Factors Contributing to the Rise of App Store

Why Today’s Tech Companies are Preferring iOS over Android?

- Twitter recently launched a new music discovery program for Apple devices. Earlier the company launched its Vine video-sharing application as iOS-only in January, which is still exclusive to that platform today.

- Yahoo debuted its revamped Flickr app for iOS first and its gorgeous Weather app is again iOS-only. This clearly states Yahoo’s focus on iOS.

- Instagram, the most sought-after app for snapping, filtering, and sharing photographs, was initially launched solely on iOS and moved to Android after reaching 30 million iOS users and 1.5 years of market experience in its credit.

- Even start-ups prefer spending their capital on developing for iOS while venturing into the mobile app development arena.

The above examples clearly demonstrate who the beloved ruler of land is.  All the tech companies, including the start-ups are all gaga over the iOS platform. Why?

Total number of Active devices

In February 2013, the comScore mobiLens survey for the US stated, “Even though the 50% penetration threshold was passed seven months earlier, the rate of new smartphone users was second highest ever recorded with over 1 million new-to-smartphones users every week during February.”

The continuing rapid expansion of smartphone usage in the US is however, due to two dominant platforms: iPhone (iOS) and Android. As per the comScore findings, both the platforms make up 91% of the user base with about 40% for iPhone and 51% for Android.


With the higher share in the smartphones market, Android app development has lagged behind as compared to iOS, which is, still, the most preferred choice of everyone, who dreams to win accolades on the App Store. Why?

Android may be winning on Market share, but revenue, certainly, is going in the iOS App Store. Why?

The Graph clearly shows that iOS App Store is thriving, whereas, Google Play store is nowhere close to the former.

There are several factors contributing to the rise of App Store. For instance,

Developers find more money in iOS development as compared to Android. App sales on Android are very less, generating less money for their work. This could be due to the fact that some of the Android users are not downloading mobile applications at all. However, iOS buyers, buy Apple devices so that they can use the features available to them. According to Tim Windsor of Digitally Speaking, Most, of the Android users aren’t interested in serious computing power.

This is also possible that Android users who turn to the browser may not find it as appealing or engaging as compared to the Apple platform, which offers a high-quality user experience.

Another reason for Android going astray could be that Android users are more interested in downloading free apps on their devices. They are not likely to shop for the paid apps, resulting in generating less money for developers’ work, who, comparatively, gets high revenue on App Store. Thus, making them interesting in developing more and interesting apps for iOS users.

Android users are considered phones-first instead of smartphones-first. The availability of feature phones has reduced to the arrival of cheaper Android devices. It is possible that people are buying these devices just to call and send text messages. A segment of users is not aware of the apps i.e. how to download and use them.

The Android devices are everywhere. Users can find everything from high-end to the cheap phones. It is possible that these cheap devices do not offer good experience, when compared to other devices. Or maybe the cheap Android phones come with older version of Android, which are worse at browsing. Or this is also possible that some of these low-cost Android devices don't have the ability to access Google's app store.

All these reasons turned developers, who want to earn profits, towards iOS app development.

For more information on iPhone app development and marketing strategy send in your email to marketing@ymedialabs.com