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I am sole founder of a bootstrapped hardware startup. My main competitor is iOS only. As I'm the only developer Flutter allowed me to create both iOS and Andro

I am sole founder of a bootstrapped hardware startup. My main competitor is iOS only. As I'm the only developer Flutter allowed me to create both iOS and Android apps simultaneously (with some tweaking). My customer base is approximately 80% iOS / 20% Android.

BoorishBears 4y ago
You just made their case. I've worked on some of the top apps in both the Play Store and the App Store in the past, and it's a well known fact: Android doesn't pay. No it doesn't literally pay $0, but while you can support Android for a ton of reasons, none of them should ever be: "We expect Android to directly pull its fair weight in terms of revenue". It might enable you to engage customers in other channels for example, like with your hardware product, but Android itself, as in IAPs and ads, will rarely ever catch up with iOS. - 20% of your base being on Android and in exchange you've locked yourself out of a massive amount of development resources, end up building a ton on 3rd party components that bridge the least common denominator problem, spent a non-zero amount of engineering effort on a non-native experience for your users, you'll lag on platform improvements users get excited about... It's just not a good deal unless you're in a case where an outside factor bridges the gap. Most Flutter projects won't have a hardware product for that.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  You’re right. Why should we as developers target plebes who can’t afford to buy $1000 dollar devices and opt for platforms that start at a fraction of that, ie the majority of the world. F’ing commoners.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    Apple makes what is easily the best value of any mobile device with the SE line, and I already called out that you can support Android for reasons other than raw profit. Maybe save the childlike angst for when you have an actual point.
  - captainredbeard 4y ago
    It’s not classist to target consumers that spend money.
  - matchbok 4y ago
    iPhone SE is cheaper than many Android phones, and will last much, much longer. Most people only get 2 years out of an Android phone because of how poorly designed the OS is. So, no, it's not a luxury item.

BoorishBears 4y ago

You just made their case. I've worked on some of the top apps in both the Play Store and the App Store in the past, and it's a well known fact: Android doesn't pay. No it doesn't literally pay $0, but while you can support Android for a ton of reasons, none of them should ever be: "We expect Android to directly pull its fair weight in terms of revenue". It might enable you to engage customers in other channels for example, like with your hardware product, but Android itself, as in IAPs and ads, will rarely ever catch up with iOS. - 20% of your base being on Android and in exchange you've locked yourself out of a massive amount of development resources, end up building a ton on 3rd party components that bridge the least common denominator problem, spent a non-zero amount of engineering effort on a non-native experience for your users, you'll lag on platform improvements users get excited about... It's just not a good deal unless you're in a case where an outside factor bridges the gap. Most Flutter projects won't have a hardware product for that.

rhaway84773 4y ago
You’re right. Why should we as developers target plebes who can’t afford to buy $1000 dollar devices and opt for platforms that start at a fraction of that, ie the majority of the world. F’ing commoners.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  Apple makes what is easily the best value of any mobile device with the SE line, and I already called out that you can support Android for reasons other than raw profit. Maybe save the childlike angst for when you have an actual point.
- captainredbeard 4y ago
  It’s not classist to target consumers that spend money.
- matchbok 4y ago
  iPhone SE is cheaper than many Android phones, and will last much, much longer. Most people only get 2 years out of an Android phone because of how poorly designed the OS is. So, no, it's not a luxury item.