Why focus on the iOS platform?

Drew CrawfordNews

Many customers come to us asking if we also develop for Android, WP7, Blackberry, etc, because they see many of our competitors offering cross-platform or multi-platform development services.  Here are four reasons why we focus on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad app development.

Apple’s market is more profitable

Don’t believe the sensationalist articles proclaiming that Apple’s declining marketshare translates into lower revenue.  It doesn’t.  Market share doesn’t matter.  Apple controls 76% of the apps download market.  When comparing actual revenue dollars, Apple’s App Store has an 83% market share.  If you’re looking to make money from mobile in 2011, Apple’s App Store makes the lions share of the money and beats Android hands-down.

Apple has more reach

When you develop for the iPhone platform, you also reach iPod Touches and iPads, two enormously overlooked markets that simply don’t exist on other platforms.  Tablet devices for WP7 are nonexistant, and Android and Blackberry tablets have so few units that they’re usually not worth reaching.  No market has a low-cost popular device like the iPod Touch, which has over 60 million units.

Reduced cost

Many clients ask us “how difficult is it to port applications from iOS to Android?”  Almost without exception, the application has to be rewritten from scratch when porting from one platform to the next.  The technologies underneath mobile platforms are as different as night from day.  User interface idioms should be preserved so that the application has the distinct UI characteristics of the operating system, so often artwork and even screen layout cannot be preserved effectively.  Multiplatform development almost always adds double or triple the development cost of single-platform development.  We encourage our clients to release first on iOS, and use the revenue numbers to evaluate pros and cons of adding another platform.

Focus & Experience

Mastering mobile development for iOS or Android takes many years of experience.  Mobile development is much harder than other types of development, such as web development or desktop development, since tight performance, battery life, networking, memory and other constraints are imposed upon the application code.

Many of our competitors who advertise multiplatform development either outsource  one or more platforms to other (sometimes questionable) companies or hire unqualified generalists who use point-and-click tools but do not have the in-depth engineering knowledge required to make your application shine.  At DrewCrawfordApps, we focus on the iOS platform so that we have a deep understanding of the challenges in creating iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad apps.  Our strong focus and specialization is part of what makes us the best in the app market and gives us the unique insight and engineering skill that other firms can’t match.  We’re not distracted by “mastering” every new platform that comes out, but instead we’re focused on continuing to develop an extremely deep expertise in iOS.

If you’re looking for an Austin-based iPhone or iPad Developer, contact us today!