Industry insiders: Android platform is still far behind iOS

For a long time, I've heard the industry say Android will be the "first operating system platform" for smart devices. People frequently cite shipments or installed capacity, which in my opinion do not seem to have much value, to prove the topic. In fact, the so-called "Android dominating the martial arts" or "Android as the first platform for developers" fable, will become a distant myth. No matter how fast Android develops and how much market share there is, iOS will be the preferred platform for application developers. The reason is simple, and structural factors such as capital and engineering are constraining the development of Android. 1. iOS remains the most influential intelligent operating system in the United States, although the market share of Android has peaked (near 80%) according to the three quarter of research agency data, but with the release of IPhone5S, the fourth quarter of the statistics will be interesting changes. At the same time, the United States in the High-tech and other entrepreneurial areas have unrivalled advantages, so the U.S. domestic market dominance of iOS will undoubtedly be more developers "favor." 2. In recent years I have spoken to a number of Third-party application development teams, and a general complaint is that the cost of developing an application for the Android platform is about 3-5 times that of the iOS platform. The reasons for this are manifold, such as the lack of professional development tools provided by Android, complex, redundant APIs, less open advanced development capabilities, the much-maligned application quality, and, of course, the ecological fragmentation problem. 3. High cost only on the one hand, developers who want to "survive" have to make full use of each of the financing barriers, as developers enter more and more funds in recent years. Typically, developers can get 80.012 billion dollars in seed-wheel financing, but he not only has to develop a near-perfect application, but also to prove to investors for a while that their applications are attractive enough. Overall, an application to be launched in a few years, with the original 5-10 times the user's ability to attract. 4. The influence of VCs is reflected not only in the infusion of capital, but also in the control of the developers by the concept of VCs. Generally speaking, no application can be developed according to the theory of linear development, it must meet the requirements of the stage of financing. To be specific, an application that wants to obtain seed-wheel financing must meet the following three conditions: a convincing entrepreneurial team, a huge potential market, good product ideas; Once again, wanting to get a round of financing needs to meet more different benchmarks: the obvious attraction ability, The ability to reuse user growth strategies and previous ideas can be realized. 5. In general, the 1 million dollar financing allows the start-up team to hire several employees: a client developer (iOS or Android), a designer, and an engineer in charge of the backend. In fact, many technical founders often have multiple jobs, both negativeResponsible for the backend development, but also worry about business operations. The key issue is time crunch: it seems to me that the survival test for a developer and a start-up company is only 18 months. If during this time, the developer does not prove the market appeal of their products, then this product will soon be forgotten. 6. Considering the above cost factors (referring to the above 2, 3, 4, 5 factors), few application development teams will start to point out the Android platform. The reason is simple, the fragmentation of Android and other problems caused by the huge development and maintenance costs. Even on the iOS platform, developers are racking their brains to meet the needs of investors (because there is no money and nothing to do). As a result, all (almost) developers use the iOS platform as their preferred target. 7. As a result, an interesting phenomenon arises: developers will first develop the iOS version of the app after acquiring seed-round funding, and will be able to log on to the Android platform in order to expand the size of their users after acquiring a round of financing. The reason for this phenomenon is obvious, the iOS platform can not only reduce the development and maintenance costs, but also has a more powerful liquidity (for example, advertisers more favored, the application of the purchase of the partition, etc.). A recent survey found that Facebook's advertising revenue on the iOS platform was 1790% of Android. For Android visionaries, this may be the most upsetting news for them. Android will certainly not be the developer's first choice when it comes to the time and end benefits developers spend on Android platforms. 8. Lower costs, stronger liquidity, and more reliable development tools seem to be a magic weapon for iOS to win developers. Because of the 12-18 months of survival (the seed round to a round of financing, developers must demonstrate that their applications have huge market potential), many developers will choose iOS, because for Android developers, they need to "torment" longer. Even so, survivors are still in the minority, and many developers have made perfect use of it, but have died without refinancing. 9. Even so, the growing competition is making life difficult for application developers. Many developers who have successfully won a round of financing are still on the verge of dying. Being bought by big companies (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, etc.) is a time-long phenomenon. This makes technology giants always have some mature iOS application development engineers. The 1-2-year commitment period (EARN-OUTPERIOD), which means that the two parties are inconsistent in their judgment of value and risk, turns the traditional one-time payment method into a mode of payment based on performance over a certain period of time, and again chooses to develop new applications, And iOS is their first choice. Even when they leave the big companies, they will still be more inclined to go back to business.iOS platform. For iOS, this creates a virtuous circle. Of course, Android's openness does make it a more "modern" platform than iOS, but Android's own reality is not optimistic. Given the constraints of structural factors such as cost, developers have no way to bypass iOS and go directly via Android. Ignorant people always boast that the market is at its best, but I don't see it that way. The software development market based on application level has been accelerated, and the integration of hardware and software requires huge capital support. It is difficult to develop a valuable mobile application. Huge cost investment and limited capital support seem to make iOS a more advantageous platform for developers. So I've always thought it would take a long time to advocate "Android is good enough" and "an equal confrontation between Android and iOS". Introduction: Steve Cheneystevecheney program engineer, writer. GroupMe is currently the head of business development, has a wealth of scientific and technological work background. Morgan Stanley's investment banker, Kaplan, an independent scholar. Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the University of California and an MBA from Columbia University.