iOS versus Android Business App Development

Ayoka focuses on business app development, business app design, and mobile strategy for iOS and Android.  We specialize in building extensive business applications for enterprise clients. 

Smartphones and mobile devices have provided to an innovative platform for connectivity and computing power in the field of business mobile app development. With a vast majority of the market share,  iOS and Andriod are the leading edge of operating systems and continue to drive mobile app development. However, the primary question when building custom mobile apps for a company remains which operating system to use. To answer this question we must first fully understand both Android and iOS and their respective pros and cons.

Android is a Java based operating system created by Google. Android is known for its open market appeal, with multiple options and solutions for most consumers. Android is essentially “free”to mobile device manufacturers and is considered to have an open platform for software developers. This has impacted the market  by allowing most mobile device manufactures, such as Samsung, Sony, Motorola, etc., to integrate with their operating system. Android devices are typically low-cost devices, making them more disposable for industrial or field applications.

iOS is a closed source proprietary operating system (often called a walled garden) created by Apple. Known for being the driving operating system in the iPhone and iPad, iOS, it is known for its intuitive and easy to use interfaces as well as a vast array of consumer apps.

Each of these operating systems come from a very different point of view as to how business app development should be done. Where Android takes the stance that open is better and let the device manufacturers decide how they wish to use it.  iOS, on the other hand, is vertically integrated.  This means that the software and hardware of the operating system are tightly coupled.  Apple has complete control and owns the both the software and hardware components.  Apple’s software maximizes their hardware and provides a more consistent (hence lower cost!) platform for building mobile apps. Each operating system has a different view of app development, as a result, development for each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

According to a Comscore report released in September 2014, Android has 51.5% of the smartphone market share in the U.S.. This market size is the  greatest strength as well as the greatest weakness of Android. With so many different hardware devices that can use your app, it will be able to reach a wider audience easier. But due to its open nature the market share is split between many different manufactures. Each manufacturer will change the operating system to match its whim leading to many devices using the Android operating system but not every phone using the exact same flavor of operating system. Due to this pervasiveness one cannot guarantee that an app that will work perfectly for one Android device will work the same for every Android device. Another advantage with its own disadvantage is the ability to code and work in many different environments. Android, as a Java based language, can be coded were ever you could code Java, but this also means that each app has its own inherited differences just based on how you programmed it.

Apple iOS has 42.2% of the U.S. smartphone market according to the same Comscore report. iOS is a closed and proprietary operating system. With each mobile device that has iOS manufactured and distributed by Apple, there is much greater control. This control can be seen in how responsive iOS is when compared to Android, around 2.5 times faster. iOS apps are coded using a Mac in xCode using Objective-C and now just recently released the Swift programming language. This allows Apple to more tightly couple speed and effective integration with the mobile device hardware. This control also means that any app you create will have a more consistent software development and user experience with the lesser number of iPhone and tablet devices.

Based on your business requirements, where and how your business mobile apps will be used, and the capability of your IT organization to support hardware and software, will drive the decision toward an app framework. Contact Ayoka today for a free iOS versus Android analysis!