Android VS iOS – Which App Platform Is Best For Your Business in 2022?

Are you looking for a platform that perfectly suits your business? Choosing between Android Vs iOS app platforms that suit your business better can be a tough task. Mobile applications are revolutionizing traditional business methods. Since its users are increasing rapidly over a while, allowing companies to develop apps for businesses.

Statista reports state that nearly 3.49M applications are available on Google Play Store and 2.27M applications are available on Apple App Store.

• These number clearly states the high demand and craze for mobile app development. In the app development industry. Selecting whether to develop an app for Android or iOS is not an easy task.
• App development companies must consider some of the essential factors before developing an app. We have created a comprehensive iOS vs Android guide that would include current market trends, user retention, app revenue, number of smartphone (iPhone or Android) users, or other factors that influences your decision.

So, let’s begin!

Insights Of Current Scenario ( Android Vs iOS )

Insights are crucial for making any sound business decision. Below are some insights that will guide you to understand each application store’s performance better.

So, let’s study each of them one by one.

Market Share Android And iOS Worldwide

• The market share of iPhone and Android worldwide is measured by estimating the total number of users on each platform. iPhone now has 1 billion users till its launch time.

• Despite struggling to surpass Apple in the United States and Japan, Android remains the top mobile OS in more than 190+ countries and has over 2.5 billion active users worldwide.

• Android holds over 85% market share in countries like India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, and Iran.
• Android holds a greater market share than its competitor, iOS. So, according to the current global market share, Android is heading the battle! The business’s wise decision is to develop for Android before its iOS counterpart.

Revenue From Android And iOS

• Mobile phones have pre-installed apps; users can download apps from Google Play Store or App Store despite having pre-installed applications.

• Google Play Store is still the biggest, with the highest number of apps store overall. Still, Apple’s App Store leads when it comes to revenue from apps!

• According to a report, Google Play generated 48 billion US dollars revenue in 2021 with users downloading 111.3 billion apps.
• Contrary to that, there are 3.6 million downloads from Apple App Store, accumulating 85.5 billion US dollars, placing it at the topmost position in terms of revenue generation.

Higher User Engagement And Retention

• When it comes to operating an app-centric business, these two are the initial concerns.

• Creating a loyal customer base in such an overcrowded market is a continuous effort for every app marketer.
• Even though numerous reasons are associated with the uninstallation rate, how users behave on each platform is still the foremost thing to believe.

Factors To Decide While Choosing iOS App or Android App

Target Audience

• The number of iOS users dominates Android users in some areas, but android users dominate in others. Enterprises looking to set up their app should thoroughly research the demographics of the geographical popularity of the operating systems in certain areas.
• Apps designed for businesses for Android platforms target users worldwide. It’s a fact that Android is more popular than iOS in the emerging markets of Asia, America, and Africa. However, applications should be developed for iOS platforms in America and Europe by e-commerce firms.
• The purchasing power of the target audience defines how much money they spend on app subscriptions apart from their demographics – even free apps include in-app purchases.
• The android base is comparatively new and has less disposable income than the iOS base demographic comparison reveals gross differences between existing Android and iOS users.

Project Timeline

• Whenever you consider developing an app for your firm, the essential question is the project’s duration. That is how much time a project requires to finish. According to the time suitable for the business to choose between iOS and Android.
• Project timeliness is an essential factor that both android and ios developers want to know that helps them plan accordingly. The more the time required for the app development, the higher budget is required from the budget perspective.
• Android app development comparatively takes a higher time to develop as compared to iOS app development. The faster development of the iOS apps is the fewer number of devices and fewer capabilities to work compared to Android.

App Features And Functionality

• iOS and Android both offer a wider variety of features to their users. Android and iOS are distinct operating systems.
• Android OS is an open-source that helps developers add new features and customize its UX according to their requirements. Therefore it also makes the android OS compromise with security breaches.
• iOS provides a safer OS than Android that effectively develops apps that require money transactions built into the hardware and software of the Apple devices that helps to protect data
• Android developers state that most users often don’t upgrade their apps/phones. To keep themselves on the safer side, a business must thoroughly check their apps and make sure they are compatible with different devices.

Reasons To Opt For Android App Development

Android is the most popular device used globally, 8 out of 10 people are android users. Hence the major reason for android app development is the highest number of Android users; it offers higher reliability and is cost-effective.

Key reasons to opt for Android App Development

Open Source

• Android provides an open-source platform that enables testers to make changes accordingly in the UI, saving time.
• The Android app development platform is an open-source platform which simply means it is royalty-free and doesn’t restrict to just the Android Market.

Pro-active Testing

• Easy integration of the platform and SDK enables installing and running an app on the device each time you compile.
• It gives a developer to test their application on various devices without extra costs hence making it cost-effective.
• The developer can modulate the android application on the Android platform according to the client’s requirements.

Easy Adoption & Launching

• Developing an application on the android platform is an easy task only if you can code in Java.
• Adopting and script code for mobile applications is easy for the programmers for the android platform.
• The process of the launch of an application is simple and easy. The homogenous market of Android is accessible to everyone. You’ll need to register yourself as a developer and then submit your.apk file.

Multiple Distribution & Sales Channel

• You aren’t bound to just the Android market with the Android platform, but you can deploy it in numerous ways.
• The platform permits using a third-party marketplace for distribution and sales channels by putting directly on the website or developing new app stores.
• Then it’s the application and the platform that allows you to choose the way to reach potential customers with your promotional strategies.

Popular Platform

• The number of active users with Android devices is boosting. 84.7% of mobile devices are Android platform-based, creating scope for app development’s bright future.
• The platform is very user-friendly, making it extremely popular among developers.
• Hence, the developers in the industry enjoy the benefit of heavy downloads of their creations. That makes the platform highly popular.

Reasons To Opt For iOS App Development

Apps with regular updates are more popular. iOS app leads this due to frequency updates among businesses. Whereas android apps are not so easy to update due to the various brand devices

Key reasons to opt for iOS App Development

Better App Revenue

• The fact that adds to the benefit of iOS to a huge extent is that iOS provides greater ROI than Android apps.

High-Quality Standards

• iOS provides Intrusion into a business’s sensitive enterprise data lodged in apps is a big risk with Android apps.

Flawless User Experience

• iOS apps provide users with a flawless user experience supported by the iOS applications
• Total linkage of hardware and software offers the exemplary user experience

App Fulfilling All Business Needs

• iOS apps that are custom built or off the shelf are available that suits all business needs.
• However, the cost of iOS app development is a bit higher, iOS apps are found to be more beneficial for businesses due to iOS assured market reach and better-paying clients.

Ease Of Testing

• As Apple devices are less in numbers comparatively hence it consumes less time compared to Android.
• Thus results reduce in testing time of iOS apps and the quick launch of apps in the market.

Differences Between iOS And Android App Development

Although app development is the new craze leading the global market, as a developer developing apps, you should be well versed with the hurdles in app development.

Let’s look at the comparison between iOS and Android app development.

Programming Language

• One of the biggest comparisons between iOS and Android is the technology-based. Starting with the programming language, Android developers majorly depend on Java or Kotlin, whereas iOS applications are built on Swift/Objective-C.

• Now it’s clear which stack is easy as well as quick? Developers say that the iOS programming language is easier to learn than Android. It is easy for developers to create an application in Swift because Java takes greater time because of higher readability.
• Moreover, Kotlin can be used as a replacement for Java due to its easy readability & simple features. That’s why coders opt for a cross-platform development tool that enables them to reuse code for iOS and Android.

System Specific Design

• The Android and iOS apps both follow the core principle of software design. However, the key difference lies in content organization and navigation. To use the content within the app iOS developers pay a lot of attention. That’s why it’s essential to keep some white space around the content.
• Basically, the main motive behind designing an iOS app is to provide a feeling of depth and layers. A few tools used by UI designers that you require to know is how to include shadows and gradients. UI designers also control the views such as split views, page views, new tabs, etc.

• The interface of Android originates from the inspiration of humans, like color and motion. Android designers work with the more elaborate tools set for movement, colors, and graphics for that project has multiple screens that allow the developer to handle all activities simultaneously.
• Hence it’s clear that developing an iOS app is much easier than developing of android app.

QA Testing

• QA testing plays a vital role in ensuring the importance of the mobile app development process that includes games and different kinds of software to ensure the perfect working of an application.
• The iOS simulator is faster than the Android equivalent. In any case, the Android emulator becomes more powerful than the iOS equivalent, and then it plays as a substitute in some cases.
• Hence it’s essential to test a mobile application on smart and real devices to monitor how users interact with the app, find bugs, and counter changes for better working.

• However, generally, Android app testing usually takes extra time as well as more effort than iOS due to the wide array of Android devices available in the market.

Security

• Uploading an app on Google Play is easier than on the App Store, making it less secure. There are chances of downloading a malware-filled app from Google Play.
• Apple app store takes time to moderate apps and fulfil the requirements and peculiarities. Hence apple app store approval takes a couple of days.
• However, both platforms make sure to meet strict guidelines for each store.

To Sum Up!

The above text gave you a good brief comparison about Android vs iOS; which app platform is best for your business in 2022? As Apple focuses on the user experience, Google focuses on hardware. Apple security raises a bar much higher than Android. Google approves faster than Apple, which makes it time-efficient.