strongly believes that this is the next big frontier in communications and we see AllJoyn, the open source application development framework developed by Qualcomm’s subsidiary, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc, at the heart of it.  

So many developers are interested in building apps for multi-screen interactions. At CES we showed several tablet and smartphone apps which talk to your smart TVs seamlessly. The devices discovered and connected immediately and shared information without the need for any server in between. The types of user experiences that developers are coming up with for these types of multi-screen and multi-device use cases is phenomenal; from karaoke to multi-player games to the sharing of media to shared whiteboards. The future of apps is not just about mobile devices. We see mobile devices at the center of the internet of everything. But as more and more devices get "smart", app developers will be hungry to build the next wave of killer experiences that bridge it all.  

Should app developers look to work more closely with operators – if so, why?
A direct relationship with operators can be a real advantage for developers when it results in pre-loads. Operators can specify to their device suppliers that they pull in certain apps and they can really help in the marketing efforts of certain user experiences.  Any app developer who has been lucky enough to receive marketing in an operator's prime time TV ad campaign or prime position on the operator's app store deck will tell you it’s not a bad place to be. These are all good (and pretty well understood) reasons for developers to want close working relationships with mobile operators.

Are developers making the best use of the improving hardware capabilities of devices? If not, why not?
Some are. Some aren't. Those who are tend to be the more sophisticated developers who are looking to push the envelope of mobile capabilities and functionality in their apps. They are often looking to create "wow" experiences that surprise and delight their end users in unexpected ways. These are the sorts of developers we have in the Snapdragon Developer Program – and the sort we want to cultivate and add to the program.  

Which technologies do you think will be important to app developers in 2012 – and beyond?
Web technologies, clearly, because of the promise HTML5 holds for leveling the playing field and loosening the grip of the OS providers and augmented reality absolutely. Proximal ad hoc networking of the sort enabled by the AllJoyn application development framework is an obvious one as we are seeing “proximity aware” apps pop up everywhere. There are also technologies that developers won't directly need to address, but are highly relevant to the dynamics of mobile data.

Chief among these are technologies that address power consumption, smarter network utilisation, and the chattiness of mobile apps, since that chattiness is giving operators major bandwidth headaches and directly impacts device battery life. This is a major area of focus for Qualcomm since we are uniquely positioned to understand and address these complicated and highly technical issues.