Why Developers prefer iOS over Android
Over the last few years, it has become common practice for developer’s aspirations to be fulfilled by app stores. Apple’s App Store, Google’s Play Store, Amazon’s App Store and BlackBerry’s App World (just to name a few) have created massive wealth for developers — yet, of the above mentioned platforms, only one seems to be attracting developer’s affection at the expense of the others.
Apple, at the moment it seems, has greater attraction power, with high revenue potential, app discoverability and relatively less development costs in comparison to its competitors. While Google’s Android has recently officially become number one mobile platform, in terms of users and device activations, however, it still falls behind Apple in attracting developers.
So, why exactly are more developers fond of iOS as their preferred platform ahead of the others?
According Business Insider’s the ‘Future of Mobile’, — which is a result of several studies conducted by Business Insider and its various partners — there are three reasons which explains this phenomenon.
(1) Android has a fragmentation problems
(2) iOS is where the money lies, and
(3) Apple has wealthy users (who don’t mind paying for apps)
The following slides, are extracts from the Future of Mobile according to Business Insider, tries to put things into perspective.
Obviously, these alone are not the only reasons why developers seem to prefer iOS to android. But if one analyses these slides, one gets a picture, although not entirely complete picture, but satisfactory enough to justify developer’s fondness of iOS over android. Meanwhile, Google has been working hard to bring some consistency to android apps development by simplifying the development process and addressing some of the fragmentation challenges in hope to attract more devs and to make android their preferred platform. iOS maybe dominating the game at the moment, but I get the feeling that, Android will (in the not so distant future) — if they can sort out these minor issues — win developer’s hearts and souls.