Sure you know by now that one of the best ways to keep your business highly competitive in recent times is to have a dedicated app through which your customers can reach your brand easily and speedily.
If you didn’t know that, then now you know.
The guys at Flurry have revealed that the time an average consumer spends inside mobile applications has exceeded that which they spend watching TV.
However, even where the issue of having an app or not is settled, the usual next question is: on which platform should the app be hosted?
Without any form of bias, I always advice interested listeners to choose the iOS platform over others, and here are my reasons (I’ll be focusing more on Android for the comparison for obvious reasons of domination):
1. Security. No doubt, iOS is safer than Android and most other app platforms, and that’s mainly because of its gated app store. Applications on the App Store are being fully vetted before released to customers. This is unlike Android’s ability to install apps from 3rd party sources without strict checks.
If you seek a platform that is safe and protects you from vulnerabilities, then opt for iOS.
2. Monetization. iOS has a more monetizeable audience than any other platform. That is, iOS users are more likely to buy apps or in-app offers than users of other platforms. In 2013, 73% of all app revenue was generated in Apple’s App Store.
This is to a large extent due to the fact that most users have an iTunes account backed by a credit card, and as is popularly said, Apple has taught its users the value of paying for content.
It’s also been argued that this is due to the profile of the Apple user; affluent, aesthetic, loyal to the brand, etc.
It’s not unusual to see an app launched as premium on iOS and then later released for free on other platforms; even popular apps like Whatsapp and Angry Birds. This more than proves you can raise money to fund your business on iOS.
3. Maintenance Costs. Any application worth its salt requires constant support and maintenance. It can be argued that maintenance of your application is just as, if not more, important than the launch. And this comes with costs.
These costs are however reduced with iOS apps. This is basically due to the fact that it’s more time consuming to maintain apps on a variety of screen sizes and models of most phones on other platforms, especially Android, than to do on the limited number of Apple gadgets – and their screen sizes.
Preparing ahead of time for the various updates and fixes in the future is a great way to ensure your app is maintainable overtime. And there is no better way to maintain anything except you reduce your costs to the barest minimum. This is something iOS app development can help you achieve.
4. Uniformity. Trying to optimize your app for the many phones sporting other OS platforms (e.g, over 400 phones on Android OS) can create a whole lot of problem, especially when each of these phone companies can make several changes to their own OS and cause conflicts between devices.
The safe way to launch your app and avoid all the conflicts, at least for now, is to go with the uniform iOS platform that only ships with all Apple devices.
This uniformity is good for you especially when you’re just testing the mobile app waters and launching your business app for the first time.
5. Animation. Animation is one of the most important aspects in making your app look good and feel right. It makes your app stand out from the crowd. You get all the animations needed for your app for free on the iOS platform – and it’s easy to use. Other platforms, like Android, on the other hand make animation harder, especially to be able to maintain your level of quality across various platforms. More so, the smoothness in animation and transition on the iOS platform is incomparable to most other platforms, even Android.
6. Testing. It’s faster, easier, and cheaper to launch your app on the iOS platform when you’re just starting out, and this enables you to test your app quickly and get customer feedback you can use to tweak before rolling your app out on other platforms. If an app flies with Apple users, you can be sure it will do great on other platforms, especially if some form of payment is involved.
With the above points I’m sure it’s obvious that where you don’t have the kind of resources available to big companies, it’s just safe and reasonable to launch your business app on iOS and forget about other platforms, at least for now.
Do you agree? Kindly share your thoughts in the comments.
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