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At least for this particular flavor of app, building an Android version is an optimization that should be made once the product has been proven successful. Unt

At least for this particular flavor of app, building an Android version is an optimization that should be made once the product has been proven successful. Until that happens, it would be a huge waste of time and money for the developer to build an Android version, since it too would fail as a product, just like the iOS version. Multiplying 0 by 2 is still 0. The situation might be different for an app whose success depended on the user's ability to use the app to communicate with all of their friends, some of which had Android phones.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Why not build something like this cross-platform? The functionality sounds simple enough that you don't really need a native app for each platform.
- realusername 5y ago
  Even when using about cross-platform frameworks, there's quirks, store pages and time to invest to maintain the other platform. My Flutter app is still not available on iOS for example.
- allenu 5y ago
  It seems like it would be simple enough, but it's death by a thousand cuts. Supporting Android means having to keep track of even more screen sizes, OS versions, updates, app store releases and so on. It just adds on more and more. For one developer who is trying to prove out an idea, the work to support the app on multiple platforms just eats up your time and focus when you really should be focusing on features and adjusting what the product is as you get more info from your existing customers. There are of course frameworks out there to help you build one codebase for multiple platforms, but if you go down that route, if you aren't familiar with the framework, you have to learn it. There are going to be quirks in them that you're not aware of. Maybe framework version X only works with iOS version Y and Android version Z. It just goes on and on. Frameworks aren't perfect either, and things don't work exactly the same across platforms even with the framework.
  - kylebolt 5y ago
    Yes exactly, having the same app and features on android would still have leave to all users churning like they did on iOS. Think Clubhouse only moving to android when it was working on iOS.
somenewaccount1 5y ago
than i guess it wasn't actually a lesson worth learning, although it was in his list of eight. ::shrugs::

throwawayboise 5y ago

Why not build something like this cross-platform? The functionality sounds simple enough that you don't really need a native app for each platform.

realusername 5y ago
Even when using about cross-platform frameworks, there's quirks, store pages and time to invest to maintain the other platform. My Flutter app is still not available on iOS for example.
allenu 5y ago
It seems like it would be simple enough, but it's death by a thousand cuts. Supporting Android means having to keep track of even more screen sizes, OS versions, updates, app store releases and so on. It just adds on more and more. For one developer who is trying to prove out an idea, the work to support the app on multiple platforms just eats up your time and focus when you really should be focusing on features and adjusting what the product is as you get more info from your existing customers. There are of course frameworks out there to help you build one codebase for multiple platforms, but if you go down that route, if you aren't familiar with the framework, you have to learn it. There are going to be quirks in them that you're not aware of. Maybe framework version X only works with iOS version Y and Android version Z. It just goes on and on. Frameworks aren't perfect either, and things don't work exactly the same across platforms even with the framework.
- kylebolt 5y ago
  Yes exactly, having the same app and features on android would still have leave to all users churning like they did on iOS. Think Clubhouse only moving to android when it was working on iOS.

somenewaccount1 5y ago

than i guess it wasn't actually a lesson worth learning, although it was in his list of eight. ::shrugs::