[Cialug] iPhone vs Android

[Todd Walton]

> Job's reality distortion field
> the C-levels at Gannett all have iPhones

Okay, maybe. But C-levels don't become C-levels without at least a little
bit of business sense. And this isn't just Gannett doing this, it seems to
happen all the time. There's a company called Axelos who've released an
iPhone app for learning ITIL, but not Android.

> There's only so much time and resources available to write software

Which seems like a good reason to start with Android, where you stand to
gain a bigger bang for your buck.

> with IOS, you pay once and get a piece of crap that works OK on most
devices and your support staff is a single person

But Gannett already has Android apps and therefore Android developers, in
some capacity. The Register's newspaper app is available for Android. They
could probably even take the newspaper app code and just rebrand everything
and stick in new content. Add a map for the RAGBRAI version.

This article:
http://fueled.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-an-app/

says, "There is a negligible difference in price between the construction
of iOS and Android apps, although Android can sometimes cost a little more
due to the wider range of devices and operating system versions that an app
needs to be optimized for."

Other sources agree, and some put iPhone costs slightly higher.

> it's a good business decision

Which doesn't seem to be the case, which is the root of my question. I
don't see it.

--
Todd


On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Josh More <jmore at starmind.org> wrote:

> App developers come in two flavours - those that want to solve real
> problems and those that use the easy tools to collect a paycheck. The
> latter have been targeted by Apple with a campaign focused on
> promoting graphic artists into "developers".
>
> So, in the former case, you have people who are highly skilled and
> expensive, creating apps that don't look very good and often fail
> based on the wide range of devices out there. In the latter, you get
> cheap apps that look great and work reliably (usually) on a class of
> device.
>
> At the business level, an Android solution requires investing a lot of
> cash up front to pay for the good devs AND investing in a support
> infrastructure since there's no way to test an app on all available
> devices so you have to deal with the constant "my four year old device
> won't run your app!" complaints. If you go with IOS, you pay once and
> get a piece of crap that works OK on most devices and your support
> staff is a single person whose job is saying "we don't support the
> iPhone4, you have to upgrade".
>
> All told, it's a good business decision, even if we don't like it.
>
> -Josh
>
> On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 2:49 PM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It has long boggled my mind why it seems so common for some organization
> to
> > produce a phone app for iPhone but not Android. Close to home, the
> biggest
> > offender is the Des Moines Register. They made an app for iOS for
> RAGBRAI,
> > but not for Android, and the same for a new "things to do in Des Moines"
> > app. They promised an Android version Real Soon Now, but we're still
> > waiting.
> >
> > What is so hard about making an app for Android? You'd think the least
> they
> > could do is write the thing in HTML5 and show a mobile website on both
> > platforms.
> >
> > Android phones clearly outnumber iPhones in the U.S. and worldwide, and
> > it's not like Des Moines Register's audience (or the audience of any of
> the
> > other apps I've seen do this) are iPhone heavy. Why would a company limit
> > themselves by deliberately rolling out to a smaller audience and then
> > waiting years to go to Android? (Or never going, for some of them.)
> >
> > I thought it might be that iPhone is where the money is. But there's info
> > on that here:
> >
> >
> https://medium.com/its-an-app-world/march-2015-iphone-vs-android-monetization-capabilities-you-won-t-believe-who-won-7a02fde2dc2
> >
> > # of phones worldwide:
> > iPhone: 600,000,000
> > Android: 1,700,000,000
> >
> > Yearly Downloads:
> > iPhone: 22,000,000,000
> > Android: 51,000,000,000
> >
> > In App Purchase Revenue:
> > iPhone: $10,000,000,000
> > Android: $6,000,000,000
> >
> > In App Ad Impressions:
> > iPhone: 580,000,000,000
> > Android: 1,210,000,000,000
> >
> > Ad Revenue:
> > iPhone: $3,300,000,000
> > Android: $4,500,000,000
> >
> > That doesn't look like a clear case for iPhone being the money maker,
> > especially in the case of the Register, being driven by ads.
> >
> > Anyone have any insight? What's so special about iPhone that so many
> people
> > choose to distribute there, and not on Android?
> >
> > --
> > Todd
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cialug mailing list
> > Cialug at cialug.org
> > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> _______________________________________________
> Cialug mailing list
> Cialug at cialug.org
> http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
>