Marketing luvvies: Why does the Apple app come first?

morstar

Android outsells ios by a significant margin and yet at best apps come out simultaneously on app store and google play or at worst on appstore long before play. Surely play store wins out on reaching potential consumer base.

Why is this?*

I actually know the answer but I'm interested in others views.


* It's because marketing luvvies all use ios so commission an apple app first.

birel101

It's cos Android users are on so many different versions of the OS and they can't make all apps for older versions I would imagine

frisbee

If you include Chinese goat farmers then, yes, Android phones do outsell Apple phones by a considerable margin. In America and Europe however, it is more like 55% Android, 40% Apple, and the Apple app store makes 3 times as much money.

Develop your app for a simple platform that makes more money or keep goat farmers happy? :?

morstar

frisbee wrote:

If you include Chinese goat farmers then, yes, Android phones do outsell Apple phones by a considerable margin. In America and Europe however, it is more like 55% Android, 40% Apple, and the Apple app store makes 3 times as much money.

Develop your app for a simple platform that makes more money or keep goat farmers happy? :?

But I'm not thinking about apps being made for a revenue stream in their own right (although I haven't specifically stated that). I'm thinking about companies that already have a brand identity and the app is an extension of that. E.g. cycling weekly have an apple app but not an android one. This is not about a revenue stream it is about keeping up and staying relevant with the demands of existing customers. The need to progress simply to maintain market presence. I think they are possibly failing in that remit. Or do the numbers genuinely stack up?
Obviously anecdotes about goat farmers are very insightful but possibly there's more to it.

VTech

The answer is simple.

For companies who develop or want an app for their promotion they look towards the target market.
The target market for an app is primarily the tech groups and those consist mainly of apple users.

I have just had to launch a global product release, its the first time ive done it for an item I have designed and built but the app store was top of the list from all of the marketing companies I dealt with.

edds

Nothing to do with marketing. All to do with the amount of development time and resource costs. From the BBC:

Thus far we've found ourselves releasing products first on iOS because of the challenges of supporting a variety of Android platform versions and devices.

Of course we want to deliver products simultaneously on iOS and Android and we are striving to fill gaps such as mobile downloads and launching iPlayer Radio on Android. This will take time.

First and foremost we'll focus on video quality but rest assured we're working on filling gaps in feature and product parity at the same time.

Since the fragmentation on Android requires more work than a single implementation on iOS we've also made investments in engineering so Android and iOS can deliver at broadly the same pace.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/pos ... oid_update

mephistopheles

This is a guess but I recon it’s due to the fact that Apple had an app store first and that it took a while for Android to catch up to the size, quality and market share. This meant that app developers were used to and comfortable writing for iOS. When Andriod came about the changing of code etc for another platform took a while for these developers to get it sorted. Now that both stores are the same size etc these same developers are probably used to writing for iOS first and when they can get round to it or if they can be bothered it will then be made for Android.

I personally feel that unless Apple make a ‘budget’ phone, Android will take the lion’s share of the mobile phone market, which will lead to a change in developers attitudes with a reversal of which store gets apps first (or if at all)

The Windows app store will suffer from this for a long time unless they can get (good) developers to go nuts for the platform.

dodgy

It's already been said. It's not some kind of conspiracy, it's not marketing types dictating the state of play based on whatever handset they have.

Work out the possible permutations of Android device:

• Which OS version is it on
• How much memory
• How big is the screen, resolution
• What connectivity does the device have?
• Who manufactured it?

For Apple, it's a lot simpler, most of the devices will be on the latest ios version and all devices will be manufactured by the same manufacturer.

So it's all about the fragmentation.

slowbike

Ppl are too quick to say "Apple vs Android" ...

it's not ...

It's Apple vs Samsung vs HTC vs Sony vs LG vs Motorolla etc ...

As dodgy says - it's about simplicity - the iPhone has 2 screen sizes ... how many different sizes and resolutions for Android devices?

petemadoc

I read somewhere that apple users are more likely make app purchases (ie spend dosh) than android users.

Hence why developers create the Apple apps first.

VTech

PeteMadoc wrote:

I read somewhere that apple users are more likely make app purchases (ie spend dosh) than android users.

Hence why developers create the Apple apps first.

Thats an absolute fact, Tech people use apple.

morstar

Get you lot and your logical arguments. The technical considerations do make sense. The behavioural ones are more interesting as they are less easily quantifiable. Do apple customers spend more? Seems likely, as a generalisation they would seem more susceptible to marketing. I still think the marketing is a huge part of it.
If you read about social shaping of technology vs technological determinism, you'll find technology isn't the be all and all.

VTech

morstar wrote:

Get you lot and your logical arguments. The technical considerations do make sense. The behavioural ones are more interesting as they are less easily quantifiable. Do apple customers spend more? Seems likely, as a generalisation they would seem more susceptible to marketing. I still think the marketing is a huge part of it.
If you read about social shaping of technology vs technological determinism, you'll find technology isn't the be all and all.

So there is more marketing done by apple than the entire PC setup globally ?
I thought Apple marketing was around 2% of global ?

jawooga

VTech wrote:

Thats an absolute fact, Tech people use apple.

Really!?! I am a software developer and almost all my colleagues use Android, which I would think is natural for a tech mind who may want to tinker and not be locked in. By Tech people, do you mean marketing people in tech industries? Or designers who may have an apple preference for other reasons e.g owning a mac? I know Tech is a loose word but I would be massively surprised if software devs favoured Apple.

Yslen

A few things;

1.) Techies/devs etc almost exclusively use Android, in my experience. This is also true of physicists. Don't believe what you see in the Big Bang Theory.

2.) It's actually pretty simple to run an app on multiple different hardware configurations under Android; resolution scales very well etc. Devs use software to check everything looks okay on different screens without having to try it on every single phone. So long as the phone meets the minimum spec it'll be fine.

3.) Android "fragmentation" isn't so much of an issue as everyone makes out. Android has 60% on 4.X, Apple has 90% on 7 (or will do soon). If you discount all of the super-budget Android phones sold to grandparents who don't give a damn about what OS version they're using, the figures are roughly similar. Also bear in mind Apple's OS updates are token gestures in some cases, with features missing due to lack of hardware support. "Feature fragmentation" doesn't seem to get any notice though. So long as the OS version gets changed it's okay!

morstar

VTech wrote:

morstar wrote:

Get you lot and your logical arguments. The technical considerations do make sense. The behavioural ones are more interesting as they are less easily quantifiable. Do apple customers spend more? Seems likely, as a generalisation they would seem more susceptible to marketing. I still think the marketing is a huge part of it.
If you read about social shaping of technology vs technological determinism, you'll find technology isn't the be all and all.

So there is more marketing done by apple than the entire PC setup globally ?
I thought Apple marketing was around 2% of global ?

Sorry Vtech. I'm not too sure what you're saying. The discussion is about mobile phone apps. I have no figures but am confident Apple account for more than 2% of marketing spend on mobiles.
To clarify my sweeping generalisation (with specific reference to mobiles). I think the image conscious consumer is by definition influenced by trends and marketing. Assuming all else being equal, I think a larger proportion of such consumers would choose Apple over android.
Obviously a lot of Apple consumers opt for the platform for other reasons but you'll never convince me it isn't a fashion statement for a significant number. Fashion conscious people are shallow and easily led muppets, ergo, makes sense to target them with marketing. Apple have proven they are well and truly accomplished at this.

dodgy

Yslen wrote:

A few things;

1.) Techies/devs etc almost exclusively use Android, in my experience. This is also true of physicists. Don't believe what you see in the Big Bang Theory.

2.) It's actually pretty simple to run an app on multiple different hardware configurations under Android; resolution scales very well etc. Devs use software to check everything looks okay on different screens without having to try it on every single phone. So long as the phone meets the minimum spec it'll be fine.

3.) Android "fragmentation" isn't so much of an issue as everyone makes out. Android has 60% on 4.X, Apple has 90% on 7 (or will do soon). If you discount all of the super-budget Android phones sold to grandparents who don't give a damn about what OS version they're using, the figures are roughly similar. Also bear in mind Apple's OS updates are token gestures in some cases, with features missing due to lack of hardware support. "Feature fragmentation" doesn't seem to get any notice though. So long as the OS version gets changed it's okay!

And yet, you still see the "this app isn't compatible with your device" when you try to buy/install something from the Google Play store. I've yet to see that on the Apple appstore.

Totally agree on the techies favouring (in general) Android, though. Having said that, I'm a pen-tester (I test pens ) and the vast majority of my colleagues in the same line of work choose Apple.

Yslen

dodgy wrote:

And yet, you still see the "this app isn't compatible with your device" when you try to buy/install something from the Google Play store. I've yet to see that on the Apple appstore.

I think it's literally just a tickbox, they don't allow older versions to download the app to save themselves support headaches, rather than because it won't work.

Apple has never made a low-end phone, so their oldest devices are only just reaching the point where the software really can't run on them. I believe the first three iphones are not getting iOS7? They had a headstart on Android in that respect, but give it a few years and their fragmentation will be just as bad... though I notice there are already some "iOS fragmentation" graphs that a) only include North America or b) exclude the first generation handset. That's cheating!

dw300

Hipsters and their money are soon parted.

~ Abraham Lincoln

VTech

I realise the term tech was too much of a generalisation, I was referring mainly to CPU intensive tasks within my own core work, design, software development, number crunching etc.
I think it's fair to say that whatever people think about who buys what, the App Store sells more than any other platform, almost certainly more than the rest out together.

Also when I mentioned about global advertising, I'm confident I had heard on a show or news review that apple account for only around 2% of tech advertising in relation to computing/tablets/phones etc.
I think this seems about right, the biggest market by a mile is china where apple have around a 2-3% market share and when you add all of the brands together I don't think it sounds out of place. ?

kajjal

As mentioned before Apple is easy to develop for due to the same controlled standard while Android is fragmented. Also Apple users tend to have and spend more money.