Doug Browning has written a paper titled "Comparing Mobile Solutions
for GIS Data Collection and Display". In it, he compares EpiCollect,
Open Data Kit, ArcGIS Mobile, and a variety of custom data collection
applications.
He notes, "my two main objectives with this paper were to explore the
software and steps required for collecting GIS data with mobile
devices (smartphones such as iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile) and
for displaying that collected data on the web. I accomplished this by
attempting to develop a mobile GIS collection and display solution
using each of the options currently available for building mobile
apps.
The first part of the paper, application options, details my results
of attempting to build a GIS data collection and display solution
using each type of mobile app development option currently available.
For each option the possibilities for collecting data and displaying
data are covered as are my mobile device test results. The pros, cons,
and potential applications of each option are also covered.
The second part of the paper, detailed instructions, gives detailed
step by step instructions on how to create GIS data collection and
display solutions for each of the development options found to have
the most potential. Each set of detailed instructions covers all of
the steps needed by a user with no previous experience to install,
configure, build, and deploy the solution."
Download the paper from