Over the years since Android and iOS have started their battle for winner of the mobile space, there have been a few trends that have kept pretty solid. While Apple took the lead in a number of areas, including market share, app availability and ease of development, Android has caught up steadily. It only took Android 2 years to overtake Apple in terms of sheer market share, and that lead has only become more commanding since then. Apple had the pinch on sheer volume of apps available on its Appstore, but Google Play outmatch that last summer by reaching 1 million apps available well before Apple. But there’s been one thing that Android has always lagged behind on, and that’s developer support and ease of development. While Android is the dominant platform worldwide with somewhere in the vacinity of 80% of all smartphones sold, there have always been more developers on iOS. That is, until now of course.
Data from the Evans Data Corporation has revealed that Android has finally taken the commanding lead amongst the sample group of mobile developers, and this is the 27th time this test has been run over the years. Of the 464 respondants for winter 2013, 84% of tablet developers said they were targeting Android as a development platform. That’s compared to %62 for iOS, 52% for Windows Phone and a measly 14% for Kindle OS. That’s significant because traditionally Apple’s iPad has garnered a substantial lead in number of apps that are built for tablets vs many of Android’s apps just being scaled up from their phone versions. What’s more over 40% of Android developers say that they finish their apps within one month’s time of development, which is compared to 36% on iOS and 34% on Windows Phone. That’s pretty incredible when you think about the sheer number of different phones, tablets and other devices that run Android, much less the different screen resolutions and hardware power out there, and of course the truly limited number of devices that run iOS or Windows Phone. It’s also pretty interesting looking at Kindle sales vs how many developers are choosing to develop for the platform.
What does all this mean for you? Simply put, expect more apps in the coming months as Android continues to surge ahead on market share worldwide, and with that expect better apps that are more tailored to our OS of choice. This is particularly important when considering a tablet, as Android tablets have taken quite a large slice out of Apple’s pie over the years, and there are now more Android tablets out there than ever before. Tablets apps mean better experiences for those with tablets, and make people more likely to buy them in the first place.
Source: Evans Data
Via: Android Community