by Russell Ivanovic

A few people were bemused by our decision to release Pocket Casts 4 first on Android. I suspect a few of them even think we may have lost our marbles. I thought I’d take a few minutes to outline exactly why we did what we did.

Team Size

We’re a small team of only 2 developers and a designer. We realised late last year as we were working on a simultaneous release of Android and iOS that if we were going to have any hope of shipping either of them, we’d really have to choose one to do first. The take-away from this is simple: if we were bigger (say double our current size) we would have just done both.



Historic Sales

Pocket Casts on Android has outsold the iOS version historically at about 5:1. That means for every 1 iOS version we’ve sold, 5 were sold on Android. The Android version also costs $1 more, so we’re making more per transaction as well. The reasons for this are a blog post on their own, but it’s a fact.



Future Sales

On Android there is no native podcasting solution, and we see a massive potential to fill that space. There are other apps out there, but we feel we have what it takes to become the dominant podcasting app on that platform.



Why Not?

Team rivalries should be left on a sports field. There’s no reason not to launch on Android first or iOS first in 2013. Both are massively viable platforms full of users who want to pay for great apps. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. The choice of platform all comes down to where your users are, and which one makes more sense for the kind of app you’re launching. It’s no longer a clear-cut ‘always iOS first’ world.



App Quality

Let’s be honest, 2 years ago Android really sucked. The OS was a mess, the store was a mess, the SDK was a mess and the hardware was a mess. Today all that has changed, and it’s an amazing platform. That said overall the app quality on iOS is still far higher than Android, as developers catch up with all these new changes. There’s a point coming soon when Android will be full of high-quality apps, but there’s a gap in the market right now for small developers like us who are passionate about design to create something a cut above the rest. In short it’s currently easier for a good app to stand out on Android than it is on iOS.



So there you go, a short and sweet explanation of why we did what we did. Once version 4.0 is out on Android (countdown available here), we’ll be working on the iOS one next. We won’t be starting from scratch since a few months of development has already gone into that version, but there’s still a lot to be done. If you’re fascinated by the Android vs iOS development process, there’s a great interview with me available here.