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So, you’re a developer with an idea for the next big killer app. You scrape together your precious few resources and decide to go ahead and build it in the hope it will wow not only potential customers, but also investors. The only problem is, you’re not sure whether to use all your cash and time developing for just one platform, or whether to spread yourself thin and attempt several.

Well, you may be surprised to hear this, but investors too are divided on the answer to the aforementioned dilemma.

A panel discussing app monetization at the recent AppNation conference seemed split on the question, with Raj Kapoor of the Mayfield Fund positing that most VCs would be skeptical and want to know exactly what was constraining the developer and preventing them from attacking multiple platforms, adding that it’s always a risk to put all one’s eggs into one big app basket.

Meanwhile, John Malloy from Blue Run Ventures disagreed saying that to survive, some developers had to focus on just one platform. The greatest risk, he said, was when that platform was ill defined.

Something both investors agreed on, however, was the drawback of getting blinded by an Apple-only approach. Kapoor compared Apple and its app environment to a “drug type of mentality” sucking developers in and making them feel dependent on the firm for the short term monetary gains, whilst crippling them for the long term through lack of control over their own app.

Malloy concurred that there was a “bit of a hypnosis with Apple which gets me a little creeped out”.

Speaking about the Jobs mob to the room of developers, Malloy warned, “I do think that sometimes they [Apple] do evil, you know, power corrupts.”

Check out the two opposing views on cross platform development below: