Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android 614
An anonymous reader writes "Google Chariman Eric Schmidt recently addressed an Android user lamenting the fact that that mobile apps are often released on Apple's iOS platform well before they finally reach Android. Schmidt cooly and curiously explained that this dynamic will change in just 6 months. Here's why he's wrong. Though Google brags about the total number of Android users, developers care about certain kinds of users (those that pay for apps). A similar dynamic can be found in television advertising, where advertisers will more money for ad spots on less popular shows in order to reach desirable demographics, even though other programs may have many millions of more viewers."
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:5, Interesting)
> Is there something inherently better with iOS development? Is the API better written? Is there some technological inferiority to Android? Is it cheaper to buy the development tools for iOS?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Xcode is a wonderful IDE, and with things like CLANG/LLVM and LLDB it's only getting better. Cocoa and Cocoa Touch are insanely great APIs and Objective C kicks the shit out of Java in terms of readability and performance. The development experience for iOS is much, much more streamlined and defined then Android.
I'm not even sure if it's worth mentioning the fact that Google (and it's associates) actively brag about a new Android device every week now- with different specs, hardware, and screen resolutions. Trying to support a moving target like Android is a nightmare, so you might as well pick the top 5 phones and make sure your stuff works on those- and forget about the five thousand other devices out there (which may or may not work).
Comparing iOS to Android is like comparing the Xbox 360 to a PC. You get a stable and well defined platform with one, and a crapshoot with the other.
-AC
Fragmentation (Score:4, Interesting)
Phones are still sold with version 2.2 of android, 4.0 is now shipping. Faced with that, what could go wrong for developers?
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:5, Interesting)
Why Developers Still Prefer iOS To Android
Is there something inherently better with iOS development?
Yes. iOS has an integrated development environment including debugging tools that allow on the fly changes to the code while debugging.
Is the API better written?
Yes. The iOS API is more feature rich and provides things like low latency audio.
Is there some technological inferiority to Android? Is it cheaper to buy the development tools for iOS?
Yes, as mentioned above, there is no low latency audio support and the interface has a normal priority instead of high priority which is one of the major reasons why the UI on android phones feels sluggish at times.
Android did not even have a native SDK until recently and you were forced to write everything against the Dalvik JVM.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Does this explain why, when you lay an iOS and an Android app side by side, the iPhone one almost always appears more polished?
Usually the function is the same, but the one on iOS will show screen wipes graphically smooth, the animation is smooth, the interface is simpler because you don't rely on users to know they need to check the "menu" button for a bunch of options and suboptions.
In some cases (like with Yahoo's fantasy offerings) the iOS app is pretty good, and the android one is just a link to a mobile site basically. I've always wondered why these things are.
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Android has many problems (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a combination of non-GPU-accelerated interfaces on many Android devices and the fact that Android doesn't provide as robust or helpful a GUI API (transitions, effects, widgets, events, GUI management in general) as iOS.
It simply takes more work to make an app look good on Android, and even then it'll still "feel" worse because everything's being rendered in the CPU.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm the opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm the exact opposite. My game engine and various libraries (lua, box2d, etc) are all written in C++ / C, thus I have a single codebase that I build for both iOS and Android (and Windows and OSX). 99.9% of the code is shared - there are literally a few dozen lines of Javascript / Objective C that tie events at the app level into my game engine.
I greatly prefer to release for Android first, and I can't imagine why anyone would want to release for iOS version first. I can patch bugs and have a new Android build online and rolled out to my users within an hour or so. I can throw a new build straight to a user via a URL or email that they can upgrade to directly to check the fix (which is, for all intents and purposes, not an option with iOS having to deal with getting the user's device ID, generating a mobileprovision file, using one of my 100 device slots, etc, etc) With iOS my app has to go through the entire approval process again, adding at least a 1 week minimum delay before the bug fixes reach the users. It's far better allowing the Android users to give the game a thorough thrashing for several days to make sure there aren't any obscure or hard to trigger bugs, then roll out to the iOS folks.
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:4, Interesting)
Others have already answered this, but I feel it needs to be said again:
YES.
Maybe not exactly yes to the last bit, but it is cheaper to develop non-trivial commercial apps for iOS than Android, more often than not. The Apple developer fee is so tiny as not to be worth considering when compared with developer time. The extra testing necessary for Android would alone pay the developer fee many times over, and that's if development itself didn't generally take longer (and it most certainly does).
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Which will quickly massively outnumber Apple's demographic. Apple will be a major player for a while yet, but they're pursuing a dead end, I think. Don't know if it's a year or a couple years before they lose their perception as market leader, but it's clearly going to happen.
I don't mean this as trolling against Apple; they've done some amazing stuff. I just think they have no realistic hope of outcompeting Android at this point. You can't occupy 'high end' and 'numerically dominant' niches at the same time...
Re:Hey hold on there... (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty sure I included you when I mentioned the hardcore techies. Folks like you are the only ones who "treasure freedom" and lash out angrily at Apple for daring to put constraints on your beloved software tweaking habits. You represent a minority of Android's demographic, with the rest coming from budget smartphone buyers.
Because that's how a business works?
Of course. Google shares those figures annually. Advertising is about 97% of their revenue, which is over $8 billion.
No, Google makes relatively little money from Android, and that's according to Google. I have no where you're getting the idea that they're making more money than Apple is from iOS, because that contradicts every hard number available.
Re:I'm the opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with Google on this one (Score:5, Interesting)
We publish on both iOS and Android and I can say without a doubt its a MUCH bigger pain in the ass to publish with Apple. Their processes for vetting applications, even updates, takes several days and they certainly don't work on weekends. It also took significantly (over a month) longer to get setup with an Apple developer account and the requirements in terms of legal documents are significant, to the point that my company had to go to the office of our Secretary of State to get some documents filed that we hadn't needed in more than 20 years of existence. In short, I can't see anyone who does freemimum or truly free apps preferring Apple and its certainly NOT a friendly environment for start ups. Interestingly the Amazon market is kind of a middle ground between the almost too open Android market and Apple's too closed (IMO) approach.
Re:Out of interest (Score:4, Interesting)
The API. There's a ton of shit you can one-line in iOS that you'll have to write yourself in Android, or drag in 3rd party libraries.
Once you get past development, every stage after that's easier too. Testing? Easier. Putting it in the store? Easier (only one to worry about rather than several). Push messaging? Well-supported through a single vendor (Apple) rather than poorly supported through several. Want to add in-app purchasing? No problem.
For professional developers Android is, frankly, a pain in the ass. The only way it's better is if you're a hobbyist, and even then... I think I'd rather pay the $100.
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:1, Interesting)
Exactly.
The low latency audio support is a big one. There are things the *original* iPhone can do that the latest Android phone can't do, generally anything that requires low latency. Problem is, Google doesn't even know what low latency is, so there is no way that they know how to fix it. In the Android CCD, Google defines low latency as something like 45 ms, which is laughable. Google simply does not have the skillset, they are better at servers and web interfaces type of projects but they have no clue about other things. Also the people working there don't have a passion for things like music, music apps, smooth animations, games, basically anything that requires creativity, imagination, and taste, so you'll never see them make a product that does things things well.
tldr; Android is basically a web browser that's also a phone, while iOS is a computer that's also a phone.
Android Market Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Odd definition of Open (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows PC vs Macintosh. The more open platform won.
I don't recall Linux winning. Windows to Mac, both are almost as closed.
Wait, actually even that is not true. OS X is based on Darwin which is open source, and also BSD which is open source - and a lot of the things it ships with (like Apache or Bash) are open source.
So doesn't in fact history tell us here that closed won definitively?
Android vs iOS. The same is happening here with the Android platform having a significantly larger userbase.
Aha, but the tricky thing is defining what a smartphone user really is. If it's someone that merely owns a smartphone, Android is "winning". But if it's users that actually use smart phones as, well, smart phones - it would appear iOS is winning handily by any metric (app sales, developer interest, percentage of users on web logs).
Give it a couple more years. Apple will be a fading memory.
I DARE you to short Apple. It is a rising behemoth that is only just at the start of REAL growth.
And yes, I have bought stock - at varying levels since $30...
Re:Really Has Nothing to Do with Development (Score:2, Interesting)
Android just got WYSIWYG UI editing about 6 moths ago. You can see it from about 7 minutes in on this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com]
It's like comparing a neanderthal flint tool to a modern power tool to compare that to what you get in XCode Interface Builder.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing you wrote disputes anything I wrote, and in fact, you further support my points. Android was intended to compete with what was then the most popular smartphone, the Blackberry. Hardware-accelerated, touchscreen-driven interfaces weren't yet the norm, and everything was CPU-driven. Just check out what the Android simulator looked like. These are the technical foundations on which Android is based, in contrast to iOS which is driven entirely by GPU-accelerated layers.
All you did was restate what I wrote but more angrily and with a random accusation that I claimed Google copying Apple, which I didn't write and have in fact never written. You come off like one of those guys who doesn't want to see any criticism of Android, and if anyone even remotely says something negative, they must fit some stereotype you have in your head, and you accuse them of being that stereotype in an attempt to dismiss their points.
I don't care all that much about smartphone operating systems or which one "wins." I just use what I like and couldn't care less what you like.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Screen wipes are now polished? I detract 100 points from them- they're pointless, annoying, and a waste of my time. That looks like a giant point in Android's favor to me.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Before Android bought it, the only Android prototype was a Blackberry clone. After the acquisition, Google began designing on two separate systems--one based upon the prototype with a keyboard, and one with just a touchscreen. The clone was the focus, to try to get something to market as soon as possible. The touchscreen version was considered a long-term goal. I doubt very seriously that full touch-screen considerations were being made on a device whose main purpose (for the company) is to get something to market. Google has shown a willingness to design separate product lines and integrate them later. It's extremely likely that this was the plan.
When Apple introduced the first iPhone, Google saw the writing on the wall and scrapped the Blackberry clone to focus all its Android efforts on a touchscreen version.
All that is largely irrelevant to the point at hand, though. No matter the history of the code, Google did design what is now the current design of Android with touchscreens in mind. And that fact makes it that much worse that they can't achieve the responsiveness of an iPhone today, 4 years later.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice links. Interesting how bonch presumes Google had to look around for something to measure themselves against of type "gadget". In truth, they were striving to be the opposite of Facebook and Microsoft, on the presumption that might work out OK in the long run:
Here's the deep analysis of the Blackberry internals, reading between the lines with psychic divination:
How to spot a Blackberry competitor? It's designed around having multiple windows on the screen at the same time:
It's probably true that Apple has a near monopoly on the early adopter spendoids. I don't think there are a lot more people out there lining up to be so loose with their cash. They are already at the apogee of milking their traditional 10% and these people will soon take their short attention spans to whatever Apple invents next. With Apple, value is rarely time invariant: one part useful, two parts sooner and sexier. Mature market segments tend to deflate the later terms.
Six months is too soon, but I'll be interested to check back on how this pans out a year from now.
Re:I'm the opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
Old man alert (and I'm only in my 30s):
I'm sorry, but "developers" today are fucking spoiled little children.
Back 15 years ago, before the net was completely widespread, everything shipped on DISK. Floppy, CD, whatever. You had to get get your code right, because if there were bugs, you had to send out service packs on disk too.
Complaining about having to go through Apple's "lengthy" review process is a laugh. Oh no, you wanna send out updates of your app several times a day? Maybe you need better coding standards.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and considering how secretive Apple is, and that Android was announced before the iPhone, who else would Android be competing agains in the pre-iPhone marketplace?
Don't forget that Eric Schmidt was on the board at Apple while also CEO at Google. Right after the iPhone was announced he stated that he had to step down due to a possible conflict of interest. So he was fully aware of what was happening with the iPhone long before everyone at RIM and Microsoft.
And this is why Jobs was so pissed at Google - Schmidt was given insider knowledge of the iPhone and then 4 months after the iPhone is release, Android is here. I know there are plenty of great programmers at Google but it takes more then 4 months to design such a UI. Even if they based it on the original iPhone announcement (and not the physical phone), it's still only 11 months - not enough time.
So Android did have the iPhone in mind when it was being designed, but only in the latter part if it's development. I don't agree with the poster to whom you replied, but Google wasn't in the dark when it comes to the development of the iPhone.
Re:Android has many problems (Score:5, Interesting)
They've been paid to sit around waiting for it to be posted so he could say something nice about Microsoft. It's officially called "online reputation management [wikipedia.org]" but it's essentially someone who's paid to tote the company line and up-sell the brand. They'll have several accounts and down-mod anyone that speaks ill of the company (or poster) For instance, I'd wager they have a registered account to see the incoming stories and it gives them time to come up with some advertisement for the release post. (AKA, the long post about how Microsoft is great. This one is a "karma bump" that basically tells you what everyone already knows to build up the account karma which they use to get the karma point bonuses so more people view it and down-mod dissenting opinion.)
This is the second account that I'm aware of that these people use (CmdrPony was mentioned as their previous, I do not know of the ones previous). The last account they basically came out and said they will create a new account because someone will eventually karma bomb them by down-voting every post they can to try to reduce the amount of trolling by this account. The new account will build up karma by posting agreeable comments, then start towing the line.