Comments on: Android Getting Slaughtered by iPhone

By: Bera

Bera — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:49:48 +0000

Nothing wrong with this, at all, people should get it more.

By: Demand for iPhone Application Development Passes Facebook | Freelancing and Outsourcing Tips, Commentary, Analysis, and News from oDesk

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:00:25 +0000

[...] December, we demonstrated that iPhone application development was beating the pants off Android – jobs to develop the Apple apps were leading by 10 to one. This week, we comb our trend [...]

By: fhiggins

fhiggins — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:46:11 +0000

Absolutely, we would be foolish to underestimate Google and think they have given their best effort so far. Their style is more of the quiet patient growth than the Apple trumpets and fanfare approach.

By: Parvesh Malhotr

Parvesh Malhotr — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:39:18 +0000

Hi Frank, Apologies for harsh words, well the user base for Iphone is enough to warrant good amount of interest in developer community. Android will pick up once more users are onboard.
Demand can only increase when interest among users will increase and user base increases. remember when microsoft came up with .net platform the same discussions started everywhere about Java and .net; we all know the situation now

By: fhiggins

fhiggins — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:28:34 +0000

Parvesh, thank you for your feedback. The most amount of drugs I had was caffeine when writing this.
I think there is enough differences between the two platforms to argue they are not directly comparible but in looking at iPhone app store opening in pre summer 2008 and android following on by a few months, there is enough there to compare. It is true that iPhone had a year to build up users but the Android SDK has been available for quite a while.
In a year or two we may be discussing how Android and the open source movement has obliterated the iPhone as a platform but as of now, the data has some value. Thoughts?

By: Parvesh Malhotr

Parvesh Malhotr — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:19:16 +0000

what a rubbish article,were the guy on drugs who wrote this? did the person kept in mind the releases for both the platforms.. come on a person with minimal common sense can think this much that developers dont have android compatible DNA, there is learning curve for everything and that is what will increase demand in coming day.
Comparing an established platform with a new 2-3 months old platform is plain rubbish.

By: KenC

KenC — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:51:05 +0000

Of course Android is “getting slaughtered”, there are probably 15M iPhones out there now, not counting iPod Touches, and there are maybe 150k Android phones. Of course the number of requests for iPhone developers is going to be an order of magnitude higher.

By: fhiggins

fhiggins — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:46:44 +0000

Definitely. Google has that “slow creep” in the way its products move up to prominence. Apple has the finished polished product with the big PR sweep around it.

By: Kurtosis

Kurtosis — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:25:19 +0000

In addition, Apple tends to release finished products while Google releases in Beta and then uses user feedback to evolve them. That seems to be the modus operandi of both in this case too. iPhone has always been a much more polished product from Day 1 than Android has from its release. The G1 is good, but by comparison is clunky and just not in the same league as iPhone yet. Hopefully future versions and other companies’ iterations will close the gap, but it appears it will need to offer more than just an open-source platform to capture market share.

By: Michael Maitlen

Michael Maitlen — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:38:53 +0000

I’m biased toward the Android platform, and I totally agree with Wyatt, I would also like to point out that companies cannot charge for their apps yet on the Android Application Market. I would assume that many companies are holding back on development until they can actually see some profits coming out of their development effort. I would think that any mobile development house with a long term vision would port their applications to both platforms once they can make money on both markets.

By: Wyatt Foard

Wyatt Foard — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:44:01 +0000

One factor that should be taken into account in this analysis is the release dates for the devices that run the two platforms. The first iPhone was launched mid-2007 while the first phone running Android was not launched until Oct of 2008. I would argue the time lag for developer positions is to be expected and reflects not faith in the OS, but rather practical decision-making when companies look at the end result. Business developers can believe Android will be a major player in the mobile computing market, but without devices to run it on their money would be more wisely spent in other areas. The true test will be how these numbers change in the coming months, especially as the number of Android-powered devices continues to grow.

By: Ashish Adeshara

Ashish Adeshara — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:56:04 +0000

Hey,

Good Observation of Odesk about iphone trend. Specially in Supply.

By: Frank Higgins

Frank Higgins — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:06:23 +0000

I get what you are saying about the nature of the apps but I think the point here is more the huge discrepancy between the quantity of development. This is the future feature set of the devices and it appears the Android platform is not being embraced to near the same degree.

Time and effort can change things but right now, the gap is large.

By: Tim Lytle

Tim Lytle — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:02:04 +0000

Not quite a fair treatment, if I’m not mistaken the first iPhone apps (which would have to be the apps in your stats) were not much more than specialized web apps. On the other hand, Android apps are on-device apps. Two very different things.

By: Brian Flores

Brian Flores — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:18:37 +0000

Another opinion is to consider the impact that Apple’s “Walled Garden” approach has on simplifying the application development process. With the iPhone & iPod Touch, you’re developing for what is essentially a single configuration/platform. With Android development, you have to write code that will potentially be supported by multiple configurations – QVGA & VGA screens, portrait & landscape mode, widely differing amounts of onboard memory/storage space, different processors, etc. All things being equal, it’s much simpler to develop an App Store application.