The green choice

When Android first is the way to go

As an Android developer it’s been a problem throughout my career watching amazing apps being built that at first only support iOS without giving Android a second thought. Sometimes it’s because the higher ups own iPhones or because statistically iPhone users are more willing to spend money on the App Store. But in the end it’s not always a decision backed by a serious investigation on what applies best to the case at hand. So, if you are about to create the next Uber, Airbnb and Tinder combined or just thinking about launching a new product, please have a quick read through this before forgetting Android exists.

A little research doesn’t hurt anyone

Although I quite like my own opinion I’m not arrogant enough to think I know it all. So I decided to go and speak with a few startups in an attempt to understand both sides of the table. Keep in mind I won’t include all of the people I spoke to keep this article short and to the point.

Let the music play

Combo is a set of entirely human-curated music channels, updated every day with the best new tracks and a few words why you should listen to them. Personally I think their product is great, they care about the details and the founders are highly driven individuals with a great goal in mind.

When creating their app they were stuck choosing between iOS and Web. They chose iOS for costs reducing reasons since one of the founders has experience being an iOS developer. Talking to them, they mentioned that in retrospective the web platform might have been a better fit to the product due to the easiness for the end user to adopt a web app.

What if they had known we’ve been able to deep link apps in Google searches on Android for a while now?

Fun fact, with the brand new Firebase you can use it also with iOS!

Breaking news!

Gather is an app that simplifies news reading by daily curating the world’s best stories, powered by deep learning, and making them available through your phone. “No ads, no clickbait. One app.”

Their story is interesting since they pivoted another product into what Gather is today. During their initial attempt, they built a native iOS app based on a very accurate idea of their target audience. Nowadays they are still focusing their product as an iOS only app for the moment using React Native, which they plan on relying on in the future to hopefully make an Android release.

Although I feel sad for us Android developers who would like to work on this app, their solution is perfectly tailored for their business model and their circumstances. Not only that but the founders are iOS focused people and there’s nothing more motivating than being able to use your own product. So in this case, as much as it pains me to say it, Android wasn’t the right solution.

What I learned

After talking to young startups, friends, family, clients, strangers at bars and the occasional cat, I feel I have a better understanding of the situation and its cause. Although I plan on taking an active role in representing the Android platform in the tech industry, I still feel it necessary to mention a few things to keep in mind if you’re ever creating a product and wondering about the right platform to start with.

Did you think the cat line was just a joke?

Spending in Android is… different

When you approach your new product please keep this in mind, Android is fundamentally different than iOS. As an Android developer there’s nothing more frustrating that having to convince people that iOS designs won’t just work on the Android app. This is a good analogy for a problem I see. Just because something works on iOS doesn’t mean it will on Android.

This applies really well to business models too. Android has such a vast amount of free apps that it’s hard to convince users to pay for something, specially paying for an app. But we are very willing (sometimes eager) to try new things. Maybe your 1.99$ app on iOS will work wonders as a freemium app on Android. It’s a different mindset, that’s all.

Personally it took me weeks of using free podcast clients until I made the change to Pocket Casts and the reason was how better it felt against all of it’s free counterparts. Instead of avoiding our different ecosystem, why not try adapting to it?

There are more of us and you know it

Android currently has ~80% of the worldwide mobile market. Besides this, the Play Store has more app downloads overall than the Apple Store. This could mean that your app is likely to have a larger user base on Android.

If your product’s revenue mainly comes from ads, wouldn’t this be a goldmine of sorts? It can get increasingly complicating obtaining large quantities of data that can feed your neural networks or deep learning systems, wouldn’t a bigger user base be better?

Emerging markets are full of opportunities

There’s a reason why so many companies are looking at emerging markets with a glimmer of hope. They can become a much welcomed addition to our global tech economy. Now imagine being capable of tapping into international markets with millions of users with a simple app. With Android One, Google is pushing hard to dominate various emerging markets. The question is, how can you revolutionise those markets?

Whatever you do, at least think about the little green robot

Before I become public enemy number one of every iOS developer out there, I know that iOS development offers a lot of advantages to different cases but bear in mind, Android also has a few that tend to get overlooked. All I ask with this article is that you think about the platform that holds 80% of the market share and try to think of better ways of taking advantages of those numbers. Our one billion users are dying to use your product, don’t keep us waiting too long.

If you agree with my points, think I’m full of it or just want to chat leave a comment!