Indeed apps may require a re-compile, but I suspect this may be familiar territory for QT apps targeting multiple devices. Though it presents a quick route for QT developers to capitalize on the installed base of both OSs.

It definitely will be an interesting future.

The bottom line is this: there's a clear trend towards application independence from language and OS, and within the next few years (as little as 5), it won't matter if you're running Android, MeeGo, BBOS, Win7, Ubuntu, etc as most applications will run just as well on any platform without the need to write in a particular language or cross-compile. This will happen regardless of the language, affiliation, development environment and development tools of the developer.

What's more is that as these apps can be web delivered: there will be no need to even install ushering a new wave as software as a service, but with the sophistication and speed of traditional apps!

At that point, the phone/tablet/pc becomes a true appliance, only specs and brand and build-quality will matter to consumers (like all appliances), and platform zealotry will become a thing of the past. Would anyone care what OS their toaster uses or what language is used to set the timer?

This of course won't target all applications, but safely that vast majority (I would guess 99.9%) of applications existing outside of OS specific code.

Some may thing that this is an idealistic vision, but with tech like NaCl, PNaCl, and HTML5 literally racing their way into the forefront, this vision is right around the corner. Much of this functionality is currently built into chromium nightlies and being actively tested! It is also central to Google's Chrome OS strategy. Thankfully the tech is all standardized and/or open source (or is promised to be -- in the case of PNaCl), so it will be available to the community at large to implement in any number of ways!