iOS vs Android — Which is Better?

Developing an app is a challenging task, and it is increasing fast due to mobile phones penetration, popularity among most of the users as well as evolving business needs. As per the report from Statista, the smartphone user’s number is more than 2.53 billion in 2019, and the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to reach 6 billion by 2020. However, in this blog, we have compared the difference between iOS and Android app development to understand the fundamental changes to determine a more appropriate OS platform to build an app for your business.

Target Audience
Let’s start with one of most important aspect that is one of the biggest role players of iOS, and Android app development is end-users who help to deliver all the moves of developer’s because right from beginning iOS customers are pretty loyal to the brand, where on another end Android devices are more affordable. However, it is a sure fact that the number of iOS users is smaller than the one that owns an Android smartphone. So, even if Android holds a more significant market share, it appears that the income level is higher for the majority of iOS users. Thus, this is just a general rule because there are also exceptions on both sides.

Programming Languages
The next significant factor that shows a lot in your decision is the programing language because this can help you to get the desired product. So, if you want to develop an Android app, then the most common language that is used is Java, even though Java for Android is a bit different. However, another language which is adopted by most of the Android programmers is C++ for giving more native experience. Kotlin is also added as an official Android language for most compatible and on the other end, iOS app developers are using Objective C, as Apple introduced Swift in 2014 as an official language for iOS apps because it is bit difficult to learn its syntax and the advantages are built for the main purpose, for helping developers to build mobile apps that run on Apple devices.

Integrated development environment availability (IDE)
iOS and Android mostly utilize on various tools for mobile app development .So, Google, being the official owner of Android, where they have introduced multifunctional as well as incredibly accessible IDE Android Studio, so this significantly helped for optimizing the process of app development for the platform. On the other end, Apple is far more consistent is this regards, with iOS developers using Xcode while developing Apple-backed iOS apps. Nevertheless, it is an incredibly productive environment for building amazing apps for iPhone/Mac/iPad devices. So, this helps to find out the errors for syntax as well as logic and even get the code fixed.

Design Principle
iOS and Android both have various essential differences in design. In particular, we can note that the general feature of Apple’s pictograms icons and buttons is their minimalistic, concise design. So, Android web designers inspired by an almost identical Material design idea and in that way, the absence of distorted, massive icons and lines is similar for both iOS as well as Android app development. Moreover, the desire to apply a sensory panel on mobile devices, excluding the physical buttons can be clearly traced by the versions of the Android operating system. So, for multitask panels on the two platforms, iOS has a separated miniature window, where Android has interchangeable tabs which can also fit across almost the entire screen. However, the platform has different styles of buttons, with a floating button which can cast shade on Android devices and the more stylistic simple as well as the aesthetically modern design of iOS. So, this rule applies to icons iOS creators’ demand which used in icons too as thin as possible as opposed to Android.

Distribution platform
Android app builders think that Google play store is more flexible because users can download mobile applications within few hours, where on Apple App Store it is possible to download fresh versions of a product in a period of several weeks. So, what does an Android developer benefit from because getting feedback from users, you can update an application every two hours, where iOS users have to wait for two weeks for developers to fix problems. However, Apple strict rule it is very unlikely that the application deployed to the Apple Store will be penetrated with bugs, so Google Play Store is as flexible as its review.

Development complexity
Difference between iOS and Android coding languages is not complex as comparison with operating system fragmentation where Apple has a limited number of devices such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, which runs iOS. On the other way, Android-powered devices have a wide range of systems which operates on devices, and as a result, Android-based gears creation is more complex, goes slower due to the wide range of operating systems as comparatively, iOS powered gears with a narrow range of operating systems. Nevertheless, Android has a wide range of screen sizes, so this should be taken into account while developing the mobile app. So, the same thing is about the systems which operate on devices that should be considered during mobile app creation.

Speed of development
Android based platform app creation is more time consuming as well as slow in terms of operating system fragmentation. So, it takes 30–40% longer for developers to build an Android powered mobile app in contrast to the app, which runs iOS.

Monetization Strategy
If anyone wants to generate an income with their work, then they need to be very careful with the method they choose for each platform. iOS customers reject advertisements inside apps, where Android users manage to ignore them if they want to focus only on the content. However, the only chance to succeed with this option is to present relevant products for the target audience to influence them to pay attention to the marketing strategy and for iOS Users Company can go with a paid or freemium apps which help to prove impressive results for the one who own Android devices.

To, summing up ongoing competition between Android and iOS app development , arguing which platform is better is a pointless, so considering how accessible and multifunctional both platforms have become from the user point of view because it is unlikely that in the upcoming versions of OS android and iOS will discover revolutionary changes in the design as well as performance. Hence, the features present in them and now were perfected by the leading teams of developers, web designers, as well as marketers.

Source URL: https://medium.com/@panaceainfotech/ios-vs-android-which-is-better-a3f3cc008790