What to Choose: iOS or Android for Your Business?

• By Chamsi Pirson
• 07-05-2020
• Mobile Apps

One of the more common questions for android app development company and ios app development company in Dubai is whether to build applications on the Android or iOS. It can seem confusing if you have to choose either of the two even though it would be easier to go with both.

The way many mobile application development companies in Dubai break it down for their clients is through a comparison of the two platforms which lists their differences. Here, we shall explore those differences to simplify it for you as well.

Audience Demographics

With the use of statistics, it has been revealed that Android appeals more to males between 18 and 35 years old. The majority of these men are IT professionals or work in related fields like energy and mechanics.
iOS, on the other hand, appeals more to females in their mid-thirties and above employed in the marketing industry as well as in media.

Sales

There is no doubt that Android and iOS are the most popular operating systems, but they do not have the same market share. Android has been the market leader since 2012 and according to statistics in 2018 Android had 84 percent of the market share with predictions that it could increase to 84 percent.

On the other hand, iOS is predicted to have 15 percent of the market share in 2020. This, however, accounts for a sizable portion of sales especially in America and Europe.

Language

Here’s where technical differences emerge. Android uses a more code-intensive language which is java and has what could be referred to as an upgrade to the language called Kotlin, which has become preferable for many developers.

iOS uses Swift. Just like the name suggests, it is a fast language with less coding involved when compared with java. This means that building iOS Apps is a lot faster.

Utilization

If you were to compare how many devices can utilize the two operating systems, you can spot a major difference. Several devices can work using the android OS which means the apps will be used on varied devices. iOS is limited to 3 devices developed by Apple and these are the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. This limits usage and could explain the market share of iOS

Expense

One of the key factors that determine how much needs to be spent developing an app is the time needed to develop it. Developers charge for their service according to how long they will have to spend. As mentioned earlier, Android Apps may take longer than iOS because of the amount of coding that goes into it.

Other factors may determine the cost and they may create a variation in the expense. It may not be clear cut which OS is more expensive than the other since the kind of App being developed can make one more expensive than the other.

Integrated Development Environment

Google provides Studio as the official development environment for android and many developers like it because of its simplicity and functionality among other advantages of using it. It is also a cross-platform tool. Android is a flexible OS and so you will find other tools like Eclipse that can be applied as well, although they will not be as good as Studio.

Xcode is the IDE for iOS and it is praised for its ability to fix errors within code. It also has several amazing features that make it easy to work with. XCode makes developing Apps for iOS faster than other operating systems.

Return on Investment

Normally, app developers expect to get rewarded for their efforts in monitory form. This means they consider what the return of investment would be if the developed apps on one of the 2 platforms. The general outlook from statistics is that both Android and iOS have seen record sales of over 25 billion dollars as a result of downloads.

Android has seen more downloads of its Apps, particularly because most of them are free as well as the popularity of Google. iOS, on the other hand, has seen an increase in downloads but even if they are not as many as Android, there is more money made from iOS Apps than Android.

Review Period

Before the apps can be deployed, they need to be reviewed. Sometimes it can be frustrating waiting for a review of your Apps. Android has a faster review process which is done automatically.

iOS depends on manual review and that takes longer and sometimes if errors are found in the App, it will be rejected until the developer can have it fixed. The waiting period can be as long as a week.

Taking note of these key differences can help developers from mobile app development company decide which operating system would best suit them. Remember though that the audience you intend to use the App will play the biggest part in determining the OS.