» Why Android first?

Let’s be honest, 2 years ago Android really sucked. The OS was a mess, the store was a mess, the SDK was a mess and the hardware was a mess. Today all that has changed, and it’s an amazing platform. That said overall the app quality on iOS is still far higher than Android, as developers catch up with all these new changes. There’s a point coming soon when Android will be full of high-quality apps, but there’s a gap in the market right now for small developers like us who are passionate about design to create something a cut above the rest. In short it’s currently easier for a good app to stand out on Android than it is on iOS.

I’ve heard from a number of developers that it is easier to get noticed when developing high quality, rich apps on Android. The market just doesn’t have nearly as many of them. A similar story exists for Windows 8. Microsoft and Google are desperate to have AAA titles on their platform and seem to do everything they can to encourage this.

The real question, though, is whether you can support long-term development in these ecosystems. Shift Jelly is one of the only developers I’ve ever heard of who is making a comparable or better income from Android. iOS just has such a high revenue share in mobile. That’s why I’ll be sticking iOS for the foreseeable future.

David Smith