A new survey of developers released by Appcelerator and IDC found that Android has a far brighter future than does the iPhone.

Thus far, the survey found 58.6% of developers believe Android has the best long-term outlook, against 34.9% who believe that the iPhone and iPad operating system had the best outlook.

The survey was conducted between 2,363 Appcelerator Titanium developers from September 14-16.

The same survey, conducted in June, the same survey found that 54.0% of developers believed Android had the best long-term outlook compared to iOS at 40.4%.

So, the question is why developers are so bullish on Android? Actually one big reason is that 72% of developers believe that Android "is best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future" in the words of the report, compared to 35% who believe that iOS is beter positioned.

Developers also favor Google slightly over Apple when it comes to developing for connected TVs, with 44% 'very interested' in developing for Google TV compared to 40% for Apple TV.