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A lot of people seem to be missing the main point here. I don't think the article is actually advocating developing for Android and NOT iOS. I don't think it is

by zmmmmm 13y ago

A lot of people seem to be missing the main point here. I don't think the article is actually advocating developing for Android and NOT iOS. I don't think it is even particularly advocating releasing on Android first. However starting your development on Android - as your first way of prototyping and finding your MVP - gives you a tremendous amount of agility and flexibility. You can create as many APKs as you want, send them to whoever you want without any fuss and they can test them out. You can fix bugs or implement features for just one person and send them the APK the same day. You can integrate your app with the OS and other apps in ways that are impossible on iOS to find what really works and matters to your users. And you can do all this for virtually zero cost on commodity hardware with free tools. In other words, even if you believe iOS is ultimately going to be your primary platform, there's still a strong argument to do your initial prototyping and development on Android.

engrenage 13y ago
There are more Android apps than iOS apps, and this advantage has always been present. So, why aren't Android apps already of superior quality?
- zmmmmm 13y ago
  Well, so many reasons ... until 4.0 the whole framework was ugly and the tools were very immature compared to where they are now. Few developers, especially ones who care about design, had much or any experience building apps for Android. A lot of early Android developers were either people with no experience at all or iOS developers who tried to apply iOS principles to Android development and failed hard. And it's possible the Android user base in general cared less about design so that in itself was not such a high priority (perhaps this is not so true now). But aside from all that, this discussion is not really about quality per se. It is about figuring out your business idea, getting it right. Whether you then go and execute it well after that point is a different point.
  - engrenage 13y ago
    > But aside from all that, this discussion is not really about quality per se. It is about figuring out your business idea, getting it right. But surely the same logic applies to this too. Why haven't we already seen all kinds of innovative business ideas emerging through the rapid iteration that Android supposedly enables?
    - chrischen 13y ago
      There are probably more innovative Android apps. Problem is nobody cares about the apps that much. When they choose a phone, they choose the phone first. Apps are an afterthought. iPhone caught on for the phone itself, its ability to browse the web and make calls. iPhone didn't even start out with apps. Even then, apps didn't come into play because customers demanded them.
      - engrenage 13y ago
        So you're saying Android users don't care about innovative apps? That makes this whole discussion moot.
        chrischen 13y ago
        I'm saying no users care about apps, or buy phones based on apps. *no = very insignificant
dvanduzer 13y ago
If that's the point, start your prototype with Appcelerator, or to a lesser extent Kivy. Or popapp.in for that matter. The dev distribution problem is thoroughly solved by testflightapp.com and I don't see anything else missing.
shawkinaw 13y ago
With TestFlight, it's very un-fussy to send test builds on iOS as well. It's perhaps more fussy than with Android (I'm not sure), since you need the people to sign up and add their device to their TestFlight profile, and you then need to add the device UUID to your provisioning profile. But we're still talking about very quick turnaround (like 5 minutes.)
- Dogamondo 13y ago
  Even easier than that in my experience. We've just been updating the provisioning profile with new devices and uploading the profile to Testflight, then sending testers a TF web link that they can click from their iOS device for ad hoc testing. As long as the UDID is in the provisioning profile, testers don't even need to register for a TF account. It really is a breeze.
- BitMastro 13y ago
  On Android you can mail a file, people click on the attachment, click allow installation and they're done. I'm not saying it's better, in fact I think TestFlight may have many other useful features that this crude method doesn't offer (like tracking the UUIDs)
threeseed 13y ago
None of what you said makes sense. Firstly on iOS you can send as many IPAs as I want to friends, testers, colleagues etc provided I've gone through the 30s process of adding them to Apple's list. This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform. Secondly if your app is intended to be cross platform. Then why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work on the other platform. It's completely illogical. iOS is likely to remain the primary platform for prototyping. Why ? Because it is just so much nicer. The iOS Simulator "just works" and exactly mirrors your target devices. Not the pathetic joke that comes with the Android SDK which has no relation to how your app will run on a Samsung versus HTC devices.
- general_failure 13y ago
  We are not comparing Dev tools. We are comparing Dev life cycle and methodologies
  - threeseed 13y ago
    We are talking about choosing iOS versus Android for prototyping. My point is that the iOS development experience is far superior to Android in particular because of the strength of the simulator. How you "get your code running" is the most important part of the dev life cycle.
    - tadfisher 13y ago
      Perhaps for software development, but not for product development. Often as or more important to a product is finding out how it works for real users, and rapidly prototyping and disseminating builds is a good way to do that. While software engineering is hard as a discipline, I don't feel it is the hardest part of building a startup.
    - bad_user 13y ago
      On the other hand, for Android it's far easier to get your app running on the device itself. The only thing you have to do is to connect the device to your computer and click Run in the IDE. Beginners can get something up and running within minutes, which includes the time to download the IDE and create a Hello World. The whole workflow runs well, as you get the logs in your IDE or whatever and you can do debugging and so on and it's really not that bad, given that no simulator can match an actual device - there's something to be said about keeping the phone in your hand, rotating it at will and touching it to see how the app feels. Apple's provisioning process on the other hand is the most painful thing I ever experienced.

by zmmmmm 13y ago

engrenage 13y ago

There are more Android apps than iOS apps, and this advantage has always been present. So, why aren't Android apps already of superior quality?

zmmmmm 13y ago
Well, so many reasons ... until 4.0 the whole framework was ugly and the tools were very immature compared to where they are now. Few developers, especially ones who care about design, had much or any experience building apps for Android. A lot of early Android developers were either people with no experience at all or iOS developers who tried to apply iOS principles to Android development and failed hard. And it's possible the Android user base in general cared less about design so that in itself was not such a high priority (perhaps this is not so true now). But aside from all that, this discussion is not really about quality per se. It is about figuring out your business idea, getting it right. Whether you then go and execute it well after that point is a different point.
- engrenage 13y ago
  > But aside from all that, this discussion is not really about quality per se. It is about figuring out your business idea, getting it right. But surely the same logic applies to this too. Why haven't we already seen all kinds of innovative business ideas emerging through the rapid iteration that Android supposedly enables?
  - chrischen 13y ago
    There are probably more innovative Android apps. Problem is nobody cares about the apps that much. When they choose a phone, they choose the phone first. Apps are an afterthought. iPhone caught on for the phone itself, its ability to browse the web and make calls. iPhone didn't even start out with apps. Even then, apps didn't come into play because customers demanded them.
    - engrenage 13y ago
      So you're saying Android users don't care about innovative apps? That makes this whole discussion moot.
      - chrischen 13y ago
        I'm saying no users care about apps, or buy phones based on apps. *no = very insignificant

dvanduzer 13y ago

If that's the point, start your prototype with Appcelerator, or to a lesser extent Kivy. Or popapp.in for that matter. The dev distribution problem is thoroughly solved by testflightapp.com and I don't see anything else missing.

shawkinaw 13y ago

With TestFlight, it's very un-fussy to send test builds on iOS as well. It's perhaps more fussy than with Android (I'm not sure), since you need the people to sign up and add their device to their TestFlight profile, and you then need to add the device UUID to your provisioning profile. But we're still talking about very quick turnaround (like 5 minutes.)

Dogamondo 13y ago
Even easier than that in my experience. We've just been updating the provisioning profile with new devices and uploading the profile to Testflight, then sending testers a TF web link that they can click from their iOS device for ad hoc testing. As long as the UDID is in the provisioning profile, testers don't even need to register for a TF account. It really is a breeze.
BitMastro 13y ago
On Android you can mail a file, people click on the attachment, click allow installation and they're done. I'm not saying it's better, in fact I think TestFlight may have many other useful features that this crude method doesn't offer (like tracking the UUIDs)

threeseed 13y ago

None of what you said makes sense. Firstly on iOS you can send as many IPAs as I want to friends, testers, colleagues etc provided I've gone through the 30s process of adding them to Apple's list. This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform. Secondly if your app is intended to be cross platform. Then why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work on the other platform. It's completely illogical. iOS is likely to remain the primary platform for prototyping. Why ? Because it is just so much nicer. The iOS Simulator "just works" and exactly mirrors your target devices. Not the pathetic joke that comes with the Android SDK which has no relation to how your app will run on a Samsung versus HTC devices.

general_failure 13y ago
We are not comparing Dev tools. We are comparing Dev life cycle and methodologies
- threeseed 13y ago
  We are talking about choosing iOS versus Android for prototyping. My point is that the iOS development experience is far superior to Android in particular because of the strength of the simulator. How you "get your code running" is the most important part of the dev life cycle.
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    Perhaps for software development, but not for product development. Often as or more important to a product is finding out how it works for real users, and rapidly prototyping and disseminating builds is a good way to do that. While software engineering is hard as a discipline, I don't feel it is the hardest part of building a startup.
  - bad_user 13y ago
    On the other hand, for Android it's far easier to get your app running on the device itself. The only thing you have to do is to connect the device to your computer and click Run in the IDE. Beginners can get something up and running within minutes, which includes the time to download the IDE and create a Hello World. The whole workflow runs well, as you get the logs in your IDE or whatever and you can do debugging and so on and it's really not that bad, given that no simulator can match an actual device - there's something to be said about keeping the phone in your hand, rotating it at will and touching it to see how the app feels. Apple's provisioning process on the other hand is the most painful thing I ever experienced.