Let's not forget, of course, that as users you'll have to deal with the aforementioned jankiness of HTML5 applications for a few revs. Trust me though, short-term pain, long-term benefit.*
Entrepreneurs: Last year my advice was to build iOS and mobile web app and wait until you've got a million downloads before targeting Android. I see almost no one pursuing that approach these days, so I'll revise it a little: Build an iOS app and a mobile web app and then go hunting for dollars/help to develop for the splinters of Android, opting to build yourself only the most generic bits of app code that you will for sure be able to reuse. If you want to get on a market where no one will pay you either in dollars or in in-kind promotion, go super lean and build all of your interface in Mobile Webkit (through something like Phonegap) until you've got a feel for whether the particular splinter presents a juicy vein of user adoption.
It not a particularly well-kept secret that when WebOS was in its death spiral, HP would happily pay developers to port any application which had shown traction to their platform. To my knowledge the Android tier one handset guys have not done this yet, but given a little time it may become a reality. There will still be all sorts of headaches involved, and you might be better off taking the love from Microsoft, but in a world of several warring Androids, you are the scarce commodity. Though the more popular splinters such as Amazon's will likely never have to pay for developers, especially given the fact that with only one Christmas under their belt, they are already outperforming the standard Google Market in terms of downloads for some app categories, the rest will, probably in inverse proportion to how valuable they will be to getting you users. And in the meanwhile consider them non-dilutive equity financing sources.
It's going to be a really interesting year for mobile. Having tackled Android, I'll do my thoughts on iOS next (and it's not coming out all roses there either).
Antonio Rodriguez is a general partner with Matrix Partners. This post originally appeared on his blog.