There’s nothing like a good rivalry to get the juices flowing – Yankees vs. Red Sox, Ravens vs. Steelers, Tiger vs. Phil, Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, Federer vs. Nadal – all of these and others like them are responsible for creating some of the greatest moments, and certainly the greatest spectacles, in sports.
For those of us who spend crazy amounts of time using, following, and writing about mobile technology, Android vs. iOS is rapidly becoming the mother of all rivalries. It’s got all the angles to help make it a great spectator sport too – Open vs. Closed (and how open is open while we’re at it), ‘Droid Does’ vs. ‘If You Don’t Have an iPhone’ (You suck, seems to be the implication), Google vs. Apple – Battle of the Titans, and all the rest.
One of the latest examples of the Android vs. iOS ‘battle’, playing out over recent days, is the question of which platform is better for developers to focus their efforts on. This has been sparked by a venture capitalist, Fred Wilson, advising developers that they should write first for Android – as he predicts that this platform battle will play out as a replay of Windows vs Macintosh. As Fortune Tech reports, Marco Arment, a leading developer of apps like Instapaper, disagreed with Wilson:
Arment, a developer, thinks that’s bad advice. He believes Android’s market share gains may be illusory — especially when the rise of the iPad is taken into account — and that as a development environment, Google’s OS has serious shortcomings.
And now a recent survey shows that nearly 75% of developers see ‘Android fragmentation’ as a problem – as you can see in the chart at the top of the post.
The survey – of 250 working developers – throws up some interesting numbers, and several that do not look great for Android. Here are a few of those:
— The number of developers writing apps for Android was higher than those writing for iOS – 71% to 62%.
— Just to underscore how far ahead these two platforms are, no other platform got more than 27%.
— 24% of those surveyed see Android device fragmentation as a huge issue.
— Only 14% say it is not a problem.
And here is a general roundup of issues that developers mentioned in writing for Android:
- Device fragmentation. 56% of Android developers said that operating system fragmentation among the various Android devices was a meaningful or “huge” problem, a percentage that actually increased over the past three months.
- Store fragmentation. Several developers expressed concern over Android app store fragmentation. “Generally,” Baird reports, “developers seem to prefer a unified, single store experience like Apple’s App Store.”
- Ease of development. iOS outscored Android, but both were considered far easier to develop for than, say, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry OS or Nokia (NOK) Symbian.
- App visibility. “iOS continues to lead,” Baird reports, “followed by Blackberry, with Android still receiving poor marks in this category.” Developers are particularly concerned about the level of “junk” apps in the Android ecosystem.
- Ability to get paid. iOS leads here too, followed by BlackBerry.
Of course, this is just one survey – and 250 developers is a relatively small sample set, but when 86% of those surveyed feel that fragmentation is a problem that sounds like something worth worrying about if you’re involved in the Android platform.
I’m not a developer, and I could not even come close to playing one on TV – but as just a user I can relate a little to the subject of fragmentation on a mobile platform. It takes me back to the Bad Old Days of Windows Mobile, before the iPhone and iOS came along. There was massive store fragmentation – with carriers throwing their ugly and crap-ridden stores onto devices, and various online stores competing for users’ attention. There was never a single, easy place to install apps from.
Even worse was device and carrier fragmentation, which could be most painfully felt when updates emerged for your latest, greatest Windows Mobile device. A great new update would come out and you’d get all excited, and then have your excitement crushed because your carrier was running months behind on releasing the update for your device.
I don’t miss those days at all, they really were the bad old days. I love the fact that Apple seems to have told the carriers exactly who calls the shots, has never allowed them to have anything at all to do with OS updates, and has never allowed any of their shitty app stores to make it onto any iOS device.
So I can definitely see why developers might well see all the fragmentation in the Android market as a big problem.
The other point that seems quite obviously true among the issues mentioned by developers is ‘App Visibility’. It’s an area where iOS is miles ahead of Android. The best way to see this is just to look at where the real blockbuster and flagship apps go first. It’s just about always to iOS. When is the last time an Angry Birds type app debuted on Android?
What do you all think of these latest salvos in the Android vs. iOS battle? Is fragmentation something you see as a problem? Should developers see it as a problem? Which mobile platform will dominate the world and crush all others?
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TAGS: Android vs. iOS
