Apple vs. Android: Developers see a socioeconomic divide

http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/04/04/apple_vs_android_developers_see_a_socioeconomic_divide.html

by amichail • 12 years ago

79 57 12 years ago

lyinsteve• 12 years ago

Also because iOS development is, in my subjective, biased opinion, much less of a pain than Android development.

bennyg• 12 years ago

I want to start tracking hours at my current employer for Android and iOS dev since they are for the same apps. Anecdotally what I've seen is that iOS finishes faster, with way less hiccups and compromises.

makeramen2• 12 years ago

The experience of the developers is also a huge factor.

camus2• 12 years ago

ios has interface builder. You can say whatever you want about it ,it's vastly superior than any gui tool for android. I really think there is a market for android better gui tools,and even a better android IDE. Android studio ,while better than eclipse is not there yet.

msoad• 12 years ago

One thing that many of Silicon Vally people fail to understand is that, data is expensive. For many people who have Android phones, it's not the user experience or quality of the OS. It's just that they have no data plan or their data plan is limited. So don't expect them to download your app over LTE or tweet left and right.

This is more true in developing countries. People buy expensive Android phones but they don't pay for data. Because it's even more expensive than the phone. If you say a phone lives for two year, it's easy to do the math and see a regular data plan is two to three time more expensive than an Android phone.

sliverstorm2• 12 years ago

But does this matter when you can connect to Wi-Fi via your phone?

ineedtosleep• 12 years ago

When home internet plans are starting to have data caps as well, yes.

archagon2• 12 years ago

Wait, aren't data plans equally expensive all across the board? I don't think I've ever seen an Android user in the US with no data plan.

SimpleXYZ• 12 years ago

I've wondered about that myself. Most of my apps require data and I'm not exactly sure how that limits the market.

pyoung• 12 years ago

I am not 100% on this, but I think most of the US providers wont allow you to activate a smart phone without a data plan. It's kind of BS, but my guess is that they do it to ensure they re-coup the costs of the higher subsidies given out for smartphones.

stickmangallows• 12 years ago

I was able to use my android phones on T-Mobile for a few years with voice-only. Perhaps things have changed there but I know AT&T forces you to buy a data plan whether or not you buy the phone from them.

archagon2• 12 years ago

They'll probably let you do it if it's unlocked, but I don't think most people buy unlocked phones.

mixologic3• 12 years ago

Wow. That is the worst case I've ever seen of map analysis.

Go to the original map here https://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#, and turn off the iphone layer that happens to be on top. This is pathetic.

Im gonna call my buddy at mapbox.

dang3• 12 years ago

Please let us know what your buddy at Mapbox says.

mixologic3• 12 years ago

"facepalm"

josh-wrale• 12 years ago

You're totally right. Example: Manhattan has a higher concentration of Android than Newark by far. This is not visible without toggling layers. This is probably due to the concentration of people in Manhattan vs. Newark, IMHO.

The argument that iOS is more frequent in high income areas still seems fairly sound. Still, the story misrepresents the map by far.

poopsintub• 12 years ago

The article's map data almost seems unrealistic to me. Something is way off...

nostrademons• 12 years ago

Yeah, this is pretty egregious. When I played around with the source map and Manhattan, most of the effect they mentioned goes away when you look at the maps in isolation. The iPhone layer was drawn on top of Android, so of course it looks like Manhattan is full of iPhone users; the only time the Android pixels stand out is where there are no iPhone users at all.

nkoren• 12 years ago

Even with the egregious layering problem, the map actually shows something pretty interesting: the way in which Android has colonised lower-density lower-income areas to the almost total exclusion of the iPhone. It makes sense: you can buy brand-new low-end Android devices; you can't do the same with iPhones.

So the map doesn't actually show that Android is doing poorly in high-value areas; it does, however, show that Android is doing well in low-value areas -- in addition to doing well in high-value areas. The data is a win for Android even if the map literally obscures this fact.

amiune• 12 years ago

What we can infer is that people with iphones don't tweet in poor neighborhoods

dnfehren• 12 years ago

The maps aren't great but Manhattan seems like a particularly bad example due to the point density. If you look at Chicago (https://www.mapbox.com/labs/twitter-gnip/brands/#11/41.8726/...) the distribution of phone types with regard to the economic status of the neighborhoods is a little clearer. Obviously it's all basic/easily misled visual comparison though.

pavanky• 12 years ago

Also android seems to be the bottom layer no matter what order i turn the layers on. This is idiotic.

guelo• 12 years ago

It is bad analysis by the reporter but it's also a bad map.

Once the tweet-density becomes higher than the maximum point density the area turns red. So any dense concentration of people is shown as red. Find a crowded poor neighborhood and it'll be red. And it's compounded by the way red pops out more than the green does. Also compounded by the annoying zoom level restriction.

jimbeam42• 12 years ago

Or a really clever marketing tactic:

Hmm, do I want a phone associated with rich people, or poor people?

marklubi• 12 years ago

The initial cost of a given device could easily explain this difference. There are plenty of Android devices that you can get for free with a two year contract, not so much for iOS.

Those with less expendable income are probably more likely to select a free device.

sureshv• 12 years ago

iPhone 4S is free with 2-year contract; Apple moves the older generation devices into the free tier after they start the upgrade cycle. The iPhone 5c will be next into the free tier.

Iftheshoefits• 12 years ago

Data plan and phone-cost affordability has some impact here, but the socioeconomic divide is not explained entirely in those terms.

I think it has as much to do with the fact that Apple's target market consists largely of affluent people seeking to identify with a brand that has geek/tech credibility. It's not that people with lower incomes wouldn't be (or aren't) interested in having Apple mobile products; it's that Apple basically ignores them.

iamben• 12 years ago

Is my maths awful (I have been drinking) or am I right in thinking that even if Android users spend less on average, having three times as many of them is going to equal more revenue?

coldtea2• 12 years ago

Your math is a little sloppy. Nothing necessitates that "3 times as many" users on a platform equal more revenue than another platform.

So, if iOS users overspend Android users more than android_user_count/ios_user_count times, iOS still offers more revenue.

Average spending and profit margins count as much, if not more, as raw user count. The same way that the Mac, say, has around 15% of the laptop market share, but takes home around 80% of the laptop market profits.

bsder• 12 years ago

It probably takes more money and effort to reach that 3x number of Android users.

So, if I have $1,000,000 to spend on marketing and sales what's my best allocation? Exactly: $1,000,000 on iOS and $0 on Android until my data shows that I've saturated iOS.

crxpandion• 12 years ago

This post warrants a little public shaming: http://xkcd.com/1138/

downandout2• 12 years ago

Is this news? Android users aren't worthless, but they are indeed worth less. On some apps I've heard of disparities as high as 15X - the value of an Android user being 1/15th that of an iOS user. On my own apps it's gone as high as 9X.

That said, as long as you understand the economics of each platform and ensure that your advertising expenditures and any incremental user costs are in line with the disparity, you should be fine. In my experience, the best strategy is to spend any advertising budget on iOS installs, and let word of mouth/viral features get free installs on Android.

eik3_de• 12 years ago

So if the iOS user is willing to spend more, I could add a few % to the price tags in my online shop if user has an iOS user agent?

downandout2• 12 years ago

That would be an interesting experiment. There are many more variables involved though (for example, where your prices are in comparison to your competitors). My guess, strictly off the top of my head, is that it would work - at least until customers see lower prices when visiting from their desktop and get upset.

A better solution may be to mark everything up across the board - say 10% - and then offer Android users a 10% discount, while offering no discount to iOS users who are unlikely to be as price sensitive as Android users.

dcohenp• 12 years ago

There is some related precedent, with Orbitz charging Mac users more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230445860457748...

steven777400• 12 years ago

I think the relative user experience of the platform might also drive the particular outcomes. For example, I do a lot of my shopping online. From my desktop PC. I have an Android phone. It's garbage. There's no way I could buy something with it even if I wanted to. I have an Android tablet. It's fine, but I don't do much shopping on it.

Would I shop more with my mobile devices if they were Apple? Maybe. My coworkers show me their most current generation Apple phones and tablets and WOW it's like I stepped 10 years into the future.

I agree that economic issues are a reality, but many low-end Android devices are not useful for shopping or paid apps, so that artificially makes the Android market look worse. It would be nice if the graphs could be further subdivided by some metric into, say, Android 4 devices capable of running apps, and older Android devices that don't have the speed, space, or otherwise are unusable anywhere outside of the phone or text screens.

gress• 12 years ago

This. This is the precise explanation of the difference.

The Samsung Galaxy and Moto X phones may be equivalent to an iPhone, but the iPhone outsells them 2:1. The Android phones that make up the bulk of the 80% market share just aren't equivalent.

arnarbi• 12 years ago

Looking at Atlanta is telling.

makeramen2• 12 years ago

As an Android Developer, I would urge aspiring mobile developers to think about it this way: In which market is there more demand for developers?

I know so many companies that need good android devs and can't find any because nobody has the experience. From my anecdotal experience, the demand for Android Developers is much higher than iOS (relative to the supply) at the moment.

tieTYT• 12 years ago

Why would you urge that? Seems like it depends on what you want to do with your skills. If you want to make an app, you should follow the money. If you want to get a job, you should follow the demand for developers.

fidotron• 12 years ago

The maps are clearly flawed, but the overall point is entirely true, and emphasised by the fact that most spending on Android is, predictably, done by those with newer higher end devices.

I used to be super bullish on Android, now much less so. It's sacrilege around here, but I'm beginning to think that ecosystems which are not primarily based on open source have broader economic benefits. Even the notion of barriers to entry (i.e. expensive dev tools) can serve a purpose, in that companies will invest more developing products in such situations with less fear that they're going to be nuked by some kids and an open source stack. (Of course in reality they just do less, but the free competitors problem isn't going to happen).

This is why I'm incredibly pessimistic about the web, and almost any technology attached to Google these days: it's simply far too competitive, and the barriers to entry, thanks to the cloud wars and modern software stacks, are getting smaller at a frightening rate. Google are smart enough that when you're in an ecosystem with them and they aren't doing the role you're doing it's because they've commoditized their complements: you.

My hunch is Google have been pursuing Glass, and now wearables, in a desperate way to attach their brand to the classes of people that carry iPhones. The Apple envy in Mountain View seems to run very deep indeed, but they're also trying to fight off Facebook at every turn, which has led to a very confused situation.

Yetanfou• 12 years ago

And all this is bad for what reason exactly? If you see everything as a profit center - or, in other terms, something which gives 'economic benefits' (to whom?) - I can understand why you're peeved by free software. From a user perspective I can see no downside to the availability of a large body of free software, au contraire.

Understand that 'value' does not equal 'economic value'. There are many factors which make up the value of a good or a technology, some of them easily quantifiable - like your 'economic value', some of them less so. Also understand that in the long run the increased access to technology which free software and free protocols provide can actually lead to economic benefits as well.

You use the web as an example to support your thesis. Imagine what would have happened if CERN decided to license and sell web technologies in the way Apple and Microsoft license and sell their products. You would not have been able to write your comment here, on this web site, using that browser. There would not have been a web site for you to write it on. Even if you were 'lucky' enough to have some corporate sponsor to pay for your 'Platinum web access' voucher your comment would probably have lingered in the void for lack of readership. The web would have resembled America Online or Minitel, with limited interaction and commercial sites only. It would also have given but a fraction of the 'economic benefits' of the current, open web.

tehabe2• 12 years ago

This is just my personal opinion but I've seen a lot of very nice looking and well designed iOS applications while the Android counter part (from the same company) is awful and almost unusable. It looks and feels like an iOS application but it just doesn't work on Android.

And there are a lot of of those applications on Play Store.

Yeah, there are also a lot of ugly and unusable applications w/o an iOS counter part but well.

I think Android users are not willing to spend money of bad applications and the count of good and well designed applications is higher on iOS also because Apple enforces the design guidelines. Google doesn't do that.

doctorcroc• 12 years ago

Can you give me some examples of apps where the android counter part is significantly less usable? I'm not calling you out, I'd just like to see why this is the case...

tehabe2• 12 years ago

DB Navigator is for me such an example, the Android version improved but it is still very buggy and slow. The Android version used to look and behave almost exactly like the iOS version which simply doesn't work for Android.

While the iOS version works very well.

That is a frustrating experience.

Steko• 12 years ago

The real divide is when you look globally. Android probably has 90% of the $100-$300 smartphone market and closer to 50% of the $400+ smartphone market.

ohwp• 12 years ago

I think a lot of people underestimate how much money is going in in in-company-apps.

As an app developer I prefer Android over Apple because of how easy it is to deploy your app.

allsystemsgo• 12 years ago

But I would rather drive a nail into my eye than write in Eclipse.

w1ntermute• 12 years ago

Well then it's a good thing Eclipse isn't necessary for Android development, isn't it?

coldtea2• 12 years ago

The enterprise though predominantly uses iOS for in-house apps, at least in the US.

frankus• 12 years ago

Among people I've worked with (at least those wealthy enough that a $200 subsidized price difference once every few years isn't a deciding factor), I've noticed a pretty clear split where Android fans tend to skew Republican and Apple fans skew Democratic.

I'd be curious to see if that's just confirmation bias on my part or a real trend.

Apple vs. Android: Developers see a socioeconomic divide

Related Stories