Slashdot Mirror
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 following stats would satisfy that logic. (btw I just made these numbers up to prove a point, these are by no means the real numbers)
2011Q2=1
2011Q3=5
2011Q4=4
2012Q1=3
2012Q2=2
AccountKiller
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
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.
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.