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5 Major Differences Between iOS and Android App Development Find out development cost, design, markets,
monetization models and ROI expectation
di�erences for iOS and Android apps.
MARCH 30, 2021
MOBILE
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When choosing between Android or iOS
development, software engineers are often
puzzled. Both systems, despite having
architectural similarities, still have different
development and maintenance approaches.
Two systems are different from one another not
just on the development level but even in terms
of design and marketing strategy.
In this post, we’ll cover the differences between
iOS and Android. We will thoroughly evaluate
the risks of choosing either OS and calculate the
price of a sample app. By the end of the post,
you will know if iOS or Android is a better fit for
your project.
After reading this blog post, you might also want
to check out 5 Major Differences Between
iOS and Android App Development.
Differences in
Development
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The biggest dissimilarities between Android
development vs iOS development are the
technical ones. Platforms have different
programming languages, testing approaches,
and so on. The most common differences in iOS
and Android app development on the technical
side go as follows:
Programming languages
iOS vs Android programming use different
technology stacks. The first one has the Swift
proprietary language designed for app
development while the second one heavily relies
on Java or Kotlin as an alternative.
Which stack is faster and easier to master? Most
mobile app developers find an iOS app is easier
to create than the Android one. Coding in Swift
requires less time than getting around Java since
this language has high readability.
In the future, however, as Kotlin develops
further, the tables may turn once again. The
language is considered a soon-to-be Java
replacement - it’s intuitive, modern, and easy to
read.
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— Programming languages used for iOS development have a shorter learning curve than those for Android and are, thus, easier to master.
By the way, there are also cross-platform
development tools that allow you to write one
code that will work both on Android and iOS. We
reviewed them in Flutter vs React Native vs
Xamarin in 2021: Pros, Cons, Examples.
Development environment
Another major difference between iOS and
Android development lies in the integrated
environment.
Android developers utilize Android Studio, a
proprietary tool introduced by Google in 2013
and sporting an expanded range of available
features. This integrated development
environment has cross-platform support, high
readability, a wide range of development and
debugging features.
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iOS developers, on the other hand, rely on the
proprietary XCode tool. The Apple-backed
solution provides a variety of bug fixing tools,
supports the entire range of iOS devices, and is
easy to get around.
Which IDE (Integrated Development
Environment) is better?
Exploring the differences between Android
Studio and XCode, you won’t decide which is
definitely better than the other: both have their
pros and cons.
Android Studio helps quickly generate multiple
versions of your app for various devices and
offers a flexible Gradle-based build system.
Xcode, on the other hand, has a decent source
editor and assistant editor. But that’s only if
want to touch the surface.
Developers make personal preferences based
on their individual habits and likings. Those who
prefer XCode like it for easy setup, but bigger
projects make the IDE too complicated. And
Android Studio fans like it for an advanced code
editor and layout designer, though sometimes it
consumes too much memory.
However, you can rarely find developers
specializing both in Android and iOS
development. So once the platform choice is
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made, most of them don’t have a need to
compare the above-mentioned IDEs.
Having these things considered, Android Studio and
XCode are both good enough; their differences
shouldn’t be a reason for preferring one platform
over another.
System-specific design
differences
Both designed for mobile app development, iOS
and Android share the founding principles of
software design. Due to the fact that both touch
and a stylus don’t have a 100% clicking precision,
the smallest clickable areas are 44px for iOS and
48px for Android.
The main difference between iOS and Android
design philosophies lies in navigation and
architecture organization.
Android apps are developed using partition - a
coding team will have to break the app down to
fragments and activities. An activity is equivalent
to one app screen - in case a developer has a
project with multiple screens, he’ll end up
managing dozens of activities.
Each activity contains fragments - parts of a user
interface often used to navigate between
activities, enter a value, open a new app screen.
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iOS application architecture relies on view
controllers. There are a few types of such used
for app development - page view, tab, split view
controllers, and so on. A view controller can
control an entire screen or one of its parts.
There are several ways to manage controllers - a
developer can write them in code or organize
images in a storyboard and store it as an XML
file. This way, the development pace increases
while the risk of errors reduces.
The iOS architecture is more manageable and not
so error-prone as that of Android apps. By system
design, an iOS app is easier to develop.
Development complexity
When it comes to iOS vs Android app
development complexity, Android loses by big
numbers. It has a lot to do with device
fragmentation. While Apple releases a limited
range of devices and thus has a small range of
screen dimensions to account for, it’s not the
case with Android. There are dozens of screen
styles based on the screen size, density, and the
version of the OS.
Apart from having to adjust the graphics to the
whole range of devices, a developer will have to
use dozens of device simulators during testing
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to ensure the app is displayed equally for all
users. As a result, both testing and development
require countless reviews and iterations, are
resource- and time-consuming.
By development complexity, iOS is easier to
handle.
Which IDE (Integrated Development
Environment) is better?
Exploring the differences between Android
Studio and XCode, you won’t decide which is
definitely better than the other: both have their
pros and cons.
Android Studio helps quickly generate multiple
versions of your app for various devices and
offers a flexible Gradle-based build system.
Xcode, on the other hand, has a decent source
editor and assistant editor. But that’s only if
want to touch the surface.
Developers make personal preferences based
on their individual habits and likings. Those who
prefer XCode like it for easy setup, but bigger
projects make the IDE too complicated. And
Android Studio fans like it for an advanced code
editor and layout designer, though sometimes it
consumes too much memory.
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However, you can rarely find developers
specializing both in Android and iOS
development. So once the platform choice is
made, most of them don’t have a need to
compare the above-mentioned IDEs.
Having these things considered, Android Studio and
XCode are both good enough; their differences
shouldn’t be a reason for preferring one platform
over another.
Market share
According to StatCounter, Android is
dominating the market share. Where iOS holds
How We Estimate QA Effort at EGO Creative InnovationsHow We Estimate QA Effort at EGO Creative Innovations
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only 16% of worldwide smartphone users,
Android devices are popular among over 80% of
the population. When it comes to market share
by regions, here’s what the statistics have to say:
US - 52.59% - iOS, 46.98% - Android;
Europe - 22.23% - iOS, 72.71% - Android;
Asia - 13.85% - iOS, 83.09% - Android;
Even a common misconception about the
iPhone-dominated America didn’t prove to be all
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that true - the margin of difference between the
market shares of Android vs iPhone
development is fairly small.
In case a developer aims at the worldwide
audience, choosing Android is the best
alternative.
Is There Any Way to Dominate Both
Platforms?
In order to cash out on both Android and iOS
markets, developers often go for creating a
single cross-platform app instead of two native
products. While such an approach seems a jack-
all-trades, developers should be conscious of all
the pros and cons of cross-platform solution.
Pros of cross-platform apps:
Reduced development costs as opposed
to building separate native apps;
Speed increase;
Reusable code;
Unified interface for both platforms;
Higher audience reach.
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On the other hand, cross-platform product will
lack in terms of flexibility and rich features
compared to a native app.
Cons of cross-platform apps:
User experience limitations;
More complex code design;
Longer wait time for bringing new
features to the market;
Maintenance challenges.
Cost of Creating Mobile
Apps: iOS vs Android There’s a common opinion around the web that
iOS apps are more expensive than the Android
ones. To check if this is true or false, we
calculated the cost of Android app development
vs iOS app development. Here’s an average
number of hours needed to develop a basic,
medium, and complex mobile app according to
Cleveroad:
Basic app - 300 hours;
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Medium complexity app - 600 hours;
Complex app - 800 hours.
Here are the Android and iOS developers’ rates
for US and Eastern Europe according to the
same source.
By multiplying team hourly rate by the number
of working hours we get the total cost for iOS
and Android app development correspondingly.
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When it comes to budgeting, the difference
comes with Android OS - that's because
developers will need more resources to adapt
app to a different screen sizes, which is not that
big issue in case of iOS app development.
App Design Differences Android app development vs iOS is determined
by design guideline systems that determine the
look and feel of apps. While designing for
Android, you’ll have to adhere to Material
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Design, the iOS’ developer guide book will be the
Human Interface Guidelines.
For Apple, the content of the app has priority
over design. As a result, clarity and the broad
use of white space are advisable. The most
common tools used by UI designers are
shadows and gradients. All in all, the
application’s design should convey a feeling of
depth and be multi-layered. A prominent case
where we made a design for an iOS app
exclusively is Baby Sleep Coach.
Android designs come from real-world
inspiration. As a result, color and motion are two
defining factors. Android designers usually
operate with a broader range of tools - light,
motions, color changes.
Needless to say, it’s up to a designer to choose a
look-and-feel for the app. However, there are
certain system-specific differences that influence
the design of iOS and Android apps.
Navigation bar placement
The navigation bar placement is a noteworthy
detail. On iOS devices, it’s centered while, on
Android phones, the bar is aligned to the left.
App developers usually use the navigation bar to
write the name of the screen.
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There's no definite rule as to which navigation bar
placement is superior in terms of user experience.
Widget support
Android devices extensively support widgets on
its home screen (except for the lock screen). iOS
is fairly new to the trend of widgets - as a result,
it provides limited widget support. A user will
only be able to access widgets in the Notification
Center.
By widget support, Android devices win over iOS as
they have fully adopted the feature and use its
benefits much more extensively.
Device fragmentation
We have already covered the implications of
Android device fragmentation when it comes to
testing and development. As a result, designers
have to withhold from creating detailed
application interfaces as they will be extremely
slow on low-end Android devices. The difference
in screen dimensions makes setting proportions
and layout elements optimization more
challenging and time-consuming as well.
Device fragmentation makes designing for Android
a pain in the neck. That’s why the interface of an
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Android app will cost more and take a longer while
to make compared to iOS designs.
Google Play Market vs
App Store The interfaces of Google Play Market and App
Store are similar - both have a home page with
application listings, filters that help users to
navigate and search for apps. The app
description page has similar layouts - there's a
text description, a gallery, a block with app
ratings and user reviews, and a download
button that allows users to download an
application.
Distribution models
Apart from releasing apps for public download,
iOS offers developers an enterprise distribution
model. This way, companies can distribute tools
between the team’s employees or a selected
group of individuals. You will be able to
distribute apps under a private license and get
access to a whole set of beta-testing tools,
advanced development and testing utilities.
In case you want to create an iOS apps for
education, there’s a dedicated iOS University
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program to help college or school administration
securely introduce an application to the
curriculum.
Android, on the other hand, has more than
Google Play to offer for app distribution. A
developer can also release an app on Amazon
App Store - a marketplace for Android
applications that has been running since 2011
and is available in over 200 countries. Its user
base is almost as impressive as that of Google
Play - as a result, a develop can attract more
potential users.
Android app distribution models provide
developers with an opportunity to reach out to a
wider public audience. iOS, on the other hand,
has convenient developer programs for releasing
proprietary technologies.
Revenue per platform
According to the report issued by App Annie,
India and China will be dominant forces in app
downloads and spend in the next 5 years - both
regions are currently dominated by Android.
Generally, Android app marketplaces have
surpassed iOS by sales - having said that, the
App Store is expected to remain the most
lucrative single store all the way up to 2021. The
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marketplace is expected to generate over $60
billion in gross consumer spend in the next 5
years.
In a nutshell, Android is a promising operating
system to choose as a long-term investment. In
terms of immediate revenue, iOS still has the lead.
Number of free/paid apps
hosted
Due to the fact that iOS main user base is
located in the US, the audience is more willing to
pay for a mobile app. Android, on the contrary,
dominates in the markets where paid content is
not thought of as a norm. When it comes to
revenue percentage a developer has to share
with Apple and Google respectively, both have a
standard 30%-fee.
If you expect an app user to pay right before
downloading your product, AppStore users will be
more engaged than Google Play visitors.
Categorization systems
Both Google and Apple do their best to help
users not only navigate through apps according
to their categories, but also find new potentially
interesting titles. In the Play Market, you can find
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apps and games organized into groups like
Recommended, Spotlight, or even Offline. In the
App Store, there’s more to editorial content, so
the apps and games might get highlighted by
appearing on the main screen as a part of a
listicle or an exclusive material.
As both platforms offer robust navigation systems,
it’s a draw between Google Play and App Store.
Friendliness to developers
App Store is stricter in terms of app moderation
- thus, there’s a risk that your app will never be
published. Google Play, on the other hand, is
much less demanding when it comes to quality
assurance. As a result, there’s a tougher crowd
for app creators to stand out from but the
development is practically risk-free.
As a rule, Google Play is more developer-friendly
than AppStore as it takes less time to approve an
app and is not as strict during reviews.
App security
Due to the complex process of application
uploading and moderation, App Store is a safer
source of apps than Google Play. There’s less
risk to get tricked by a malware distributor. In
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case your app passed the App Store moderation,
you can be fairly confident in its security.
However, it might take a couple of days for
Apple to approve your app, while with Google
you’ll wait only for a few hours. Although in both
cases the app is reviewed manually, Apple has
so many requirements and peculiarities
regarding submitted apps that most probably
you will initially spend quite a lot of time getting
to know them and adopting your code.
By security, iOS raises the bar to a higher level than
Android. By approval time, Google still works faster
than Apple.
Monetization and Return
on Investment Last but not least, app monetization is another
matter worth consideration when choosing
between Android and iOS. There are three main
ways to get profit from running a mobile app -
in-app purchases, a paid application and ad-
based model. And here's a brief break down of
all three approaches and their performance
characteristics according to Appromoters (for
both iOS and Android):
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In-app purchases. Android apps lead in
terms of the number of purchases with
22% against 17%. However, the average
cost of a transaction is higher for iOS -
$30, for Android $10.
Paid applications. iOS is a leader in
terms of releasing paid apps straight to
the application marketplace. Out of all
iOS game apps, 11% are paid. For
Android, the value is 7%.
Ad-based monetization. Most iOS apps
don’t use ads - the percentage of non-
gaming apps that do is only 22%.
Android apps, on the other hand, are ad-
heavy. 63% of Android apps have
implemented advertising SDKs.
Overall, iOS apps prove to have a higher return
on investment than Android apps.
A few months ago, Google Play came up with a
new way to drive monetization forth. Using the
‘Rewarded Products’ feature, developers will be
able to increase the app’s revenue by having
visitors watch sponsored videos in exchange for
in-game currency. It takes nothing but a few
clicks to add a rewarded product to an app - a
developer can do it using the Google Play Billing
Library.
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On Google Play, a subscription-based payment
model is available as well. This is highly
convenient for on-demand music and video
streaming apps. The list of subscription features
includes:
flexible billing;
free trial;
ranging subscription plans;
grace periods.
For App Store, a subscription model is active as
well - developers can enable both auto-
renewable and non-renewable subscriptions.
Both platforms take 15% of a developer’s
revenue instead of a standard 30%
commission common for other monetization
models. This decision leads mobile app
enthusiasts to believe that in-app subscriptions
will surpass other monetization models by
2021.
Conclusion Making a choice between iOS and Android
application development is not easy as both
come with advantages and drawbacks.
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— Calculating the amount of time and workforce needed to create apps for either OS as well as calculating maintenance risks is crucial for the project’s success.
In a nutshell, in case you don’t feel limited in
budget and aim at narrow premium segments,
iOS is a better choice. In case you want to test
out the application market, aim at the
worldwide audience, or are bootstrapped in
the budget, prefer going with Android.
Developing an app on your own is challenging -
that’s why it’s better to have a professional team
to rely on. At EGO Creative Innovations, we have
created dozens of mobile apps (both iOS and
Android) for business, entertainment, and other
purposes. In our portfolio, you’ll see both small-
scale projects for SMEs and ambitious apps for
global companies.
Looking forward to discussing your project?
Contact our team - we’ll be happy to help you
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out. And if you're not sure how we can help you,
check out our time- and budget-limited plans to
see if you need anything from there.
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