

Which Platform You Should Target For Your First App: Android Or iPhone? - pratikkanada
http://theappentrepreneur.com/which-platform-you-should-target-for-your-first-app-android-or-iphone/

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king_magic
"Apple does not have a good debugging solution compared to Android for testing
your apps."

That's a pretty absurd claim. Xcode has a fine debugger, comes with
Instruments for various kinds of profiling, and can simulate multiple versions
of iOS as well as multiple types of hardware (including various screen sizes).

I haven't done much Android development, but I have a hard time believing
Android debugging is somehow magically significantly better than iOS
debugging.

~~~
neya
>I haven't done much Android development, but I have a hard time believing
Android debugging is somehow magically significantly better than iOS
debugging.

Oh, the irony. I don't know X, but I sure know Y is better than X. Keep up the
good work, Einstein.

~~~
king_magic
"I haven't done much of X" != "I don't know X".

Keep up the good work, Einstein.

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msohcw
I think it helps significantly to qualify what kind of app we're talking about
(because then the demographics wanting each will vary) and revenue models.
Game apps in general seem to do significantly better on the Apple store. At
the very least, there's significantly more games in the Apple App Store than
the Play Store. That likely has to do with the demographics that hold Android
vs iOS phones. It also doesn't account for the alternative revenue model that
most Android games take, that is the ad-driven model. If you're in it for the
revenue, Android's ad-driven allowances (as much as I dislike them) may be a
valid approach. For most other types of apps (productivity, education etc it's
a toss up in my opinion, and will likely come down again to pricing model.

Might also help to consider where you're developing for. Different countries
each have VASTLY different usage numbers for the different platforms. Big
statistics that cover the whole globe aren't altogether that useful.

As a last point, I highly doubt that Android fragmentation is going to be the
major reason why development is going to cost 20% more. That just seems wrong
and arbitrary, especially with all the measures Google has taken to patch it
(a la ICS). I could just as well say that the Apple app submission process is
a hellish procedure that will cause massive delays and increased cost. It's
really hard to say which is more costly to develop for due to all the
variables.

Last throw in, just on an intuition, I'd develop for Android first, simply due
to the significant reach in my country, greater experience with it and the
type of app I'm considering. All in all, with so many variables, it's really
hard to explicitly say.

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gbog
The most important thing to consider when starting an app is what the
landscape will look like in one or two years, or more. I'd bet on Android over
Apple and Windows, but a fork of Android could beat them all.

~~~
j2labs
Two years is long enough to build for all platforms...

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j2labs
It's simple: if you intend to sell the app, build first for iOS. If the app
isn't something users will use daily, just use HTML. If neither of those are
true, build for Android and iOS with iOS first.

~~~
kashif
How did you deduce this?

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j2labs
iOS users buy apps 6x as much as Android. The article itself says that.

HTML is fast to develop relative to native apps therefore if the app is
ideally used infrequently, a native experience isn't worthwhile. There are
exceptions, of course.

The last option is just a default last option.

~~~
mtgx
That data is from mid 2011. The difference should be much smaller now, if
there is any. Android had like 150-200 million devices back then. Now it has
over 500 million.

This is why this article is BS, because most of the data used in it is
extremely irrelevant for the Android ecosystem right now. This article
should've been written in 2011. Not at the end of 2012. The Android ecosystem
has grown and improved a lot since then.

~~~
j2labs
Can you share data showing otherwise?

Here's an article from a few weeks ago supporting my claim:
[http://m.guardiannews.com/technology/appsblog/2012/dec/04/io...](http://m.guardiannews.com/technology/appsblog/2012/dec/04/ios-
android-revenues-downloads-country)

Edit: to clarify, Android is doing better, but it is still no match for iOS.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I want to know how many of those apps replace basic functionality that is just
built into Android. There are am absurd number of paid apps and services that
have no purpose on android because the functionality is built into the OS or
the Google Apps.

~~~
j2labs
Interesting point. Could you elaborate?

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bradfeld
As an investor in companies building mobile apps, I get asked this question
constantly.

My response depends somewhat on the application and the market, but it's
pretty clear at this point that these are two completely separate efforts.
It's not quite as bad as developing for Mac vs. Windows, but close (and
getting closer all the time.)

So I recommend two separate development efforts. I almost always recommend
leading with iOS, but not syncing up the functionality perfectly so that some
of the design experiments as you iterate happen on Android.

Tight communication between two separate teams is key. If you only have one
dev working on the whole thing, just choose one - and - in most cases, this
should be iOS

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ubersoldat2k7
Been in both situations and IMO I would recommend Android, especially for a
startup. Remember, release fast, release often is today's mantra and this
simply cannot be done with Apple. I mean, you'll lose a whole month of Apple
bureaucracy before having the least hintch that your app fails because of some
bug in your live setup. Small details which you can't sand off when you have
those LONG release cycles. Because of this I've always seen Android apps
evolve much more faster and provide meaningful feedback from day one after the
first beta release. With Apple you can't have a beta release, nothing can go
wrong, everything has to be perfect the first time. For example, right now we
have in both stores the same app with version 1.1.1 for iOS and 4.3.2 for
Android. The IOS one is using the first version of our backend API while the
Android one has forced the API to change four times because of business needs
which have made the app evolve. So basically, we release an MVP for IOS which
is there, idle. And we have an Android app which is evolving fast, is
providing cohort data, feedback, business models and new ideas are being
developed only for it. I would have waited after three or four android
releases before going the IOS way.

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Hawkee
If your app can be developed as a web app first that may be ideal. Building
with a responsive design will allow it to work on both devices initially. Then
you can watch your statistics to learn where is it more successful and build
for that platform first.

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nwh
iOS has negligible piracy? That's news to me.

~~~
venomsnake
I think that piracy should be a non-concern at all. The first barrier is
getting a product out there that someone, anyone is actually using. With the
massive over saturation of the app stores, and the "if it is not on the first
page it does not exist" mentality visibility is much bigger problem. If you
have the audience from somewhere else you may be able to make them install an
app. But otherwise - with the current incarnation of the walled gardens this
will be a tough one.

~~~
nwh
I can't find the article right now, but there was recently a game developer
that was crippled by piracy. Essentially the online part of the iOS game was
swamped with pirate users, and there wasn't enough funding from real users for
the servers to be sustainable or even worthwhile.

~~~
venomsnake
That is a different problem. If people play your game it means you are doing
something right, so you must work on your revenue and communication with users
strategy. Also if you have client server architecture you have much easier
time just discarding the pirate users. If apple prevents you from
distinguishing between types of users - that is serious platform deficiency.
Otherwise it just requires a DB check before allowing access of the user to
the server.

There have been cases where a product receives critical acclaim, is widely
pirated and failed commercially.

XBOX 360 had the ability to pirate games since 2007-ish, and PS3 was much
harder in this department. You didn't see abandonment of the X360 platform
from the developers.

~~~
nwh
I don't think the App has any way of knowing if it is running without the
proper signing or not. They can try and read outside of their sandbox, but
Apple doesn't seem to acknowledge piracy as an issue, so the APi doesn't
exist.

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arikrak
The article seems to be discussing the overall history, but it should focus on
the present. Android has grown a lot in the past couple of years so how does
it compare to iOS now?

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jerryji
For a non-game app, how hard it is to use cross-platform tools such as
Sencha/PhoneGap to develop for both Android and iPhone (and maybe even for
tablet) at the same time?

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bdcravens
For most apps, an HTML wrapper like PhoneGap works great, so might as well do
both at the same time.

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patrickocoffeyo
Why not target both?

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rikacomet
if you are relatively the nobody: Android (people try stuff only when it is
free, though Iphone does have free aps, the notion around Iphone is the
opposite, that all apps are paid ones. the reason being android is a free OS,
IOS is not.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I've never heard a user say, "I don't want to buy apps because Samsung didn't
build or license Android." Most users don't even know what that means.

~~~
rikacomet
so what do you intend to say my friend ?

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drivebyacct2
The numbers in this article are _quite_ out of date.

