

ASK HK: iPhone or Android?  - snow_mac

I'm looking to get into a mobile market for application development to make money. Which platform is better?<p>I'm experienced in PHP, Ruby, SQL, CSS, HTML, Javascript, jQuery, Java and ColdFusion.<p>I have all the tools for Apple dev: iPod Touch, Macbook and iOS SDK. But I also have a few other machines that run Windows and Linux. All my platforms have the JavaSDK and Eclipse.<p>What's the best place to start? Right now I'm leaning towards Android because it's a "developing market", Java based and open. But it's also fragmented unlike Apple.
======
mikeleeorg
I would suggest taking a look at each market (the iOS market & the Android
market) in terms of users, distribution, market opportunity for your
particular idea, etc. Each varies quite a bit.

Some cliff notes:

The iTunes App Store is fairly mature payment system that includes the ability
to do in-app purchases. This still requires a 30% offering to Apple, but a
customer only needs to tap a single button to make a new purchase, as opposed
to typing in his/her credit card info.

The Android market is growing rapidly and will have a larger footprint than
the iOS market in 2011, by most industry forecasts. There is development
overhead in supporting multiple OS versions and device types. This is an issue
in the iOS world too, but it's not as pronounced as it currently is in
Android.

The iPad rules the media tablet market right now. It will take a bit of time
for an Android tablet to catch up, though Honeycomb looks damn promising. This
assumes you're looking at tablet devices too, of course.

Although the mobile web doesn't quite offer the same fidelity as native apps
do, this is something to consider as well. Mobile development has a much
longer development lifecycle. The release process on iOS requires some lead
time for the Apple approval process (which seems to be about 1-2 weeks).
Android has no approval process, so releases can happen as often as you'd like
- though you still need to consider the time it takes for your customers to
learn about & upgrade your app. Mobile web apps don't have this overhead. I've
found this to be a big surprise to many web developers moving into mobile app
development.

One last point to consider is your marketing plan once on either store. There
are some articles about how to optimize your ranking in the iTunes App Store.
They offer very basic metrics too, so you may want to think about an analytics
package.

The Android Market is younger and there is less info on how to optimize your
ranking there. I'm sure they're working to improve the market, though it's
fairly difficult to get your app seen just by trying to rank well here. You'll
have to use other forms of marketing.

Bottom line: Both markets have their pros & cons. Your final choice depends on
your particular app.

Of course, you can just build it with whichever platform you're most
comfortable with, and learn along the way. There are a wealth of resources out
there that can help.

------
dave1619
Sounds like since you know Java, Android might be easier for you to start. You
can also look onto Titanium or Phone Gap but it depends on what kind of app
you're trying to make.

------
mrschwabe
You might as well just pick one now, because if you're getting into this game
chances are you'll need to deploy on both platforms sooner or later.

