You must be very familiar to this topic.
This topic has become trending for all the ages from youngsters to old aged adults.
In this blog, we will make you know all about the android and ios apps including their share market, their revenues and much more.
Excited enough to know something more about the apps?
We will not make you wait enough now.
So, let’s get started in.
According to Statista, the Google Android showed a market share of 53.3 percent, while Apple’s iOS had a market share of 44.9 percent as of June 2017.
However, the difference of 8.4 percent should not bring you to a conclusion, and to make it easy we have decided to come up with this infographic that can help you make a better decision considering the needs for your business.
Let’s take a look:
I cover design guidelines, development guideline, app testing tools, app publishing time duration, App cost & time and fragmentation points and you can consider these all points are related to mobile apps developments.
Contents
IOS VS ANDROID
1. APP SHARE MARKET
Nowadays, utmost people across the world are using smartphones, so mobile apps are gaining global importance as the interface is user friendly.
The global app share market is available on the basis of usage of mobile applications across the world.
The below picture is about the App Share market of Android and iOS in different countries:
Market researchers claims that by 2020, the app economy could be double in size to $101 billion.
According to reports this growth will be driven by increasing app usage and greater smart phone adoption globally.
While games are expected to grow to $74.6 billion in 2020, they won’t display the fastest growth rate.
The report leveraged 10,000 plus sources to uncover a variety of insights.
It also adds that by 2020, gross revenue across all app stores will exceed $101 billion, globally.
We all could foresee tremendous opportunity in fast-growing markets like India, Indonesia, Mexico, and Argentina.
Also, overall downloads in app stores are expected to reach 284.3 billion, while global app store downloads will probably grow to 284.3 billion in 2020.
Android App Market Share:
Now, if we talk individually of Android App Market; Android OS is leading with nearly 85% of market share as you can see in the above picture depicting market share of operating systems from 2014 to 2020.
This means, you can reach a wider audience by investing in android app development.
iOS App Market Share:
And if we talk about iOS app market individually; according to the Reports shown above, the iOS app market has never come down since it started from 2011.
In six consecutive years the worldwide share of iOS app store downloads is around 30.5 B $.
Whereas the worldwide app store market of iOS app store consumer spends is 42.5 B $.
As iOS shares less market of app than Android but still if you see as iOS user point and develop app according to it. There are chances to grow.
IOS VS ANDROID
2. APP PROFITABLITY
Mobile application improvement can be beneficial yet you should be eager to contribute extensive time and exertion forthright.
Your plan of action is only one part of the business you’ll have to make to help the advancement and offer of your application and serve clients who need assistance with it.
Differences in App Revenue:
As shown above is the report by Sensor Tower showing worldwide gross app revenue.
You can see here the app revenue of both the platforms has increased in large numbers in just a span of 2016-2017 year.
From this reports, you can assume how much the app revenue market will grow in upcoming years.
Android App Revenue :
Google Play surged by a staggering 35% market from 2016 to 2017 and new installs are up 13.5%.
Android is a well-regarded platform because of its continued market penetration.
Sixteen percent of Android app developers earn over $5,000 per month in revenue.
iOS App Revenue:
Apple’s iOS platform is the leader in this category, with over 25% of its developers earning over $5,000 per month.
Apple’s iOS platform is not far behind that are mid-level iOS developers making about $96.6K a year.
It is worth noting that both Android and iOS is “top heavy” in terms of earnings, with much of the total revenue being earned by top developers.
IOS VS ANDROID
3. CUSTOMIZABLITY OF APPS
This allows users to control their interactions. With this, each user can get exactly what they are looking for.
According to the goals and requirements of users, this can be customized so that it will have the best output.
Now after knowing the app revenue and its profitability, we should know something about apps customizability.
Are apps used for customization? And which apps are best: Android or IOS?
Yes, apps are used for customization
We can’t come to a conclusion without knowing the exact information and features of what android apps provides and what does iOS.
So let’s know about the best customization apps for android and iOS in market.
Let’s first see about Android Apps:
There are plenty of android apps for customization.
Customizations, customizations and customizations have made Android what it is today!
Thanks to the open source project and to the ever-growing community of this wonderful mobile operating system.
To list down the best customization apps is kind of difficult as there are a bundle of great apps.
But still, let me try.
- For Lock screen: Next Launcher
- For Wallpaper: Wallpapers by Google Inc.
- For Launcher: Nova Launcher
- For App Icons: Glim Free Icon Pack
- For Fonts: iFont
- For Keyboards: GBoard – The Google Keyboard
- For Widgets: Buzz Widget
- For Navigation Bar: Navbar apps
- For Ringtones and Notification tones: Mobile9 DECO
- Best Custom ROM: LineageOS
Now, let’s see about iOS APPS:
In this current time, an iPhone isn’t just any ordinary phone.
You can see an iPhone has revolutionized security, so you can’t enjoy your custom experience.
We allow you to add widgets, in only one area. Do you want access to those files, yeah?
Well nope, they are all locked away.
But you may be asking, are there any other ways?
Let me introduce you to the Jailbreak!
Jailbreaking an iPhone isn’t always as simple as 1…2…3 but, sometimes it’s all depending on your iOS version and your device.
iOS 11.1.2, the latest jailbreak, using “Electra.”
This is what I’m going to use for examples.
After tapping on the Electra “Jailbreak” button, your device will respring after a moment or two, with a new app called “Cydia.”
This app is essentially your market for customizing, with tweaks, themes and more.
So, iOS customization is limited until it is jail broken.
According to the points we have discussed above, what do you think who provides the best customizability: Android or IOS apps?
Of course the winner is Android apps.
It provides more customization features than iOS.
It can change anything in your mobile as you want.
IOS VS ANDROID
4. AVAILABLE LANGUAGES
There are two key platforms of Mobile Apps development. Android and iOS. Android supports more than 100+ languages whereas iOS supports only 40 languages.
Find more details about the availability of languages in iOS and Android.
1. Android App supported languages:
Android supports more than 100+ languages.
You can see some of the languages in the above image.
It covers majorly all different spoken languages over the world.
And so android is more preferable than iPhone because it is more needful in each language communication.
2. iOS App Supported languages:
iOS supports only 40 languages as per their data but half of that languages are not supported in App Store and iTunes.
So, iPhone is not preferable more because every other different language user
can’t use it.
IOS VS ANDROID
5. OS FAMILY
Picking the right range of OS versions is a very important part of the Mobile development process.
iOS OS and Android OS, there are some advantages and disadvantages to it. Let’s checkout.
Which OS is right for your app?
1. Android: Linux
Now question may arise to you how android is related to Linux?
Yes, obviously android is related to Linux.
Android took the Linux kernel and made some modifications to run it.
Android, took it because Linux kernel is free of cost and easier to develop when code has been understood.
Now let’s talk about the advantages of Android OS:
If we talk about Android Operating system it is one of the highly used OS all over the world.
The reasons for which people prefer Android OS widely are as follows:
#1. First of all the main reason is android smart phones are available in a wide variety. From people having low to high budget everyone can use this OS.
#2. Secondly, Android offers a wide range of options for graphic design need.
#3. Third reason is we all are aware of the growing market of wearable devices and most affordable wearable’s are compatible with Android OS apps.
2. iOS: OS X, UNIX
The three main pros of using iphone OS over android are as follows:
#1. First of all iPhone has a very smooth OS compared to Android. It has faster RAM and less chances of lagging.
#2. Secondly, it has better music quality. The apple ear pods and speaker is well known.
#3. Third and most important thing iPhone OS is highly secured with a number of security features.
IOS VS ANDROID
6. APP DEVELOPMENT
There is some integrated App Development tools e.g. Framework 7, Iconic, Cordova, Cocos2D, Xamarin are used to develop Android and iOS app quickly as compare to Native app.
Check out more details on both Android and iOS integrated tools.
Integrated Development Tools:
If we talk about integrated development tools, they are some tools which help app developer to develop android and iOS apps in a quicker time as compared to native app language.
Some of the best known integrated tools are Framework 7, Iconic, Cordova, Cocos2D, Xamarin.
1. Android app development tools:
There are many Android app development tools, such as JAVA, Android Studio, AVD Manager, Android Device Manager, Unity3D, Corona SDK, Game Maker Studio and many more.
Most of the android apps are developed by JAVA and Android Studio development tools.
If we talk about Android Studio; it offers the ability to test apps using the Android Virtual Device Manager and by plugging in physical devices and using the Android Debugging Bridge.
2. iOS app development tools:
Powerful tools you need to develop ios applications are Xcode and Swift.
If we talk about Xcode:
It is a complete developer toolset for creating apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV but note you need Mac to install Xcode.
And if we talk about Swift or Objective C:
It is a powerful and intuitive programming language for Mac OS, iOS, watch OS and tv OS.
IOS VS ANDROID
7. APP TESTING TOOLS
Nowadays, automated tools are an unquestionable requirement use for any Mobile application testing. Appropriately sorted out computerized Testing can lessen the time required for the testing procedure and the odds of human mistakes during test execution.
There are incalculable testing tools are available. Some of them are free while some are costly. Check out more details here.
Let’s talk about what are app testing tools:
There are various mobile testing tools in market but you can select the one that suits your requirements and needs.
A lot of them are open source while some are expensive.
Some of these automation tools were created in the past while some have just made it in to the market.
Each tool is exclusive and possesses certain characteristics.
#1. Best Android App Testing Tools
1. Robotium:
This testing tool comes under the category of free android testing tools for UI.
By the use of this tool it is very easy to write test cases for android applications.
So, testers don’t need to worry about the additional information about the implemented classes and Android app’s structure.
They just need the name of the class and the path that links to it.
It supports Android 1.6 version and above.
Test cases for this tool are written in JAVA language.
So, you need to have little bit knowledge of java.
The main disadvantage with this tool is that it takes lots of time to prepare test cases as software tester need to work with the program source code for automating tests.
2. Selendroid:
Being one of the leading test automation software, Selendroid tests the UI of Androids based hybrid and native applications and mobile web.
Client API tests are written using Selendroid
The tool supports plugging of hardware devices.
Moreover, it holds exceptional capabilities to interact with multiple Android devices at the same time.
Selendorid is highly compatible with the JSON wire protocol.
It even supports device hot-swapping.
There is an inspection component for recording device UI state for test case creation.
#2. Best iOS App Testing Tools
1. Frank:
Frank is an iOS-only test framework combining Cucumber and JSON.
A statically linked server inside the mobile app under test interprets JSON and uses UISpec for execution.
Although it has the advantage of not requiring app code changes, it is difficult to run directly on devices.
It is most suited for emulators and web-based apps.
It can be integrated with CI and run the tests on the devices and simulators.
2. UI Automation :
UI Automation is Apple’s open-source test automation framework specifically for iOS apps.
It helps to automate interface tests through test scripts.
JavaScript programming interface is used to specify actions to be performed on device UI.
It does not work well with other tools, methodology, and framework as it is a proprietary tool.
It helps to reduce procedural efforts and time needed for software product development.
#3. Android and iOS Apps: Best App Testing Tools
1. Appium:
Appium is an open source mobile app testing tool for native and hybrid iOS and Android apps.
Testing native apps using Appium is a piece of cake as you don’t have to include any SDK and recompile apps.
Essentially, it is an HTTP server managing Web Driver sessions.
It supports tests in any framework and in any language that can create an HTTP request.
No app code needs to be modified for testing.
Any test is suitable to run on either iOS or Android on real devices or emulators. It supports native, hybrid, and web apps.
2. Calabash:
Calabash is an automated acceptance testing framework maintained by Xamarin and Calabash consisting and can be compared with Selenium Web Driver.
It is used to perform Automated Functional Testing for mobile native apps.
It consist two open-source libraries such as one for Android and another for iOS for testing native and hybrid apps.
It may provide the APIs for specialized for touch screening experiences.
It works well with Ruby, Java, .NET, Flex and many other programming languages.
3. Monkey Talk:
Monkey Talk automates functional interactive tests for Android and iOS apps.
It is an open-source tool consists of three components such as IDE, Scripts and agents.
IDE creates test scripts using record and playback, Agent is test instrumentation library links with the app and Scripts include keywords, syntax, and Java execution engines.
Everything from little smoke tests to the tough data-driven test suits for native, hybrid and web based apps.
IOS VS ANDROID
8. APP COST
In a world that has become progressively reliant on versatile innovation, you ought to consider having a customized mobile application for your business.
The expense of building such a mobile application will barely matter over the long haul if it takes off and increases an enormous market of clients.
Discover which platform is less expensive.
Which is Cheaper?
Due to several factors, there is no simple answer to this question.
The rate of developers depends on the complexity of the project, and the time it takes to build the app is different, affecting the cost of building mobile applications.
The price of creating an app depends on:
#1. Type
Mobile game, business, social networking, lifestyle and many more
#2. Platforms
iOS, Android, Windows Phone etc.
#3. Design
Basic, individual, custom
#4. Number of pages
#5. Features & infrastructure
Android AND iOS Hourly Rates
Hourly rates of android or IOS developer depend on the location of the city or country.
It also depends on the complexity of the app.
With regard to complexity, if you divide your mobile app into three categories and consider two speeds per hour, you have roughly the following app costs:
#1. Simple App: Cost at $18 hourly rate (Time, 400 hours)
#2. Moderate App: Cost at $18 hourly rate (Time, 500/800 hours)
#3. Complex App: Cost at $18 hourly rate (Time, 800/1400 hours)
IOS VS ANDROID
9. APP TIME DURATION
There are some factors that impact the time needed to create an app.
The complexity of your app will decide the time required.
Basically it all depends on your developer or the one you have hired to develop your app.
The factors that may affect the duration of your app’s development include the number of features, the size of your audience, which platforms you want to support, as well as the amount of time that either you or your contracted developer are able to dedicate to this project.
Android and iOS Time Duration
#1. Design time:
The design time either in android or ios depends on the requirement of the app you want to make.
The design is the most important step in both platforms to make the app.
This whole process needs to make the wireframes for the mobile application based upon the requirements and adjust and review accordingly.
Once wireframes are done, the graphical UI design has to be completed which includes font, color, theme, and pictures for the App.
For a small app it takes 3-4 weeks to for this process, 6-7 weeks for medium-sized app and 9-10 weeks for a big-sized app design process involving many UI and UX consultants.
2. Development time:
Most of the startups and people need to create apps with lots of features imaginable.
Based upon that feature list and type of company will confirm the time; it takes to develop the app.You will get to build the mobile app and also the backend for the mobile app.
All development of android and ios app backend should happen in parallel.
For smaller version, it can be achieved in two months; mid-sized app can take around 3-3.5 months where as a big sized app might take around 5-6 months.
This can involve technical design, UI coding, backend setup, purposeful implementation, integration and testing. You should have 5-10 alpha testers throughout this process.
#3. Testing time:
Once your app is totally developed, you wish to do beta testing to seek out extra possible bugs.
You will spend 1-3 weeks on beta testing relying upon the scale of your app.
Confirm to own a list of beta testers prepared and do it very aggressively to finish it.
IOS VS ANDROID
10. APP REGISTRATION FEE
To upload the developed app on platforms like Play store of Android, App store of IOS, the developer or the publisher of the app has to pay some amount of registration fees decided by various platforms.
The factors that may affect the duration of your app’s development include the number of features, the size of your audience, which platforms you want to support, as well as the amount of time that either you or your contracted developer are able to dedicate to this project.
#1. Android App Registration cost:
The hard cost of uploading app first time on Google Play is $25.
It is cost to obtain Google developer’s license. It is a one- time investment.
After paying $25 for the first app you can upload as many apps you want and Google charges nothing for it.
Only takes 30% as royalty for your in-app purchases.
The cost of 25$ is only for registration.
Rest of the things like its marketing, promoting through content and videos, making name in the market depends on you.
All other costs excluding registration cost of app depends completely on you.
Google Play is awesome when it comes to payout of the app revenue.
It pays you just after few days of the end of the month.
#2. iOS App Registration cost:
For uploading ios app on App Store, apple charges $99.
This cost is to be paid per year for Apple developers License.
It is not one time investment as Google Play.
It takes same 30% royalty as Google Play for in-app purchases and paid app purchases.
IOS VS ANDROID
11. APP PUBLISH AND APPROVAL
TIME DURATION
Android is one of the most generally utilized mobile operating system, and their users enjoy when they using it.
Adding an application to distribute on the application Store can take all things considered 2 and 3 days and longer which relies upon your application.
Differences in App Review Time:
The app review time takes different time on various platforms.
If we talk about Android Google Play, it takes 1-3 days to review the app.
And if we talk about iOS, Apple does review in within 1-2 days and most of the apps are reviewed and published within 24 hours.
Android App Review:
Google Play review process will take around 1-3 days.
After submitting the app, Google Play will review the app in and will distribute it to all the Google servers across the globe and made available step by step to all countries within few hours.
Though complete review process takes 1-3 days still the app is available in store within 24 hours.
iOS App Review:
Earlier apple took a week for the review process which was considered very long and also if rejected it took more days to review that again after solving that issue in app.
Now, Apple has increased speed of review process. It takes approx 1-2 days and also most of the apps are reviewed within a day.
Over to you Now . . .
Conclusion
So, that’s it we have shared everything with you about Android and iOS apps.
One more personal tip I want to share with you all; if you are a developer and reading this it doesn’t matter whether you decide to develop android app or ios app.
It’s depends completely on how unique your app is and how you are marketing it and how are its reviews from the user.
The complete growth and revenue of the app depends on these topics.
Hope, you enjoyed reading our blog.
Feel free to share your thoughts in comment box!
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