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Google’s mobile platform had the best year in history and in 2012 will become both customers’ and developers’ first choice, according a study by research firm Ovum. Even though the users already made the Android choice, the developers were still counting on iOS, mostly because of the high earnings it generates.

Ovum’s study says that in 2012 the app developers’ first mobile platform choice will be Android, mostly because of the continuously increasing number of users. The analysts say that most of the developers will go for both mobile platforms in the same time.

The study was conducted by a mobile market research firm named Oven. Their reports show that Google’s Android OS will gather the biggest number of developers in 2012. Apple with their iOS and Google with Android are the main contenders when it comes do devs’ interests.

Still, according to Ovum, both Microsoft’s Windows Phone and RIM’s BlackBerry OS will witness improvements this year. Microsoft already reached the 60,000 apps milestone in Windows Phone’s dedicated app market, now all they have to do is persuade the users to buy a WP7-powered smartphone. Anyway the interest is minor when compared to Android, which will soon hit with quad-core smartpones, and iOS which will try to at least maintain the sales with iPhone 5.

It was also reported that HTML5 will slowly replace Java and Flash which are pretty old and outdated for the current standards. The applications are playing a very important role in the existence of an ecosystem made by smartphone and mobile operating system. Many of the customers choose their smartphones based on the apps they can install on it.

I know that iOS now has more than 500,000 applications in App Store, over 100,000 are optimized for iPad, but Android reached 400,000 applications and is putting some pressure on Apple’s OS. App Store is an easier way to transform an application into money, but Ovum’s study shows that Android has even more facilities which will make the developers choose it over iOS. Anyway, traditionally, the application developers are earning more money from iOS than from Android.

Ovum’s study already revealed that the developers’ interest for Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS is a little bit more higher when compared to 2011.

On the other hand, the analysts at Neilson have published a report that studies the smartphone sales in Q4 of 2011, and the figures are pretty interesting. This study was made based on the US-market sales.

The iPhone 4S launch helped iOS to win some more ground over Android. The two mobile platforms fought shoulder to shoulder in December, when the biggest sales were generated. Windows Phone was they only mobile operating system with an improved market share, but it is still pretty far away behind the two leaders.

Android had a market share of 51.7% in Q4, but in November and December it dropped to 48.7% and 46.9%, respectively. iOS got 44.5% of the market share pie in December, almost double when compared to October (25.1%). In Q4 2011, iOS’ market share was of 37%.

RIM with their BlackBerry OS are in free fall, as in Q4 2011 it had a market share of only 6%. In October, the Canadians had a share of 7.7%, but it’s continuously dropping ever since.

Windows Phone increased from 1.3% in Q3, to 1.4% in Q4. It’s a bold step ahead, though.