While choosing whether to develop for Android or iOS use to be an easy choice, it’s now a very hard decision thanks to Android’s growing user base and Apple’s strict developer guidelines. While iOS clearly monetizes better than Android, there’s a smaller gap than you might think. Android actually offers quite an enticing user base that can now become profitable thanks to Google Play.
In terms of size alone, Google’s Android crushes all of the competition. Nielsen suggests that 48 percent of all smartphones are running Android, while just 32 percent run iOS. Google itself says that there are over 850,000 Android devices being activated each day and all of those users combined to download more than 617 million apps in March 2012. iOS users on the other hand download just 393 million apps on the iPhone in March. The cost of placing ads on Android is also far less than on iOS. Fiksu says that the estimated cost of each ad impression on Android was 40 percent lower than on iOS.
Aside from the larger user base, Android has several other advantages. For one, there is no app approval process. Whereas you and your team may work for months on an app for iOS, only to have it rejected by Apple. Updates on iOS also have to be approved, so if your app makes it through the initial approval process, but your users discover a critical bug, it may be another week before the fix hits the App Store.
Gaining traction in the iOS App Store is also more challenging than in Android. Analytics firm Xyologic claims that the “momentum of iOS for app publishers” has slowed down considerably in the last 5 months. It’s also almost all the same apps in the top 100 every week, with new apps rarely making the jump. Searching on Android provides users with better results, as well. Data suggests that 80% of the organic users in Google Play come from searches.
The biggest factor for developers of course, is monetization. While there clearly is an advantage on iOS, it’s not as big as some seem to think. Flurry Analytics claim that Google Play monetization is about 24 percent of monetization on iOS, but that the gap has narrowed over the course of 2012. The gap, Flurry suggests, is due mainly due to payment mechanisms. Google has worked hard to improve payment forms with the integration of Google Wallet and carrier billing, though.
But the fact is, if you make a quality app, people will pay for it. Whether it be on iOS or Android or both, but there are some things that you can do to help your app. For one, focus on design. If you look at all the popular apps recently, none of them are ugly. There are so many apps out there that your’s has to have something to stand out and design is one of the most important factors for users. You also have to focus on making your app support as many versions back of Android as possible. More than 50 percent of Android users are on Gingerbread, so it would not be beneficial to create an app that supports only Jelly Bean devices. You also, however, want to support as many Google features as possible, even if only a small portion of the user base can use the feature. In a few weeks, that feature could be the thing of the now. Then of course, there is SEO, or search engine optimization. Use a title for your app that will make it easy to find. But be sure not to use too many keywords, or the app may get marked as spam.You also will want to market and promote your app anywhere and everywhere.You ahve built a great app and is now time to tell the world about it as you can’t just expect users to find you, you need to find the users also.Once you are done creating your app it is time to take off your developer hat and put on your marketing hat! Android App marketing can come in several different forms and we provide a paid review service here at Androidheadlines.com which helps get your application in front thousands of users instantly.
There’s no question that creating an app in this environment is hard, but with the right focus , research and marketing, it is possible. Especially with the increased adoption of Google’s Android operating system.