Thread: Google's Android is Eating Apple's Lunch
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Old 01-05-2013, 05:26 PM   #493
murraypaul
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PatNY View Post
So much for the specious claim someone made then that developers prefer developing for iOS. The opposite appears to be the case.
I imagine a significant portion of the Android app growth is from formerly iOS-only apps being ported across, as the platform becomes more inviting?
There will also be a significant chunk of apps that will only ever be on Android, and never ported across to iOS, because the offer or rely on flexibility that is available in Android but not in iOS.
Android is much more appealing to hobby developers because of the increased flexibility and the ease of getting new releases out to people, versus the single point of control and slow approval process for iOS.
But I think that most commercial developers (for examples for games) will still develop for iOS as the primary platform and then consider an Android port, because (at least at the moment), iOS users are more profitable than Android ones, they spend a considerable amount more on apps.
A Forbes article from August this year had the following numbers:
Quote:
Apple apps make money. Distimo, a mobile consulting firm, estimates that the Apple App store generates $5.4M/day for the 200 top-grossing apps while Google generates just $679K for their top-200 grossing apps. That is almost a 8:1 revenue ratio.

And Apple apps make developers money. More of Apple’s apps generate revenue, while most of Google apps are free: 67% of apps on Apple are paid for versus 34% on Google. And that gets developers paid. Asymco estimates that Android developers made $210M in all of 2011, compared to the $700M pocketed by Apple iOS developers in the Q4 2011. And getting paid attracts more developers to Apple. Flurry Analytics estimates that 7 of 10 develop for Apple’s iOS compared to Google’s Android. AppStoreHQ estimates there are over 43K Apple iOS developers and 10K Android developers. Why? Because iOS developers earn more. For the very same app, Flurry Analytics estimates that a developer will earn $1.00 on the Apple iOS version compared to $0.24 for the Google Android version.
The gaps will close eventually, and it may well be than ultimately Android will be the more profitable platform as well as the more numerous one, but iOS app development will probably produce more revenue for quite a while after Android actually has more apps available.

Wired put it bluntly: "Android is a desolate wasteland when it comes to games"
And gaming is hugely important in revenue terms.
As of March this year the numbers were: (http://www.philterdesign.com/?p=582)
Quote:
Games in the Top 100 Grossing
Games in the Top 20: 20
Games in the Top 50: 39
Games in the Top 100: 74
Just to repeat that. All 20 of the top grossing iOS apps were games. And 74% of the top 100.
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