By While it isn’t the first time we have heard the sentiment, a recent survey by Appcelerator and IDC shows that developers have more faith in Android as a long-term platform than Apple’s iOS. 59 percent of developers favor Android for future investment as opposed to the 35 percent who favor the long-term outlook of iOS. That equals a gap widened by 10 percent since Appcelerator last posed the question to developers back in June.
The reasoning behind the shift can be explained by another statistic gathered in the study. A full 72 percent of developers agree that “Android is best positioned to power a large number and variety of connected devices in the future.” Apple and iOS had the agreement of only 25 percent of developers. This means devices like Android tablets and Google TV could be a huge factor in the long-term success of Android as a development platform.
iOS does continue to lead in areas tied to the current smartphone market. 91 percent of developers are “very interested” in developing for that platform while 82 percent said the same for Android. Part of this can be tied into the fragmented state of the OS, which developers gave higher scores to Apple for their unified hardware experience.
While the smartphone battle continues to see large growth on Google’s part, the future lies in the other avenues that can deliver Android as an entertainment experience. Developers seem more than eager to help in those areas, too.
Surprised by the “best devices” results, but everything else looks to be exactly how I would suspect.
I think this “understanding” of the chart is way to bias.
swamp I thought the same thing
outlook > best near-term outlook > that is the biggest graphical representation of 21% i have ever seen
This looks like rubbish to be honest. Obviously Android is best set to power a variety of devices, it goes without saying – Apple put out a handful of devices a year. You don’t have to be a developer to answer that one, it’s just obvious.
Also, the fact that 6% of respondees stated that iOS was the most open platform makes me assume the margin for error is at least 7%.
I loved ExZeus arcade. One of the rare games I bought. Repetitive, but good graphics and fluid gameplay. Pretty hard to control but the controls are well thought out.
I wonder what the margin of error for this survey is.
How does this work, exactly? Biggest market for busniess apps, for example, has %16 ~ Android; %62 ~ Apple. 16 + 62 is only %78 of respondents. I call shenanigans.
@8 bingo, phandroid shouldn’t have even bothered giving traffic on this. The whole thing is a questionable study.
People don’t really want to acknowledge that android is posturing to replace ios soon.
I like how people think iOS is more secure. That’s funny.
@snupples it is the most secure you dumb shit. remember all those text hacks that happened a while back? apple has some security flaws but they’re quick to fix em. android is wayyyy more buggy.
@verbalsteelz You’re kidding, right? Those flaws were exposed for WEEKS before Apple fixed them, but the jailbreak devs had them fixed in ~3 days. The worst Android has is the DROID X not being able to send text messages in certain conditions (I believe ~5% of the time) which is annoying, but your passwords are still save. Even custom ROMs, with all their bugs, are more secure, if less stable, than iOS.
How is “Least Fragmented” even a metric on there, and the fact that 11% of people voted Android as least fragmented, makes me assume that 11% of the people that voted are either dumb or biased… I’m a big android fan, and i don’t see fragmentation as a big deal, but obviously the “three” iPhone’s are less than the numerous android phones out.
This graph/chart means nothing. It’s completely wrong in some categories:
– Best Near-Term Outlook the 21% graph looks the same size as the 74%.
– Has the Best Devices is wrong. Apple does NOT have the best devices. That is obvious no matter who you are.
– And why the hell would 6% of developers say Apple is more open??? What kind of idiot would suggest Apple is more open???