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Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android
An anonymous reader writes "Google Chariman Eric Schmidt recently addressed an Android user lamenting the fact that that mobile apps are often released on Apple's iOS platform well before they finally reach Android. Schmidt cooly and curiously explained that this dynamic will change in just 6 months. Here's why he's wrong. Though Google brags about the total number of Android users, developers care about certain kinds of users (those that pay for apps). A similar dynamic can be found in television advertising, where advertisers will more money for ad spots on less popular shows in order to reach desirable demographics, even though other programs may have many millions of more viewers."
It's not only on television advertising, it happens with every kind of advertising. Internet, newspapers, magazines, even billboards. That's what makes both Google and Facebook advertising so lucrating and why Google is so desperately wanting to get their own social network - advertisers can directly target users with certain interests. Advertising to people with no interest about such things is useless. For example, Google has many advertisers targeting searches that might get searched only a few times a month, but when they do, advertisers are happy to pay more than $50 per click. They could get standard banner advertising to tens of thousands users at that price, but those are useless to them if it's a very targeted product or service. TV advertising mostly just works for brand names or products that almost anyone has use for. With internet you can target very specific people.
.NET. It is relative easy to port your games between Windows, XBOX360 and WP7. The same services are used for all platforms. And while the amount of users as large as Android or iOS, the users are paying for apps and is exactly the kind of crowd developers want. You also have less competition, so you can earn more easily.
Now the thing is, this targeting translates badly to applications and games. When user plays games, he isn't interested in anything else. It's completely different situation to some where the user is actively looking for something. This is why app developers make better money by selling their apps or games. However, Android users aren't as willing to spend as iOS users. They have even got used to the idea of getting their apps for free with advertising. But because advertising isn't really effective for such, Android app space in general suffers badly. On top of that you have to deal with fragmented devices and Google's ignorance regarding their app store. You can buy gift cards for iTunes, but you cannot for Android store, so you're out of luck if you don't have credit card. So you have an userbase with fragmented market, increased support costs, users without ability to pay for apps even if they had cash and the general culture that expects free apps with ads where ads just don't work.
The funny thing is that even Windows Phone market has comparatively more developers, apps and games. Microsoft has went at great lengths to make app developing for WP7 pleasant experience. They provide great tools, XNA, Silverlight and you can code with
If I had posted the OP verbatim, it would be -1 flamebait faster than you can say "troll."
Ah well... should be an interesting thread.
Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android
Is there something inherently better with iOS development? Is the API better written? Is there some technological inferiority to Android? Is it cheaper to buy the development tools for iOS?
Oh, I see. What you meant to say is:
Why Publishers Still Prefer iOS To Android
And even that's sort of not very accurate. I mean, there are plenty of apps that are free and are on both Android and iOS like advertising based apps that want you to read some website's stories. And they just want to target the most users, not the most users who shell out money. So maybe it should be:
Why Revenue Seekers Still Prefer iOS To Android
Not everyone developing apps depends on that as their revenue stream.
My work here is dung.
It's not surprising why app developers are betting on iOS over Android. According to the Flurry Analytics study, they make four times as much money on iOS. Developers are also concerned about fragmentation, the lack of store curation, and lower penetration of Google Checkout among Android users compared to iOS users, who are always payment enabled through their iTunes accounts.
Android's target demographic is hardcore techies combined with budget buyers unconcerned with smartphone quality. It actually makes very little money for Google, while iOS is generating obscene profits for Apple. Slashdot still fetishes marketshare as if it's the only metric that matters, but Android is actually like a whole bunch of operating systems with different capabilities.
Google should buy Qt from Nokia and use that toolkit as the basis for Android apps. It is already efficient as hell on smartphones (Meego and Symbian), and uses C++ as its programming language. No more worries about Oracle lawsuits, excellent programming environment. Mod this up.
It's real simple for me, Android is an awful platform to develop for (as are all the lowest common denominator cross platform API's). I have fun developing for iOS and really like the native API and developer tools. It's important for me to actually enjoy what I'm doing. I've definitely lost some projects because I don't offer an Android, but it's not really mattered since I have more work than I know what to do with anyway. Even after culling Android and only taking projects that really interest me, I still have to turn down projects because I'm already booked up.
Android is just not my cup of tea, if it's yours, then more power to you.
You know you're doing something wrong when RIM can claim (unchallenged) that the Blackberry App World is the #2 app store in terms of paid apps. #1 is, of course, Apple's App Store, but to have the #2 service be one from the #4 player is just... pathetic. (Windows Phone 7 is platform #3 after Android (#1) and iOS (#2)).
There are many reasons for this.
First, Google Checkout sucks. Yes, it does. When Android first came out, very few countries could access paid apps. As such, if you wanted to sell in the Google marketplace, you had to have free apps. The situation's better now, but you're still suffering from the fact that people found alternative ways to get paid apps for free. Google APKTor or the open-source counterpart.
Second is that it's too easy to pirate apps. Google's APKs aren't DRM'd, so what people do is they buy apps, rip them, then return them. 15 minutes is enough time for this, and if it wasn't, they can always return and try again later. Given that there are almost daily "New Paid Apps" torrents on your favorite torrent sites... After all, the iPad was dinged as "cannot run pirate apps".
Then Android users really don't want to pay for apps. I've seen some hardcore Linux users saying they'll never pay for apps - it should be FREE. Apparently, iOS users pay for 3-4 apps a month on average - Android stats are sketchier (C'mon Google - you just had 10B apps downloaded - how many of those were paid apps? Especially with the 10 cent deal?).
Third, well, the fact you have to use your phone is a major drawback. iTunes sucks, but at least you can download your app on your PC first then sync it over rather than have to leave your phone alone while it downloads hundreds of megabytes of apps. Many apps use SD cards (and full SD permissions) to get around this by having a downloader app go and download all the game assets and such.
Finally - fragmentation. Different screen sizes, different OS versions (a year after Gingerbread is released, it's on 50% of the devices. Which means roughly 100,000,000 out of the 200,000,000 Android devices run the what was latest and greatest OS. ALl the others run Froyo or prior (yikes). iOS has similar issues, but the number of people stuck at iOS 3 (only iPhone and iPhone 3G (iOS 4 doesn't run well so I'm not going to count it)) is fewer than those capable of running iOS 4/5, plus a number are upgrading. Ice Cream Sandwich will resolve this (Google's words), and maybe by tihs time next year we'll have 50% of Androids running ICS.
Then there's the black sheep - AOSP. Without access to the market, it has to use alternative marketplaces, bringing us back to piracy.
You scoff at them spending $20 on a pencil at an art store, they scoff at IT people spending $300 on a "server grade" hard drive they can get for $65 at TigerDirect.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
If I was going to totally through ethics out the window for the pursuit of profit as an "App" developer, I'd easily choose the Apple monoculture. Lets face it, Apple users are used to being free with their money; these people were, in a year that wasn't prefixed by "199", paying $40-60 for a bloody unzipping program. Now, these same people have paid a bloody fortune for a locked down phone and again for a locked down tablet which are both predicated on an "it just works, so long as you make sure you always buy the new one" monoculture, and attached their credit card they use for impulse purchases to it That's PT Barnum-level temptation right there!
So long as one doesn't mind paying for dev access and isn't interested in making programs that strain social mores and/or step on Apple's toes, once you've made it past the gate the walled garden I'm sure appears glorious. You don't have to worry about multiple hardware/software platforms outside the well-documented and very limited iSphere, you are assured your userbase has someone's money to spend, and so long as you abide by The Apple Way For Developers (tm) and kowtow properly to cocoa and objective C, you'll probably watch the dollars roll in.
I do remember a time when software was actually tested before being published. Now it seems everyone insists on public, paying betatesting.
It's interesting watching the moderation on your post. Slashdot is heavily pro-Android and pro-Google, but the fact is that even developers agree with the points you made, according to the study cited in the article. We all saw the result of constant fragmentation and configurability when it came to Linux on the desktop--it never arrived. Now, the same is happening with Android, and it's leading to what is practically a bunch of different Android operating systems all getting lumped together to trumpet a marketshare figure but not really compatible with each other. Developers are the ones most aware of this because they see the hardware and software at a low level.
As for the corporate sector, I actually think Microsoft may make headway there due to historical relations with the enterprise and a willingness to cater to them. But certainly Apple has a chance as well.
Android's target demographic is hardcore techies combined with budget buyers unconcerned with smartphone quality.
Which will quickly massively outnumber Apple's demographic.
What would you base that assessment on? If that were true why would lInux, which had exactly the same combination of possible buyers (techies plus people seeking really budget computers) not have beaten Windows long ago?
It's amazing to me that so many computer literate people here are utterly unwilling to see the impact that software has on the platforms people chose to use.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you use Android consumers as beta testers while you iron out the bugs in a rushed, poorly tested product?
I know I'm going to be modded troll but, sorry, that's what your "interesting" post sounds like - you prefer to release to Android first because you can quickly and rapidly fix problems rather than taking the time to properly build and test your app before releasing it into the market.
I'm even going to go one step further in my near-trollish commentary: you're one of the reasons that Android users are less inclined to actually spend money on an app because developers likely rush them out whereas iOS developers take extra time to make sure it's "just right" before putting it out because it's such a headache to fix problems. iOS users are more confident in a reliable app while Android users are faced with buggy initial releases. I don't know, call me crazy (or a troll, as you wish), but I wouldn't rush out to spend money on an Android app if your view is indicative of the majority of Android developers....
We *don't* prefer iOS. And we definitely don't prefer Apple being able to just reject our six-figure 3-6 month project because the "moon is just not right today".
We only know that IDevices are usually used by total retards that can be tricked into giving all their money to *everything*. Even imaginary property. Even $500 "apps" that do nothing else than show that you paid $500 to get them, so you can brag about it.
This is NOT an article. This is a deliberate piece of social-engineering propaganda (otherwise known as a "opinion piece" in the USA) with a deliberately suggestive headline that wants to make us think that something that is mere wishful thinking by the author's sponsors, is actually a general fact.
It's social engineering 101. You learn that in the first hour: Replace the target's reality with a reality that causes the target to think and act in a way that furthers your goals. Do it by assuming your designed reality has been, is, and will always be how reality is, and that everybody has always thought this way. ("We have always been at war with Eastasia")
This sounds like an argument for thoroughly testing your software and not releasing with bugs.
Game developers have had similar issues on other platforms. It used to be that when you released on a cartridge you actually had to do good work the first time. You can't patch a cartridge in the wild. With internet connected consoles, the problem has been getting worse and worse. It used to be that when you bought a game at launch it was solid. Now you're pretty much guaranteed to get something extremely buggy until the first few patches, assuming you actually get the whole game and the developers haven't decided to favor an early release and just update the game with more content later, leaving you with a pretty threadbare experience.
So if your complaint is that Apple makes things difficult if you don't write good code the first time, maybe the problem isn't with Apple. Heck, your description just made Apple's system sound much better to me. Why would I want to buy buggy games?
I work for a small business that has a couple of apps on both iOS and Android. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
In a typical month, we net $20k from sales on iOS and $3k from sales on Android. The apps are nearly identical, the copy in the store *is* identical. The only differences are layout changes to make it feel natural on each platform. Yet actual app usage is roughly equal between the two, as measured by server requests/day.
Two lessons: 1) The Android demographic is much less likely to pay for applications (at least ours), and 2) Piracy is a much bigger problem on Android.
We're developing a new app that and rather than doing simultaneous release on iOS and Android, we're doing iOS first and will use its revenue to gauge whether the Android version is worth doing -- after a month or two we'll see what the ROI on Android would be at 15% of whatever the iOS version is doing.
This sucks, because I use an Android phone and prefer Android myself. But as a small company we would be crazy to devote the same resources to a platform that underperforms in revenue.
The iOS dev tools are $599 but they come with a free computer. Furthermore, you have to pay per year to be able to run programs that you compiled on an iPod, iPhone, or iPad that you bought. The Android dev tools, on the other hand, run on any computer that can run Java, including the one you're more likely to already own (a Windows or Linux box), and "adb install" is free.