Report: Android losing developers to iOS

#1 Macworld

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 08:01 AM

Post your comments for Report: Android losing developers to iOS here

#2 RobK

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 08:02 AM

Now that... that.. can't be right?...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

#3 Kennethfcooper

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 08:36 AM

I guess those who extrapolated the early growth of Android ten years into the future were wrong.

#4 leskern

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 09:08 AM

Their motto: "There isn't an app for that."

#5 cseeman

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 09:31 AM

All this points to why market share for an OS being given away (no inherent profit to Google) is not a primary indicator of "success." Basically OS fragmentation as further complicated by the carriers, lower sales of apps, is just not an incentive for developers compared to iOS. Even advertising, where Google makes its money, may be a fail, because more eyeballs doesn't necessarily lead to greater sales for the advertiser.

Google focused only on getting the eyeballs it seems and not facilitating the sale. When you target market share sometimes you end up carrying a large portion of the market that has little interest in spending additional money on purchases.

Android may continue to grow share on lower cost phones but that may not bring in more revenue for Google advertising or the app developers. It seems like a failed strategy.

#6 Guest_scubarider_*

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 10:16 AM

I'm sure with work the fragmentation will get fixed, but it will be a long and frustrating journey. Competition is good for all. The iPhone remains the most popular smart phone and the only reason there are more downloads of the Android OS is because there are more phones that run it. If there was only one Android phone on the market as with the iPhone, the iPhone iOS would far outpace Android. Of course the iOS is much more stable and of course there are always security issues to be dealt with but the Android system is much more open to hacking and fragmentation. The iOS still accounts for a greater majority of the mobile internet usage.

#7 jdb8167

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 10:45 AM

I don't trust this report any more now that they are giving positive news of iOS than I did when they were giving negative news. I would need to see some evidence that they are counting a representative share of developers. Nothing I've seen says that Flurry is sufficiently generic enough to be a representative sample.

#8 pawhite524

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 01:32 PM

jdb8167, on 17 July 2011 - 10:45 AM, said:

Nicely stated as I was about to make the same points. A half dozen or so reliable analyses coming to the same conclusion merits attention but a single entity? As much as I continue to wish Apple well for the work they do and the standards they set more actual evidence needs to be provided to draw any real conclusions as to the whether the headline from InfoWorld or Flurry is valid.

#9 lkrupp

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 02:20 PM

I'm having difficulty with the "competition is good for all" posts that are showing up all over now that Apple has had some success in the patent arena and is considered a major player. Just a few years ago the mantra was that Apple should give up and let Microsoft own the world, the PC wars were over and MSFT won. Apple was laughed at as competition for Microsoft. Then came the iPod, the iPhone, and now the iPad. Microsoft has failed to compete in all of these markets so far. Android is now supposed to save us from the evil walled garden of the Dark Lord. So it appears that competition is "good for all" only in the context of taking Apple down. It didn't seem to matter that much before Apple's successes.

#10 myapplezone

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 05:11 PM

Apple's legal victory against HTC places a HUGE obstacle in the path of the Android OS. It will be interesting to see how Google responds to this latest setback.

This post has been edited by myapplezone: 17 July 2011 - 05:12 PM

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#11 dazweeja

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 06:33 PM

Another explanation is that Android developers are increasingly using alternative analytics systems to Flurry. I'll even take a guess that the alternative analytics system they are using is called Google Analytics for Mobile.

#12 zarmanto

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 07:42 PM

(Sigh.) Okay... this isn't proof of anything; it's only one indicator. As already demonstrated by a few comments in this thread, many people who support Apple's mobile platform will quickly pounce on it as an indicator of iOS's continuing and unbreakable dominance, while many people who support Android will immediately ask, "but it's an indicator of what exactly? ... because it can't be that!"

The bottom line (and something which can't be argued) is that it's at least an interesting data point. As time passes we'll have chances to gather additional data points, and when we put all that data together, perhaps it'll become some sort of information worthy of producing some sort of a conclusions. No real point in getting ourselves too worked up until then, though.

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#13 whitedog

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 08:25 PM

scubarider, on 17 July 2011 - 10:16 AM, said:

I'm sure with work the fragmentation will get fixed, but it will be a long and frustrating journey.

That is, in my opinion, too sanguine an outlook. With the number of Android devices continuing to grow, the prospects for an end to fragmentation are less than zero. It is, after all, the multiplicity of Android devices - and the lack of standardization of same - that is the root cause of fragmentation. Despite the fact they make the OS, Google has no real control over the Android platform. No, fragmentation is an intrinsic part of Android and to the extent it makes developing for the platform more difficult, the iOS will continue to attract a majority of developer support. The only potential cloud on the horizon for iOS app development is the possibility of market saturation. At this point that is only a theoretical possibility. As long as iOS device sales remain robust, theoretical is all the notion of app market saturation will ever be.

#14 drekka

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Posted 17 July 2011 - 08:27 PM

Putting aside the whole market share issue, this is about developers. I've been coding for iOS for over a year and recently tried Android. A summary of that experience would be (being generous) ... disappointing. As a casual developer based at home, doing it for the enjoyment factor and perhaps a little extra cash, I simply didn't enjoy it at all. I've worked every day with Eclipse and Java for years so I know them both very well. The Android IDE extensions where surprisingly aweful. The simulators aweful and the amount of hassel to get a build (even with Gradle). Ugg! So if I'm going to put my personal time into something, I want to enjoy it. Android completely failed that test for me.