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It's the "Sophie's Choice" for mobile developers: Give up your sense of freedom and openness for smaller exposure but 2x the revenue, or work on your own terms

It's the "Sophie's Choice" for mobile developers: Give up your sense of freedom and openness for smaller exposure but 2x the revenue, or work on your own terms in front of a large and receptive base of customers who loves the sizzle but is "meh" when it comes time to pay for the steak. Perhaps there will be a critical mass that forms when the geek legion legitimizes the cool factor of Android devices and the consumer comes in and starts snapping up apps in the same way it does on iOS, but, if you _have_ to make a choice between the two right now, which would it be? Unfortunately, I have to go where the money is.

mhd 16y ago
I think for a large quantity of apps, that's an unnecessary choice. If your codebase isn't likely to be too large, maintaining a separate port won't be too much effort, even if you don't use some cross-platform technology. And for most "lifestyle" apps that mostly consist of a few screens, that's certainly the case. And I think for those kind of programs, the increasing popularity of Android – and especially for lower price devices – is a big boon. If you're developing a medium- to large-size productivity app, things look quite different, and I would guess that right now the iOS "platform" would be a better choice.
dminor 16y ago
Given that his Android revenues are 50% of iOS, seems like supporting both is where the money is. I'm surprised it's that high actually - not long ago people were throwing out figures like 10%.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Looking at it another way, most companies would sell one of their vice presidents to figure out a way to get 50% more business. This could be an easy route to increasing revenue.
  - msy 16y ago
    That depends entirely on the cost of maintaining two very different codebases, keeping track of two different APIs....
    - elblanco 16y ago
      It's probably less than the 50% bump in revenue, and likely cheaper than building it the first time since you can reuse tons of assets...(of course provided that it's 50% of something sufficient). Let's be realistic about what we're talking about here, most phone apps are not multi-million dollar, multi-year AAA development efforts. They're typically made by a couple guys over a few months. That's why the typical app per-unit price is so low compared to the typical app-per unit price for desktop software. In the case of a "AAA" title, we're likely talking about something that's multi-platform anyway...code is generally cheap, art assets and design is expensive. A great example, Plants vs. Zombies for desktops is $20, for the iPhone it's what...$4? Yet it was completely worth it for PopCap to rebuild the entire game for the i-platforms (twice!) In other words, if it's not worth doing it for a 50% revenue bump, it probably wasn't worth doing it the first time either.
auxbuss 16y ago
I think you mean Hobson's Choice.
- blasdel 16y ago
  Indeed — Sophie had to choose which of her children would be murdered by Nazis.

mhd 16y ago

I think for a large quantity of apps, that's an unnecessary choice. If your codebase isn't likely to be too large, maintaining a separate port won't be too much effort, even if you don't use some cross-platform technology. And for most "lifestyle" apps that mostly consist of a few screens, that's certainly the case. And I think for those kind of programs, the increasing popularity of Android – and especially for lower price devices – is a big boon. If you're developing a medium- to large-size productivity app, things look quite different, and I would guess that right now the iOS "platform" would be a better choice.

dminor 16y ago

Given that his Android revenues are 50% of iOS, seems like supporting both is where the money is. I'm surprised it's that high actually - not long ago people were throwing out figures like 10%.

elblanco 16y ago
Looking at it another way, most companies would sell one of their vice presidents to figure out a way to get 50% more business. This could be an easy route to increasing revenue.
- msy 16y ago
  That depends entirely on the cost of maintaining two very different codebases, keeping track of two different APIs....
  - elblanco 16y ago
    It's probably less than the 50% bump in revenue, and likely cheaper than building it the first time since you can reuse tons of assets...(of course provided that it's 50% of something sufficient). Let's be realistic about what we're talking about here, most phone apps are not multi-million dollar, multi-year AAA development efforts. They're typically made by a couple guys over a few months. That's why the typical app per-unit price is so low compared to the typical app-per unit price for desktop software. In the case of a "AAA" title, we're likely talking about something that's multi-platform anyway...code is generally cheap, art assets and design is expensive. A great example, Plants vs. Zombies for desktops is $20, for the iPhone it's what...$4? Yet it was completely worth it for PopCap to rebuild the entire game for the i-platforms (twice!) In other words, if it's not worth doing it for a 50% revenue bump, it probably wasn't worth doing it the first time either.

auxbuss 16y ago

I think you mean Hobson's Choice.

blasdel 16y ago
Indeed — Sophie had to choose which of her children would be murdered by Nazis.