4 ms·

ASK HK: iPhone or Android?

• mrschwabe 16y ago
  You might as well just pick one now, because if you're getting into this game chances are you'll need to deploy on both platforms sooner or later.
• mikeleeorg 16y ago
  I would suggest taking a look at each market (the iOS market & the Android market) in terms of users, distribution, market opportunity for your particular idea, etc. Each varies quite a bit. Some cliff notes: The iTunes App Store is fairly mature payment system that includes the ability to do in-app purchases. This still requires a 30% offering to Apple, but a customer only needs to tap a single button to make a new purchase, as opposed to typing in his/her credit card info. The Android market is growing rapidly and will have a larger footprint than the iOS market in 2011, by most industry forecasts. There is development overhead in supporting multiple OS versions and device types. This is an issue in the iOS world too, but it's not as pronounced as it currently is in Android. The iPad rules the media tablet market right now. It will take a bit of time for an Android tablet to catch up, though Honeycomb looks damn promising. This assumes you're looking at tablet devices too, of course. Although the mobile web doesn't quite offer the same fidelity as native apps do, this is something to consider as well. Mobile development has a much longer development lifecycle. The release process on iOS requires some lead time for the Apple approval process (which seems to be about 1-2 weeks). Android has no approval process, so releases can happen as often as you'd like - though you still need to consider the time it takes for your customers to learn about & upgrade your app. Mobile web apps don't have this overhead. I've found this to be a big surprise to many web developers moving into mobile app development. One last point to consider is your marketing plan once on either store. There are some articles about how to optimize your ranking in the iTunes App Store. They offer very basic metrics too, so you may want to think about an analytics package. The Android Market is younger and there is less info on how to optimize your ranking there. I'm sure they're working to improve the market, though it's fairly difficult to get your app seen just by trying to rank well here. You'll have to use other forms of marketing. Bottom line: Both markets have their pros & cons. Your final choice depends on your particular app. Of course, you can just build it with whichever platform you're most comfortable with, and learn along the way. There are a wealth of resources out there that can help.
• dave1619 16y ago
  Sounds like since you know Java, Android might be easier for you to start. You can also look onto Titanium or Phone Gap but it depends on what kind of app you're trying to make.