You may be shocked to learn that 80% of mobile phones in the world today are Androids. This is an important fact to consider before building an App. You may have strong feeling that Apple is far superior to Android but that has zero relevance to your Apps success.
It simply is not good enough to only have your App in one App Store!
Android remained the world’s most widely used smartphone operating system with 80.7 percent market share, while iOS recorded 17.7 percent market share.*
It’s obvious that you will want to be in both App stores. Most companies take the path of having two separate development teams to build the exact same App for each platform. Before you make this massive mistake I want you to ask one simple question:
Is your App nothing more than a website on a phone?
Did you know that over 85% of the Apps on a users phone are nothing more than websites? Look at your phone right now and prove me wrong. Go down the list… Facebook, Yelp, Your Bank, Instagram, Youtube… I think you understand what I am saying right?
If your App falls into this category then I want you to take a look at this post I wrote about Hybrid vs. Native App programming. In short it says that if your App is nothing more than a website you need to choose a hybrid App development approach and use HTML/CSS/JavaScript. By doing this, you can use the same code base to be in both App stores.
If you have a game like Angry Birds or live car tracking like Uber you are going to need programmers for iOS and Android. Otherwise, make the smart decision and go with hybrid.
But regardless of your development approach you 100% must be in both App stores. It is the fastest way to double your App installs, usage and ultimately your profits.
Take a moment to consider how you will launch your App? You will likely run a press release, Facebook & social media posts, emails, advertisements, etc. Now what if the Huffington Post picks up your press release and posts a national article about how great you are? Consider that if your App is only in iTunes only 20% of the people reading that article could install your App.
That right there would be a massive missed opportunity! Launching successfully is a combination of development and marketing. If you fail to develop for both platforms then you have sold yourself short.
The other important takeaway is that you need to time both of your App store releases to be simultaneous. Once you submit to Apple it can take up to 7 days to get approval. Google Play takes about 3 hours. So always be mindful that whether you are developing one or two code bases that you will need to manage the process so that you can launch at the same time.
* http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/18/ios-android-market-share-q4-15-gartner/
Jeremy Callahan
jeremy@jeremycallahan.com
http://www.jeremycallahan.com
Twitter @jeremycallahan