3 out of 4 smartphones sold run Android

JBod · 4 Nov 2012 at 08:38

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/11/...artphones-sold-is-google-securing-a-monopoly/

Impressive numbers and massive growth since that unfriendly geek only G1 was launched.

It makes me wonder why so many dev houses target the Apple Store first still with the android market an after thought, only 14% in Q3 sold were iPhones.

d_brennen · 4 Nov 2012 at 08:40

iPhone users spend more on apps? Just a stab in the dark

JBod · 4 Nov 2012 at 08:43

d_brennen said:
iPhone users spend more on apps? Just a stab in the dark

Well they are suckered into the Apple brand, clearly something loose

insane200 · 4 Nov 2012 at 09:03

most apple hardware is the same, unlike android phones.

Tunney · 4 Nov 2012 at 09:39

JBod said:
It makes me wonder why so many dev houses target the Apple Store first still with the android market an after thought, only 14% in Q3 sold were iPhones.

I'm a smartphone/tablet developer and have been since the early days of Symbian. We target iOS first (and most of the time exclusively) for two reasons:

1) While iOS is a smaller market overall, there are far more iOS users who are willing to pay for apps. Piracy is a big problem on Android too.

2) Developing for iOS is vastly cheaper. The APIs on iOS are better and you only have a limited number of devices that you need to test your app on. Android development is a minefield and testing your app on every hardware combination is impossible. I sometimes complain about having to support the iPad 1 with only 256MB of RAM but at least we know its limitations and get take full of advantage of what it can do. We can do tricks with the GPU because all of the iOS products are based off the same family of GPUs. We can't do that on Android and so our apps become less efficient. Developing for iOS is like developing for a games console. Android development is nearer to developing for a PC.

More revenue from less investment is why iOS is so popular.

d_brennen · 4 Nov 2012 at 10:11

insane200 said:
most apple hardware is the same, unlike android phones.

That too

jonneymendoza · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:01

d_brennen said:
iPhone users spend more on apps? Just a stab in the dark

Android has more free apps

jonneymendoza · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:08

Tunney said:
I'm a smartphone/tablet developer and have been since the early days of Symbian. We target iOS first (and most of the time exclusively) for two reasons:

1) While iOS is a smaller market overall, there are far more iOS users who are willing to pay for apps. Piracy is a big problem on Android too.

2) Developing for iOS is vastly cheaper. The APIs on iOS are better and you only have a limited number of devices that you need to test your app on. Android development is a minefield and testing your app on every hardware combination is impossible. I sometimes complain about having to support the iPad 1 with only 256MB of RAM but at least we know its limitations and get take full of advantage of what it can do. We can do tricks with the GPU because all of the iOS products are based off the same family of GPUs. We can't do that on Android and so our apps become less efficient. Developing for iOS is like developing for a games console. Android development is nearer to developing for a PC.

More revenue from less investment is why iOS is so popular.

Im a Android dev as well and your points are valid on certain types of apps.

For instance, i work and develop banking apps and because it is free to get, the most important aspect of business for us is to get the app on everyones phones and at this moment in time, Android has the larger market share and so we tend to focus on Android ahead iOS.

About point two. Again it depends on the type of apps you make. Games? i agree based on the GPU only. the rest is fine. Android is built to be designed and tailored for millions of devices. You only need to be a bit concerned about resolution but thats about it.

i have also been developing mobile stuff since j2me. Go have a stab at J2ME and you will see a proper messed up API.

Android is far from it. TBH about the GPU i think its a mute point because most phones have similar hardware ie a snapdragon type GPU or a nvidia one. those are the top two cpu/gpu's on Android

ebilcake · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:28

jonneymendoza said:
Android is far from it. TBH about the GPU i think its a mute point because most phones have similar hardware ie a snapdragon type GPU or a nvidia one. those are the top two cpu/gpu's on Android

I'm pretty sure that's not true, the most popular Android phones are the Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3 and the Note.

They use the Mali 400MP GPU, you will find GPU's from nvidia and qualcomm in allot of the other phones available but they just don't sell anywhere near the same amount.

On numbers alone between them there's over 75 million handsets out there running this GPU.

Nexus18 · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:38

Yeah from reading around, android seems like a right pita to develop for as:

1. Apparently exynos and nvidia chipsets are awful to develop for, lack of sources/info or something and apparently the exynos is so bad that even the CM team are stopping support for some Samsung devices, which use the exynos chip. Snapdragon seems to be the favourite.

2. As said, so many hardware combinations out there and then on top of that all these different versions of android and on top of that! Custom android skins. Always read in the "what's new" of the app, some fix for certain phones, usually Samsung, HTC or SE devices. Noticed that there seems to be a lot of apps that have problems with the GS 3 or aren't compatible with it, well more so when it first came out.

EDIT:

Actually would qualcomm not be more popular than the mali/exynos? As it is used in nearly every android phone, low, mid and high end (particularly all of Motorola's, SE and mostly HTC and LG devices), only Samsung phones use exynos/mali and nvidia is only in a few "top end" phones.

jonneymendoza · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:39

ebilcake said:
I'm pretty sure that's not true, the most popular Android phones are the Galaxy S2, Galaxy S3 and the Note.

They use the Mali 400MP GPU, you will find GPU's from nvidia and qualcomm in allot of the other phones available but they just don't sell anywhere near the same amount.

On numbers alone between them there's over 75 million handsets out there running this GPU.

Doesnt S3 run on snapdragon s4?

At the end of the day it all depends on what type of app you are making. for actual general apps not games, its a none issue.

Better to become a java backend developer. easy life mate. Android devs can earn 400-500 a day though.

Nexus18 · 4 Nov 2012 at 11:41

GS 3 international runs on mali/exynos and the USA GS 3 uses S4

ebilcake · 4 Nov 2012 at 12:06

Nexus18 said:
EDIT:

Actually would qualcomm not be more popular than the mali/exynos? As it is used in nearly every android phone, low, mid and high end (particularly all of Motorola's, SE and mostly HTC and LG devices), only Samsung phones use exynos/mali and nvidia is only in a few "top end" phones.

There are allot of phones using snapdragon but again the sales of each of these devices pales on comparison to the Samsung Galaxy range.

Even collectively it would't come close.

Tunney · 4 Nov 2012 at 12:35

jonneymendoza said:
About point two. Again it depends on the type of apps you make. Games? i agree based on the GPU only. the rest is fine.

I agree that it depends on the type of app. If you want to write an app that's really polished and really pushes the platform to the limit then you need to punt off tasks to the GPU though.

i have also been developing mobile stuff since j2me. Go have a stab at J2ME and you will see a proper messed up API.

I used to write Symbian apps. It was horrifying. Three APIs that all did the same thing and all broken in different ways. The APIs on iOS aren't perfect but they're by far the most consistent. Developing for Android is very frustrating in comparison - it's not impossible and it's better than most, but I can write two iOS apps in the time it takes me to write one Android app.

Android is far from it. TBH about the GPU i think its a mute point because most phones have similar hardware ie a snapdragon type GPU or a nvidia one. those are the top two cpu/gpu's on Android

All of the iOS devices use PowerVR chips so you can really optimise your app for PowerVR's strengths and weaknesses. It's a lot harder to do that on Android because there's two or three popular GPUs. Are devs really going to spend the time to optimise their code for all of them or will they code for the lowest common denominator?

sarge78 · 4 Nov 2012 at 12:58

ebilcake said:
There are allot of phones using snapdragon but again the sales of each of these devices pales on comparison to the Samsung Galaxy range.

Even collectively it would't come close.

Hehe, very funny.

Here's the SoC GPU breakdown from May 2012 (all platforms)

ImgTech powerVR: 50%
Qualcomm Adreno: 33%
Vivante: 5%
nVidia GeForce: 3.5%
ARM Mali: 2.3%

ebilcake · 4 Nov 2012 at 14:02

sarge78 said:
Hehe, very funny.

Here's the SoC GPU breakdown from May 2012 (all platforms)

ImgTech powerVR: 50%
Qualcomm Adreno: 33%
Vivante: 5%
nVidia GeForce: 3.5%
ARM Mali: 2.3%

Source? is that Global or for a certain region?

Might make sense if it was a for the US market.

englishpremier · 4 Nov 2012 at 15:22

Just like Macs, iPhones will become niche products.

The general public couldn't give a toss about which is easier to develop for.

I've never heard of anyone buying a phone/contract because an app might be developed for it first.

Most people will just buy the contract with the phone they want first then worry about apps and other add-ons and nonsense after that.

Fillado · 4 Nov 2012 at 15:58

englishpremier said:
Just like Macs, iPhones will become niche products.

Apple and Samsung together have something ridiculous like 99% of smartphone profits. Of which Apple is around 75%. They ain't going anywhere*

Plus it's nothing like Windows vs. Mac. Oddly. As stated above iOS is the primary platform for most developers. Windows succeeded over Mac because it had all the application support.

*Supposing Apple uses some of its monumental bank account to actually innovate instead of iterate

englishpremier · 4 Nov 2012 at 16:11

I guess time will tell. Things change very quickly in this market.

Just over 5 year ago it was all about the Nokia n95.

OspreyO · 4 Nov 2012 at 19:40

englishpremier said:
Just like Macs, iPhones will become niche products.

The general public couldn't give a toss about which is easier to develop for.

I've never heard of anyone buying a phone/contract because an app might be developed for it first.

Most people will just buy the contract with the phone they want first then worry about apps and other add-ons and nonsense after that.

I think you're wrong. Go in to a phone shop and ask about Windows Mobile and the sales assistants will often warn people they don't have the same apps. I know a good few major apps that we use are iOS only. We use them on an iPod but we all have android phones.

iPhones have always been niche products. But they are getting more popular. TBH it gets more attractive too considering a 3GS gets IOS 6 but a lot of android phones never get the next version of the Android, being stuck on 1.5, 2.1, 2.3.6 etc.