Android vs iOS Development: Pros and Cons of Each Platform

With about 5 billion mobile users in 2019 in the world, app development is at its peak. On average, users spend around 2 hours and 51 minutes on their phones every single day. It is expected that by 2023 the number of mobile phone users will exceed 7 billion.

Android and iOS development have dominated the operating system market. The Android platform held 86.1 percent share of the global market in 2019, while iOS held 13.9 percent of the market share, while the rest were smaller OS.

While Android owns nearly 2.3x more of the global market share than iOS, it is worth mentioning that in the United States the market share is about even.  Yet market share isn’t the only thing that matters. Each platform has both its advantages and disadvantages meaning you should decide which platform to choose based on the requirements of your project. Below, we have gathered the pros and cons of Android and iOS development.

Android

Pros of Android Mobile App Development

• Open system. Android is naturally open to more of the inner workings of the system. This accessibility helps developers to create and apply features that would probably be restricted by iOS.
• Flexibility. With its open-source software, Android offers developers a low barrier to entry. Developers can utilize various crowdsourcing frameworks and plugins and play around with the features and functionality, which makes the platform more flexible than iOS. However, this significantly complicates the development process.

• Design. Google’s extensive developer guidelines to design are pretty helpful in building an aesthetically appealing layout and intuitive Android user interface.
• Release. In contrast to iOS, publishing apps is easier and quicker on Google Play. Once the Android PacKage (APK) is uploaded, it takes only a few hours before the app goes live.
• Fragmentation. On the one hand, fragmentation may be considered a disadvantage, but Android allows creating apps for a wider range of hardware such as wearables, streaming devices, TVs, in-car systems, and more.

Cons of Android App Development

• Fragmentation. There are a multitude of devices with different resolutions and screen sizes to take care of. This makes the app design and UI development much more challenging. Android development teams should take this into account if they want to deliver a responsive app design that runs seamlessly across many devices, as well as to assess the impact of launching new features since a malfunction on a device can prevent users from running the app as anticipated. This is why there are so many apps of poor quality in the Play Store.
• Testing. Given the multiple Android devices and versions, QA specialists have to spend more time to thoroughly test apps on all models.
• Cost. Due to the fragmentation and a large amount of testing required, it may cost more to develop in this platform. Still, it depends on the app’s complexity.

iOS

Pros of iOS Mobile App Development

• Performance. iOS is a more stable and easy-to-use platform. This is a closed platform where Apple creates all of its software and hardware, which allows implementing more strict guidelines. As a result, the platform is fast with respect to its responsiveness and flexible in terms of agility, apps are easy to build, and there is less piracy.
• Integration with devices. There are only 20 different types of iOS mobile devices, in contrast to Android that has a thousand mobile phones with numerous  kinds of systems, with more abundant rules. Because of the fact that there is substantially less device fragmentation, screen size and resolution are less significant while the development process is usually simpler and quicker.
• Intuitive UI/UX. When evaluating the benefits of iOS app development benefits, the satisfaction of iOS users can’t be ignored. Apple has developed a detailed design guide for app UI to help developers deliver an exceptional user experience. It provides a robust combination of software and hardware, followed by maintenance through the app’s entire life-cycle. As a result, almost every device on the Apple store runs flawlessly.

Due to its pre-made interfaces, limited range of devices and shorter development process, iOS may be the appropriate choice for novice iOS app developers or development teams with limited resources.

Cons of iOS Mobile App Development

• App release. The App Store has rather rigid review guidelines which means that your app can be rejected due to vulnerability, poor performance, or a lack of useful content. Besides that, your app should be submitted for review, which usually takes a few days.
• Customization: Due to a variety of constraints enforced by iOS, customizing an app becomes challenging. This lack of flexibility can also affect the app’s popularity, as all apps must follow design guidelines that make it hard for an app to stand out from the crowd. Additionally, even though there are frameworks in iOS that you can utilize to facilitate the development process, many of them are licensed and can increase the development costs.

Wrapping Up

After careful consideration of the strength and weaknesses of both platforms, it is clear that there is no evident winner. When weighing the pros and cons of Android and iOS development, you need to first assess such factors as a business idea, budget, time to market, and others. The key thing here is to set personal preferences aside and decide on what works most efficiently for your project.

When starting to develop your own mobile app, make sure you have thought of one of the most important considerations – hiring a reliable and experienced development company. The company you choose can make project delivery fruitful and pleasing. SCAND has over 10 years of experience in mobile app development and delivers quality and efficient solutions operating across every device that utilizes the popular Android and iOS platforms.