Daniel Hruska When the first iPhone was introduced in 2007 and a year later when the iPhone SDK (today's iOS SDK) was released, Apple immediately made it clear that everything was built on the foundations of OS X. Even the Cocoa Touch framework inherited its name from its predecessor Cocoa known from Mac. The use of the Objective-C programming language for both platforms is also related to this. Of course, there are differences between individual frameworks, but the core itself is so similar that the iPhone and later the iPad became very interesting devices for OS X developers.
The Mac, although it never gained a dominant position among operating systems (competitor Windows is installed on 90% of all computers), has always attracted very talented individuals and entire development teams who were intensively concerned with things like design and user friendliness. Mac OS users, but also NeXT, were interested in OS X. Talent share does not equal market share, not even close. Not only did iOS developers want to own the iPhone and iPad, they wanted to create new software for them.
Of course, iOS also appeals to developers with zero OS X experience. But if you look at the coolest apps in the App Store — Twitterrific, Tweetbot, Letterpress, Screens, OmniFocus, Day One, Fantastical or Vesper, comes from people weaned on Macs. At the same time, they do not need to write their applications for other platforms. On the contrary, they are proud to be Apple developers.
In contrast, Android uses Java for its SDK. It is widespread and therefore gives even less experienced programmers a chance to try to break into the world with their creation. Java on Android doesn't have an heir like Cocoa on Mac. Java is not something that is someone's passion. It's something you have to use because everyone uses it. Yes, there are great apps like Pocket Casts, Press or DoubleTwist, but they seem to be missing something.
So if we're talking purely about the size of the market share and trying to use the math to determine the point at which it will be more appropriate to start on Android, we will come to a similar conclusion as the users. Just as a person decides to use a given platform, so can a developer. It all depends on more factors than market share. John Gruber has been pointing out this fact for some time on his website Daring Fireball.
Benedict Evans writes:
“If Android apps catch up to iOS in downloads, they will continue to move in parallel on the chart for some time. But then there will be a point where Android will clearly come out on top. This should happen sometime in 2014. Well, if it has 5-6x more users and continuously more downloaded apps, it should be an increasingly attractive market.”
Which is mathematically true, but not realistically. People - developers - are not just numbers. People have taste. People act on bias. If it weren't for that, all the great iPhone apps of 2008 would have been written for Symbian, PalmOS, BlackBerry (J2ME) and Windows Mobile years and years before that. If it weren't for that, all the great Mac apps would have been written for Windows ten years ago as well.
The mobile world is not the desktop world, 2014 won't be like 2008, but it's hard to imagine that some of the events that happened years ago on the desktop won't also apply to the mobile world in the future. After all, even Google's iOS applications themselves receive some functions before those for Android.
Evans summarizes his idea as follows:
“A new cheaper, mass-market iPhone could reverse this trend. Similar to the low-end with Android, the owners would rather be users downloading apps with a lower frequency, so iOS app downloads would drop overall. However, this would mean that iOS would expand significantly into a larger portion of the population, cutting off a portion of the market that would otherwise be gobbled up by Android phones. And how could a roughly $300 iPhone sell? Realistically, up to 50 million pieces per quarter."
There are three meaningful reasons for a cheaper iPhone:
- To get users who are unwilling or unable to spend money on a full iPhone.
- Split the product line into "iPhone 5C" and "iPhone 5S", cancel the sale of older models and thus increase the margin.
- All iPhones sold would get a 4-inch display and a Lightning connector.
However, John Gruber adds more fourth reason:
“In short, I think Apple will sell the iPhone 5C with similar hardware to the iPod touch. The price will be $399, maybe $349, but certainly not lower. But wouldn't it cannibalize sales of the iPod touch? Apparently so, but as we could see, Apple is not afraid of cannibalizing its own products.”
iPod touch is often called the gateway to the App Store – the cheapest hardware capable of running iOS applications. Android, on the other hand, is becoming the gateway to the entire smartphone segment. Thanks to low prices and people for whom the price tag is the most important feature of the phone, and for whom getting a new smartphone is simply part of extending the contract with the operator, Android was able to spread across the world in droves.
Today, iPod touch sales are down and Android phone sales are up. This is also why the less expensive iPhone could be a much better gateway to the App Store than the iPod touch. As more and more people buy the iPhone and the number of smartphone users approaches one billion for the first time, developers face a big challenge.
It won't be, "Um, Android has more market share than my favorite platform, so I'd better start making apps for it." It'll be more like, “Oh, my favorite platform has more devices on the market again.” It'll be exactly how OS X developers felt when iOS was in its infancy.
What's more, iOS 7 may change our expectations of how a mobile app can look and work. All this already this fall (apparently 10. September). There's a good chance that a large portion of these apps won't make it to Android at all. Of course, some will, but there won't be many of them, as they will mainly consist of talented, passionate and Apple-focused developers. This will be the future. A future that suddenly doesn't look so friendly to the competition.
I don't understand why Apple would make a cheaper iPhone. Go to Austria and see how many people have an iPhone, after all, at most 10% there are something other than an iPhone, this is in Germany and America. Only in our country, with our poor salaries and a system that has not been eaten up, we cry about how expensive it is.
India, China - 2,5 billion potential customers, most of them do not have the funds for a "normal" iPhone, at least someone should have a cheaper one. Austria and the Czech Republic are drops in the ocean for Apple.
I like the article. And I agree with the opinion "India, China...".
fear of the future, why be afraid, already the years 2014 and 2015 clearly show that apple has quite a problem and it's not just that in order to get an iPhone app, a person has to pay 99 usd/year to Apple
The mentioned "burning" is funny when looking at the yield of the app that one puts there.
you will be surprised, but everyone has to pay the 99 usd/year, even those who would like to do something just for themselves without offering it to everyone, and especially those who would like to offer something for free (not to mention that many applications do not get on the appstore because Apple and its policy of what is not/certainly not/suitable and many functions/access to the functions of the phone are deliberately made impossible by Apple, invoking "stability" ..)
Austria or the Czech Republic are drops, but Austria+Czech Republic is already a bigger drop. To look at it this way is very short sighted.
Hats off…nice article!
Weird article... the first paragraph looks like you're going to compare the differences between SDK limits for iPhone and android, and the rest of the article is suddenly just a reflection on why apple should release a cheaper iPhone and what different people think about it.
you have absolutely no understanding of how the market works.
here no developer sentiment towards the platform works as you want to prove. it's just bullshit from start to finish.
I also think. It's about the fact that there is even more profit from the application for ios than from the same one for android. It's just that the ratio of people who buy an application on iOS is completely different than on Android. There, people are not very willing to spend on applications. Maybe there will be many times more Android users, so most applications will start to be written primarily for Android, because developers will have more profit on this platform.
Exactly. What if the author did some survey among mobile platform developers and then presented some statistical results? I understand that it's easier to write an essay based on feelings and ideas (and quoting a couple of foreign websites will give it "spicyness").
I think the title of the article should read in reverse - "Why only numbers play a role".
I have a couple of well-known developers and if I develop for the iOS platform, it is PRIMARILY BECAUSE THEY WILL PAY IT = lots of rich users. This is also the reason why I don't develop much for OS X anymore - few users.
On the other hand, the underbelly of Android is different - people started working for it because they LOVE Java and it was an open world for them to play with (where Apple slapped them through the fingers). It can be seen that it was a hit in the dark - it spread (mainly thanks to the low price of the OS and the device) from the original geek community to the BFU.
...the controversy over whether a "tuned" closed system is better, or an "open at any cost" system (fragmented distribution, version...) is a series of articles and will not have a winner anyway.
But the blind praise of Apple (which is currently more M$ than M$ itself) by blinded troubadours only casts a back light even on ordinary users of this system.
Why do Google and Android remind me of far more M$?
Non-objective.
OMG! “…the iPhone and later the iPad became…”
It's a laundry list rather than a vision of the future
I can see the difference in myself. I used an Android phone for half a year and went back to the iPhone. I have both a desktop computer and a laptop from Apple, so the iPhone suits me best as a phone. In addition, I own an ASUS Transformer tablet with Android, and I have never bought any applications for it. I have bought dozens of them on iOS. I just felt stupid spending money on something that I know I won't use for a long time, because I tried something "better" Apple products, I use them whenever I work with video and photos, and after a year and a half of using "apple" I definitely don't want to go back to Windows ( on Win, I had all the software officially purchased, regularly updated, and it happened to me that the program crashed and deleted my project, even though I saved it regularly)
Smankot… I am jabkar, who is the joke…. Guys, it needs a little less distorted optics!!!
Ps. If someone wants to start a PC vs Mac discussion, know that I have apples at home.
You would be surprised how many people in China have an original iPhone... even a small percentage of the mentioned billions will give a market comparable to the USA.