Androids Sells More But Developers Still Prefer IOS
The mobile battlefield has become a race between Apple and Google. Recently released numbers have confirmed that Google’s Android mobile OS has the largest market share with 59 percent and Apple comes in second with 23 percent. Most will call this a victory for the freely available Android software that has been adopted by several large mobile phone makers including Samsung. However, Apple’s iOS, which was launched a complete year before Android, still holds a major advantage: developers.
Reports indicated that even though Android is running on more phones, developers still prefer working on the iPhone’s iOS. The reasons behind this support for the Apple product are what may be keeping Apple from succumbing to the Android onslaught. Major developers prefer to launch their apps on the iPhone before Android. In some cases, developers only release iPhone versions of their applications and do not even consider Android versions.
The availability of a large number of apps is one of the reasons that smartphones have become extremely popular. Apple led the market when it launched its App Store and has grown quickly to currently have over 600,000 apps for users. Android followed suit when it launched its own central app location and claims to have over 500,000 apps. The huge number of choices has drawn customers to mobile devices running the two competing softwares while competitors like RIM and Microsoft have lost out because of their poor selection of apps.
Apple’s strangle hold on its developer base may stem from the fact that its marketplace is very active and developers have proven track records of earning money. Most apps for the iPhone are paid version that users can download. Android, on the other hand, has a sharply lower number of paid apps making developer incomes much lower. Another reason for Apple’s popularity with developers is the ease of working with iOS. Android developers complain that testing and verification a single app on all the different devices that use Android makes it expensive and time consuming to work with.
