So I’ve had this on my mind for quite some time now, and its really been bothering me of late.

Have you ever noticed when an app has both Android and iPhone versions, that the Android version always takes second place?
Now that seems just really odd to me, especially considering Android is well ahead of iOS in overall market share.

Some specific examples I know personally:

Tap Tap Revenge (last updated in 2011) -no ICS support, does not support Galaxy Nexus’ screen. Developers are uninterested in answering questions, when I asked when a version that supports the Galaxy Nexus, they “don’t currently have that information”. Right.

Pocket Weather – an Aussie weather app that was great on iOS (back when I had an iPhone 3G), yet pretty unremarkable on Android. Developers promised to bring functionality to the same level when they released it on the market; 2.5 years later and its still but a shadow of the original.

EA Games (in general-all of them) –
Pretty much no EA games ever get updated. Most are rated terribly on the market, and they don’t seem to care one little bit.
The Sims 3 is a good example: It’s not compatible with ICS at all and hasn’t been updated since shortly after it was released.
Even more interesting is that they’ve just released The Sims Freeplay, months after ICS is released, and it is still incompatible with the Galaxy Nexus.
Pathetic.

Plenty of other examples exist and I just can’t see why.
iOS costs more to develop on, has a more limited user base, is very constrained in what you can do with it and apps take forever to be approved by the censors.

The only reason I can think why it might be more difficult to program for the Android platform is that there are many different types of devices.
Personally, I see that as an advantage that could mean you can make an app for a specific device – a niche market (for a higher price. Or put a bit of work into making it compatible with all devices, make it cheaper, and rake in the money from thousands of devices.

Anyway, that’s my ramblings for the day, hopefully some day soon, the world will start to turn its back on the closed and dark world that is Apple, and start to embrace more the light of Android and enjoy the freedoms of Open Source 🙂

Later,
Derryn