The truth about Android's defections from open source to fragmented developers

Android has been hot and gaining popularity since its inception. It is different from the previous mobile phone and mobile terminal operating system, its unique open-source, system-low-cost and provide the third party with a large degree of freedom of innovation space, and not subject to the advantages of hardware constraints, access to the majority of open community support. However, the problem of fragmentation and high profitability is becoming increasingly abandoned by developers.

Google's new generation of online platforms, Android Market, makes it easy for developers to access the "marketplace" where mobile users can find, buy, download mobile apps and other content using the Android operating system, or on Android The market sells its own software and gains profits through trading. By tapping, you can easily make money. Because of the Android system openness and free service, enterprises can get free source code and on this basis to develop new features, extend the scope of services, speed up research and development, and then effectively save costs and strive for maximum efficiency.

However, with the development of Android platform, the problem of system version fragmentation is becoming more and more serious, which makes the platform more and more complex and cost to the developers, and this division not only appears on the smartphone, but also spread to the tablet computer.

The two main players that caused the Android platform to split up because of the device and firmware, unlike Apple's iphone and ipad, have at least more than Lego Android devices on the market, with the top three being Samsung's Galaxy Sⅱ (18%), respectively, in the top 20 Android devices. Samsung's Galaxy Ace (9%) and Motorola's Defy (7%), the other 17 of the market accounted for only 6% and below, which means that developers to support the specific device can only touch a few users.

Currently 70% of Android devices on the market are running the gingerbread-Android 2.3 operating system, Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), which share the two new versions The market share is only 11%. That said, most consumers are still using the already outdated Android operating system.

Of course, the user's character is one of the reasons developers prefer iOS. Both sides after years of platform war, in spite of their own strength, their success is inseparable from the vast number of developers. The developer's attitude to the development of two platforms is significant, because the quality of the application is decided to support the choice of IOS or Android is the first condition, but also the basis for building user loyalty.

So far iOS has generated 4 times times more revenue per user for developers than Android, with developers earning $1 on the iOS platform and earning $0.24 on the Android platform. As a result, developing an IOS app makes more money, and they find it easier to develop software for Apple devices than it is for Android devices, and probably more profitable. While developing an Android app not only makes less money, but also faces fragmentation problems, developers will certainly prefer the IOS platform.

The latest data shows that each developer has developed 10 mobile apps, 7 from the iOS platform, while Android occupies only 3 of them. It is understood that this data is flurryanalytics through the survey of about 70,000 enterprises (involving about 185,000 mobile applications). Android is less harmful than iOS, which explains why 70% of new apps are the key to developing for iOS, not Android.

The truth about Android's defections from open source to fragmented developers