Former Microsoft program manager Alberto Fonseca reflected in the screen of a Sprint Evo Android device using his company's GOTO replacement lock screen. (Marcus Donner/Puget Sound Business Journal)

Software engineer Alberto Fonseca considered making apps for Apple’s iPhone after his job at Microsoft was cut during the company’s layoffs last year. After studying the situation, and the market, he made Google’s Android phones a priority instead.

A year later, Android has emerged as a formidable rival to the iPhone in the market for smartphones. And the first Android app from Fonseca’s startup — a replacement lock screen called GOTO that offers quick shortcuts to messages — is in a postion to capitalize on the trend.

“We made a big bet,” Fonseca said, explaining that he based the decision on market research reports, the crowded iPhone app market, and his history with Java, the underlying Android programming language -- which, based on his experience, was easier for him to quickly pick up than the Objective-C used for iPhone app development.

Fonseca's company, InnoWeb Tech, is one of a growing number of software developers and technology businesses paying more attention to Android as a platform for mobile apps. The rise of Google’s mobile platform is particularly telling in the Seattle region’s tech community, traditionally a hotbed for Microsoft’s technologies.

In one sign of the rising interest, Android meetups in the region have started drawing significant crowds over the past few months, with developers gathering to trade tips and learn about the technology.

Android’s rapid ascent illustrates how quickly the market for mobile phones is growing, and how fast it can change. In the first quarter, Android lept into the No. 2 spot for smartphone platforms in the U.S., with 28 percent of unit sales, according to the NPD Group research firm. That was behind BlackBerry’s 36 percent but, for the first time, ahead of Apple’s iPhone, which had 21 percent market share.

The fast-changing mobile-phone landscape could be good news for Microsoft, which is hoping to rebound with the release this fall of Windows Phone 7, which also supports apps.

But it also poses challenges, as other platforms draw developers like Fonseca, and gain traction with consumers. In the mobile market, many of the “developers, developers, developers” so coveted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have been turning to other platforms.

“Quite frankly, the pace and breadth of innovation on Android is an order or two orders of magnitude more than anything else,” said T.A. McCann, the CEO of Seattle-based Gist, an online relationship- and information-management service backed in part by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. McCann cited, as an example, the Android 2.2 "Froyo" release.

Gist released its first Android app in May, complementing its integration with Google’s Gmail and following up on its release of an iPhone app last year. Longer term, the company is contemplating of an app for market leader BlackBerry.

But McCann, himself a former Microsoft manager, said existing Windows Mobile and upcoming Windows Phone devices aren’t on Gist’s development agenda. If anything, by focusing more on consumer usage, Windows Phone is expected to be less relevant to Gist’s business-oriented users.

Like Windows Mobile, Android benefits from the fact that it’s available on a variety of devices from multiple carriers, whereas Apple’s iPhone is exclusive to AT&T in the U.S. One new Android device, the HTC Evo from Sprint, is the first to run on the high-speed 4G mobile broadband network from Kirkland-based Clearwire.

“Android is definitely the first mobile OS that really competes with the iPhone OS,” said Steve Orth, a mobile developer and consultant operating as Sorth LLC, who made Gist’s iPhone and Android apps. “More and more it’s starting to get closer in terms of functionality, and the usability is getting better, as well.”

But Android still has ground to make up. There are an estimated 65,000 apps available for Android, about a quarter as many as the more than 225,000 available for Apple’s iPhone. (Note: Android number corrected since original post.)

Michael Schneider of HiveBrain Inc., a Seattle-based iPhone app developer who has dabbled in Android apps, said the volume of sales for his Android apps has been about one-tenth the size of their iPhone counterparts.

The iPhone’s ease of use means users are more likely to discover new apps on that platform, boosting revenue for developers making apps for the Apple device, said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. At the same time, Rubin said it’s too early to count Microsoft out, pointing to its inroads with Windows developers and its strength in games and other areas of mobile content.

“Microsoft clearly has a franchise there with Xbox and very strong ties to the game development community, so that’s an asset that it should leverage,” he said.

Fonseca's GOTO app offers direct access to individual emails and other messages from the lock screen. (Marcus Donner)

Fonseca's startup released its Android lock screen app, GOTO, in early June at a price of $2.99. He has assembled a team of four people in different locations — including another developer, a graphic designer and an animator — to work on apps under the umbrella of his Redmond-based company.

For now, he has been getting early user feedback and making adjustments before looking to ramp up sales.

One interesting note: A replacement lock screen like the one InnoWeb developed probably wouldn't have been approved for inclusion on the iPhone App store, based on the way it replaces part of the phone's fundamental user interface. That would have limited the market to jailbroken iPhones.

In addition to fewer restrictions for developers, Android benefits from wider variety of devices, while still keeping a degree of consistency among them.

Windows Mobile devices, on the other hand, have suffered from too much diversity — leaving developers unsure about whether their apps would be running on phones with or without hard keyboards, for example.

Microsoft is planning to make things more consistent with Windows Phone 7, and Fonseca isn’t ruling out the possibility of developing for the Microsoft mobile platform long term. But he’s thinking more seriously about developing apps for the iPhone and iPad over time.

And in the near term, his bet on Android is looking pretty good.