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iOS Tops Android For Number of New App Projects From Developers
Analytics firm Flurry recently posted a report comparing the new projects being undertaken by developers for mobile apps on Android and iOS. According to their data, significantly more projects are started for iOS than for Android. The gap has been slowly shrinking over the past few quarters, but it's still bigger than it was a year ago. "For every 10 apps that developers build, roughly 7 are for iOS. While Google made some gains in Q1 2012, edging up to over 30% for the first time in a year, we believe this is largely due to seasonality, as Apple traditionally experiences a spike in developer support leading up to the holiday season." The iPad's dominance of the tablet market is one of several reasons for the gap. "In Flurry’s estimation, the fragmentation of the Android platform is increasing the cost and complexity of app development, perhaps curbing third-party investment in software."
"The gap has been slowly shrinking over the past few quarters, but it's still bigger than it was a year ago"
How does a gap shrink and get bigger at the same time?
What's so hard to beleive? Apple had trained their customers to pay for apps.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The customer base for I* stuff is obviously much more willing to part with their money than other people (their gadgets are significantly more expensive than others). If you've got to choose one platform or another, it only makes sense to develop for the I* customers.
I don't respond to AC's.
iOS users have been conditioned to pay for apps, and (I would think) are more likely to pay. I would expect a developer to consider iOS first just because it's more likely to show a return.
what are they using as their definition of "project"
New apps that use Flurry Analytics. So you are spot on with:
Android developers don't care for Flurry as their analytic solution
Story is bogus</thread>
AccountKiller
More developers concentrate on iOS, leading to better monetization on iOS.
Apple touts better monetization, and developers continue to concentrate on iOS.
It's not some big mystery.
I can't believe this. I am a developer, I focus first on iOS, but I don't buy more developers focusing on iOS.
I believe more developers that are willing to invest time and money on polish do go for iOS first. I believe there is more money on iOS. But ignoring quality, just looking at sheer numbers, there are more Android developers out there.
Probably because it's another cherry-picked statistic to support the previously-determined answer they want. Who cares about "projects started" as a metric? How many of those projects are going to even be completed? The reason they picked such a meaningless metric is because it supported the view they wanted to present. I wish /. would stop with these stories. I think it's obvious by now that both Android and iOS are feasible mobile platforms, we don't need fanboys from either side posting their stat-of-the-day that demonstrates that their choice is the best.
BTW, in the interests of full disclosure, I love my Nexus S and tend to be "on Google's side".
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
It doesn't make sense that Apple's been leading in starts all this time and Google's leading in new entries in the store.
I work for a mobile apps company. We *always* develop for iOS first, and if it's successful we'll port to Android. Android is pretty predictably 30% of the iOS revenue, so we gauge whether it's worthwhile. One of the other interesting things is that Apple forces app developers to do things which improves sales. For example, Apple sees that releasing a free app and then providing an in-app purchase for the full version increases revenue on average.. so they have forced us to convert several of our older apps (developed before in-app purchases) into the free-pay model and strongly encourage container apps when content is even remotely similar. Android doesn't force these types of things on you which is better imho but results in lower sales. It should be noted that our experience with sales is not universal, I believe the Angry Birds guys revealed that they get more revenue from Android than iOS.
True. Both platforms are WAY past the point of critical mass, and the killer apps for phones are available on both platforms.
I tend to agree that this is a rather poor study, in that it's based on one source of data from developers who may be exhibiting bias by their very act of contributing data to the survey.
That said, the iOS App Store still seems to have more apps than the Android App Market. The most recent numbers I can find seem to indicate that the iOS App Store was around 650K yesterday while the Android Market was at 450K in late February, so the iOS App Store probably still commands a 150-200K lead.
Even so, those numbers are pretty meaningless. I mean, what does it really matter? Once you reach a critical point, you have enough that it's more about the quality of the apps and developers that you attract to your platform, rather than the quantity of apps. Both of those platforms passed that critical point years ago.
There's a huge number of apps for both platforms, way beyond what any individual could possibly use. It's time journos grew up moved from a "size" contest to a "quality" contest: it's not about who has the most apps anymore, but about who has the best amongst the 20 that real people actually use (mail, web, maps, FB, twitter, ebooks, video, music, office...). Too bad that's soooo much harder to do articles on: it requires research, tests, hands-on experience....
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I'm not really sure what I said that was so offensive. Am I wrong in thinking developers will follow the money?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
umm... not that many?
that's not apples to apples because there aren't any old iphones available pre-paid. on VMo you can get a iphone 4 for $500 or an iphone 4s for $650, and pay $30/month service. I'm sure that if apple still made the iphone 3g for vmo it would cost $200 and give you comparable quality as your $100 android. btw i have a $130 lg optimus on vmo, and it sucks ass.
so you agree for post-paid contracts, there is no price difference between android and iphone, and on the low end (e.g. $0 with contract) iphone is a significantly better value.
From a technical point of view it makes perfect sense to use native execution on a relatively low powered device run by a battery.
Which is why Java and JavaScript tend to be recompiled just-in-time rather than interpreted nowadays.
Why would you start a project and not finish it? Because that's the only way to explain these numbers. Why not run the article as "More iOS developers abandon their projects uncompleted"?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Android's install base didn't come equal to iOS's until early this afternoon.
But they're both great, and if you develop for both your installed base target is over 800 million and adding over a million every day. That is where the easiest money is at.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I was going to make my app for both platforms, but then I learned you have to buy a mac with os Lion just to be able to use the most recent xcode.
Sometimes Google does evil things, but the android SDK with the eclipse integration and the android virtualization, all for free and cross platform, is really, really nice. You could easily release an app for $0 cost other than time. That is the kind of community support that makes me loyal to a company.