The structure and design of mobile applications have gained the utmost importance in recent times. Mobile applications serve as a mediator between you and your customers.
Apart from being a facilitator of the trade from any place and at any time, mobile applications serve various business interests such as helping in market penetration, enhancing customer retention, reporting user behavior through data collected from mobile devices and allowing unprecedented individualization of services.
So, much before you choose between hiring an agency to develop the mobile app for your business and going for an in-house product, you have to decide between building an iOS app or an Android app. Let’s discuss here major differences between iOS and Android apps that will help you in making the right decision.
- Development Languages
Conventionally Java applied to Android apps. It required a lot of coding to be done. Now, Kotlin language has amassed popularity and it is completely interoperable with Java. It is a revived version of Java, which is a lot more intuitive so as to rule out the meticulous and repetitive coding part.
Swift was introduced to design iOS-based apps. Swift is still in place and is yet to find a successor.
- Development environment
Initially, devs used Eclipse for incubating their apps which were integrated by Google. It then launched Studio and techies went berserk owing to its cross-platform functionalities, easy debugging and intuitiveness.
iOS developers use X code for developing iOS-based apps. It is designed to provide integrated support for the development of apps that work across iOS-backed devices. It also provides an opportunity to find out errors in both syntax and logic on the go.
- Development complexity
The difference between iOS and Android in coding languages is relatively simple as compared to their bundled packages in terms of OS. Apple has a handful of devices, whereas there are a plethora of devices that support Android.
It becomes very difficult to provide screen resolutions that are optimized according to each of the devices. Thus, Android gear creations are difficult. Not only screen resolution, but other elements also differ from device to device.
- Speed of development
Speed of development is yet another critical factor that needs to be considered by a business before taking the call. Android apps take as much as 40% more time to build as compared to iOS apps. Such is the case despite Java and Kotlin which are not very difficult languages.
However, the app review time for iOS apps is quite higher as compared to that of Android. This is where Android Apps gain an advantage over iOS apps.
A lot depends on the nature of the business. If a business is serving a surging but short-lived demand, say a fad, then one might consider building an iOS app. However, the business might have to consider the fact that the market share of iOS users is far less than the market share of Android users.
The iOS users are more affluent in general, whereas Android users could hail from sound financial backgrounds to those of limited means.
All these factors need to be considered by the business, before making the call.
- Deployment
The review process of the apps which are to be launched on the App store takes up a longer time than the ones which are going to be launched on Google Play. iOS apps are tested manually rather than going through automated tests in the case of Android apps.
Further, Google allows multiple versions to be submitted in a day. However, iOS apps do not have such privilege and can face rejection for simple coding errors after waiting through a long response time from valuators.
When choosing a platform for your mobile app, there are a few things that one must ponder over. This write-up briefed you about some key differences between Android and iOS platforms. You should weigh these two choices in regard to your business objective and then reach a conclusion.
AppsChopper is an app developers company that has volumes of experience in building apps for business with the purpose of strengthening their bottom line. In case you have an app idea and want to get started, don’t shy away from discussing the scope of your project from an agency that has a deck of talented techies on-board.