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Originally Posted by murraypaul
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?
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I'm guessing that used to be the case but that's long over. In recent months, Android app growth has far outpaced that of Apple, and it's probably for new apps that don't appear on iOS. I'm guessing as of this moment, Google Play has more apps than the Apple Store.
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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.
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That sounds contradictory. If iOS apps were more profitable, then developers would be flocking to them in greater numbers regardless of the approval process. And some have said it's more difficult developing an app for Android in many cases because of all the different tablet permutations and software overlays that OEM's put on top of stock Android. Despite this difficulty, they are flocking to Android, so there must be greater profitability there in the long run.
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A Forbes article from August this year had the following numbers:
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.
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Do you have a link for that Forbes article? And keep in mind that if the article is from August, they may be using very old data. The market is changing extremely fast and data gets obsolete in a matter of weeks sometimes.
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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)
Just to repeat that. All 20 of the top grossing iOS apps were games. And 74% of the top 100.
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Since I rarely play games on mobile devices, it's hard for me to comment on that particular segment of the market. So let me quote someone who commented under that Wired article:
"I own a couple of Android devices and game on both of them, I've purchased over 25 games for Android as well as purchasing a load of apps as I believe in supporting devs ...
To say Android on gaming is a desolate waste-land is complete hyperbole.
I recently spent some time reviewing an iPhone 5 and was extremely surprised at how mediocre the selection of games was when I was promised that the iOS platform was infinitely more mature for gaming than Android. Any of the really good games had to be purchased, and were often two or three times the price of Android equivalents."
From the perspective of a developer of games, it may be true that the money is in iOS as Apple users may play more games. But there are only so many developers of games out there. For every other category, a developer may be better off with Android. And perhaps that is why they are flocking more heavily to that platform.
From my perspective as a mobile device user, since games are so low on the totem pole, then any edge iOS has in games over Android is totally irrelevant to me. Much more important, for example, are reading apps. And Android is far superior to iOS in that category.
I guess iOS is for games ... Android is for reading!
At any rate, numbers don't lie. Developers in general are heavily going for Android these days over iOS. There has to be a good reason why instead of just doing it for the sheer hell of it, particularly when it can be more difficult to program for the Android platform.
--Pat