Should I focus on creating a perfect iOS app or two decent apps for both iOS and Android?


1

My startup is bootstrapped with limited resources. Is it better to just focus on the iOS ecosystem or would we be missing out on significant market share on Android by doing so?

Mobile Android Mobile Apps Ios

asked Mar 6 '14 at 11:25
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Bobbie Rice
50 points

1 Answer


3

What are you building? Whom are your target customers?

Based on marketshare Android is growing faster than iOS, but you also need to know what your target customer is and that should allow you to make a decision. Currently we have 59% of our users on Android.

Here are three suggestions to target both (or more than both):

Is HTML5 an alternative? If your not building a game or something that requires a lot of the resources of the devices, HTML5 allows you to target both. It will also ensure you have the same experience in both platforms.To access Play or Marketplace you use Cordova which packs your application as a native application, still using HTML5. Also HTML and Javascript has much shorter feedback loops during development, which would be ideal if you have limited resources.

Another alternative to target both is to go with MonoTouch or Xamarin studio, which allows you to build native applications that target several mobile platforms using C#. That way you have one language to handle instead of Dalvik and Objective-C and you can work with similar experiences across both platforms.

Also Telerik has recently released software to build mobile apps for several platforms, this would have similar benefits. However I haven't tried their particular toolset.

answered Mar 6 '14 at 14:45
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Morten
131 points

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