iOS Development vs. Android Development

June 19, 2014 | Stefan Mischook

So which OS should you create apps for? At first glance, given how many more users are using Android devices vs iOS devices, you'd think that Android is the way to go ... but perhaps that might not be the best choice!

Facts about Android

I love bullet points, so here we go:

  1. Android has a huge user base but Android OS is heavily fragmented. Who knows how many versions of Android you will have to account for with your app.
  2. There are many different Android devices with many different specs. Same problem as in point #1.
  3. Android apps are written with Java ... not the hardest but not the easiest language to use and learn.
  4. Android dev tools I hear suck.

Facts about iOS

  1. There are less iOS devices out there than Android devices ... but there are still a lot!
  2. There are a few versions of iOS, but still much less than Android. This makes iOS much easier to code for.
  3. Objective C is the current language for iOS app development but this is now going to be replaced with Swift, which is much easier to learn and work with than Java.
  4. iOS limited hardware (iPhones, iPads, iPod Touch) makes for a much easier landscape to contend with. There are far few devices to have to worry about.
  5. Apps on iOS tend to make more money that apps on Android. So if you want to make some $, iOS seems to be the top choice.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook
swiftplayground.org
 

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