iOS Apps Are 300% More Profitable Than Android Equivalents

[Anthony Bouchard]

iOS is a more profitable platform than Android is.

Remember when Angry Birds first came out on iOS? Everyone with an Android phone wanted it and they had to wait a while. In that time, iOS had a really long and easy head start to sell some copies before Android even got it. That is the case an numerous applications, but that's not the only reason that iOS is more profitable.

iOS is a great development platform and it's been polled that developers would rather develop for iOS over Android. That being said, there are more developers in the game for iOS than there are for Android and if you look at the numbers, the App Store has more applications than the Android Market does. But excluding the extraneous applications, iOS versions of applications sell more than the Android counterparts do.

Thanks to a study performed by Flurry, we have some numbers and graphs to work with.

To be sure, we pulled a sample of in-app purchase data from a set of top apps with versions on both iOS and Android, comprising of several million daily active users (DAUs). Running the numbers, we find that, on average, for every $1.00 generated on iOS, the same app will generate $0.24 on Android.

So since iOS is making more than Android is for applications sales, developers are taking notice and using Christmas of 2011 to their advantage to develop for iOS. This is of course good news for the Apple community as we seek to do more with our devices and we are eager to download and use more useful applications on our iDevices.

Why do you think iOS is a more profitable platform? Share in the comments below!

Sources: Apple Insider

[metaserph]

The answer should be simple by now. The Mac OS / iOS is a superior platform and the hardware is not too shabby. Reminds me of the days I'd have Mac os 9, Mac OS X, Windows and Linux all running from the same machine. Only much much better. Next.

[NakedFaerie]

There is 1 very simple and easy answer. The Android is more user friendly where the Apple devices are more Apple friendly.
What I mean is in the Android market 80% of apps are free where in the App Store 80% of the apps are paid for.
Apple are in it for the money. Android is in it for the user.
Apple = money and greed
Android = users and friendly

As long as there are stupid people paying for apps that should be free the app store will always make more money an the android market.

Go checkout apps on both and you will see the android version is most probably free.
about 90% of apps that I have that are cross platform the android version is free but the ios version is a paid app.

[blwallace5]

There is 1 very simple and easy answer. The Android is more user friendly where the Apple devices are more Apple friendly.
What I mean is in the Android market 80% of apps are free where in the App Store 80% of the apps are paid for.
Apple are in it for the money. Android is in it for the user.
Apple = money and greed
Android = users and friendly

As long as there are stupid people paying for apps that should be free the app store will always make more money an the android market.

Go checkout apps on both and you will see the android version is most probably free.
about 90% of apps that I have that are cross platform the android version is free but the ios version is a paid app.

What the developers do has nothing to do with apple being greedy or android being user friendly. It has everything to do with apps being easily pirated on Android, and developers finding new ways to create revenue.

[Anthony Bouchard]

What the developers do has nothing to do with apple being greedy or android being user friendly. It has everything to do with apps being easily pirated on Android, and developers finding new ways to create revenue.

Agreed.

[GrandMasterB]

I have owned MANY Android devices over the last couple of years and would still consider myself a pretty big gamer at age 34. I probably spent about $100 total on Android games over a couple of years between the Droid1, Incredible, Fascinate, DroidX, and ThunderBolt. With that being said I have spent well over $300 on iOS apps since getting my first iPhone in February of this year because iOS apps are just flat out better.

iOS games I feel are far more polished than their Android counterparts, I know this first hand. Most Android games are very poorly implemented but there are a few exceptions. Games like Assassin's Creed are a perfect example of night and day difference between Android and iOS, like PSP vs Gameboy Color versions. Plus iOS games are always on sale! If the game you want isn't then just tag it on AppShopper and wait for the alert. Most iOS apps I only pay $.99 for with a few exceptions like iMovie and RTMI.

^And anybody that has owned an Android device knows that the Android market is completely overrun with FREE poorly designed soundboards, fart machines and flat out spamware. They let anything in the Android Market and you really have to do some digging to find the good stuff. Not exactly user friendly...

AND lets not forget to mention Home Sharing on iOS. I purchase an app one time and every iPod, iPad and iPhone in my house get the same game. Lets see you do that on Android :P

[eZStaR]

i have owned many android devices over the last couple of years and would still consider myself a pretty big gamer at age 34. I probably spent about $100 total on android games over a couple of years between the droid1, incredible, fascinate, droidx, and thunderbolt. With that being said i have spent well over $300 on ios apps since getting my first iphone in february of this year because ios apps are just flat out better.

Ios games i feel are far more polished than their android counterparts, i know this first hand. Most android games are very poorly implemented but there are a few exceptions. Games like assassin's creed are a perfect example of night and day difference between android and ios, like psp vs gameboy color versions. Plus ios games are always on sale! If the game you want isn't then just tag it on appshopper and wait for the alert. Most ios apps i only pay $.99 for with a few exceptions like imovie and rtmi.

^and anybody that has owned an android device knows that the android market is completely overrun with poorly designed soundboards, fart machines and flat out spamware. They let anything in the android market and you really have to do some digging to find the good stuff. Not exactly user friendly...

/so agreed.

[bry2k2]

I have owned MANY Android devices over the last couple of years and would still consider myself a pretty big gamer at age 34. I probably spent about $100 total on Android games over a couple of years between the Droid1, Incredible, Fascinate, DroidX, and ThunderBolt. With that being said I have spent well over $300 on iOS apps since getting my first iPhone in February of this year because iOS apps are just flat out better.

iOS games I feel are far more polished than their Android counterparts, I know this first hand. Most Android games are very poorly implemented but there are a few exceptions. Games like Assassin's Creed are a perfect example of night and day difference between Android and iOS, like PSP vs Gameboy Color versions. Plus iOS games are always on sale! If the game you want isn't then just tag it on AppShopper and wait for the alert. Most iOS apps I only pay $.99 for with a few exceptions like iMovie and RTMI.

^And anybody that has owned an Android device knows that the Android market is completely overrun with poorly designed soundboards, fart machines and flat out spamware. They let anything in the Android Market and you really have to do some digging to find the good stuff. Not exactly user friendly...

Wrong, every game on both platforms that is developed by a large company like EA is exactly the same, there is no difference in quality. The whole article means nothing since they are comparing one year and the fact that Apple already had a year or so head start on Android. More and more companies are now porting their apps to Android which puts them both on equal ground. Also Android apps in general onsale just as often. The only reason there would be poorly developed apps or garbage, is Google is not as judgemental as Apple on its developers, this would encourage growth and development of more apps to improve the user experience, so with it comes a little pain but honestly if your not smart enough to determine was is good and what is crap, spyware or viruses then what are you doing owing a smart phone. Apple likes to stop development of apps that make them look bad or features that they won't offer on their phones so you have to go to cydia to get them.

The answer should be simple by now. The Mac OS / iOS is a superior platform and the hardware is not too shabby. Reminds me of the days I'd have Mac os 9, Mac OS X, Windows and Linux all running from the same machine. Only much much better. Next.

Hahaha Mac OS is a stolen idea of a free open source OS, BSD is still open source but Apple decided to "borrow" the idea, close it down and charge for it. After all the only thing that makes an Apple computer, Apple, is the fact that they brand their OS with the Apple and put an Apple logo on it, everything else is Intel, AMD or Nvidia so you essentially have a PC running OSx

[eZStaR]

Wrong, every game on both platforms that is developed by a large company like EA is exactly the same, there is no difference in quality. The whole article means nothing since they are comparing one year and the fact that Apple already had a year or so head start on Android. More and more companies are now porting their apps to Android which puts them both on equal ground. Also Android apps in general onsale just as often. The only reason there would be poorly developed apps or garbage, is Google is not as judgemental as Apple on its developers, this would encourage growth and development of more apps to improve the user experience, so with it comes a little pain but honestly if your not smart enough to determine was is good and what is crap, spyware or viruses then what are you doing owing a smart phone. Apple likes to stop development of apps that make them look bad or features that they won't offer on their phones so you have to go to cydia to get them.



Hahaha Mac OS is a stolen idea of a free open source OS, BSD is still open source but Apple decided to "borrow" the idea, close it down and charge for it. After all the only thing that makes an Apple computer, Apple, is the fact that they brand their OS with the Apple and put an Apple logo on it, everything else is Intel, AMD or Nvidia so you essentially have a PC running OSx

See kids, this is what happens when you become an arrogant fool without any facts supporting your statements. I won't even respond to most of the stupidity you just posted, but I will say this to your PC running OSX comment. Could all the PC's out there have the same battery life or life expectancy in general as a MAC? Yeah good luck bro.
/Oh and developers don't like to do or produce great pieces of work for "free." Android is incapable of using its hardware properly, that's why most of their devices (phones/tablets), have such poor user experience, feel, battery life with fragmentation ( this is why iOS apps will always be superior to Android Apps. No developer is going to make apps compatible with all versions of Android devices or at least make them function perfectly as they are supposed to. ) And if you actually read the article, this has NOTHING to do with when the App stores/apps started being developed/released first or not.

[nataliesn]

Agreed.

It has nothing to do with user friendliness as well as with piracy (iphones are jailbroken every day...)
It only has to do with being cheap - something that can't be true in regards to Apple users since the devices are not cheap to begin with, not to mention the accessories...

[CCNPJediHacker]

Agreed.

Android Phone = Bookmarks galore to free apps on 4shared

iPhone = no jailbreak no free apps;( but at least everything works as it should

[iPod]

Android Phone = Bookmarks galore to free apps on 4shared

iPhone = no jailbreak no free apps;( but at least everything works as it should

That is piracy.


I knew once I saw the article, all the fandroid comments would start rushing in. Lol

[topper133]

As mentioned a lot more Android Apps are free but with Ads (take Angry Birds for Example which makes this Article less credible given the comparison).

What the survey doesn't seem to take into account is revenue from the Ads that Dev's get. App purchases alone (and even in App purchases of additions) does not account for a lot of Dev income from Ads.

[iphone?3gs]

Wrong, every game on both platforms that is developed by a large company like EA is exactly the same, there is no difference in quality. The whole article means nothing since they are comparing one year and the fact that Apple already had a year or so head start on Android. More and more companies are now porting their apps to Android which puts them both on equal ground. Also Android apps in general onsale just as often. The only reason there would be poorly developed apps or garbage, is Google is not as judgemental as Apple on its developers, this would encourage growth and development of more apps to improve the user experience, so with it comes a little pain but honestly if your not smart enough to determine was is good and what is crap, spyware or viruses then what are you doing owing a smart phone. Apple likes to stop development of apps that make them look bad or features that they won't offer on their phones so you have to go to cydia to get them.



Hahaha Mac OS is a stolen idea of a free open source OS, BSD is still open source but Apple decided to "borrow" the idea, close it down and charge for it. After all the only thing that makes an Apple computer, Apple, is the fact that they brand their OS with the Apple and put an Apple logo on it, everything else is Intel, AMD or Nvidia so you essentially have a PC running OSx

Please just stop.... So Google is not judgmental and lets crap apps and spyware into there appstore to encourage growth and development. Really for more apps and better user experience? In the next sentence you said you should be smart enough to determine which is good bad or spyware? WTH? Thats in no way making a better user experience and shouldn't be required this day and age. Ok, so because people don't want to have to search the appstore for a real app they shouldn't own a smartphone? Isn't this one of the reasons Symbian and all the other OS'es died, because of this crap all OS, no real app store and spyware? People own smartphones to possibly get work done and fast. Searching through spyware is not acceptable when it has been proven that it is possible to have a smartphone without that crap..... They don't accept crap apps so we don't have to keep searching. If the developer cares enough, they will improve. This has nothing to do with feelings and user experience, blocking crap apps improves user experience, not spyware.

[stefan.buddle]

Seems like some people take things personal when it comes to stating the "facts".

[nataliesn]

And imagine that 30% out of every sale goes to Apple...