Mobile : Which platform to go for? As a developer.

P.S. – This post was inspired by this post on Mashable which made me think on this topic.  Since iOS and Android are the dominant platforms I am only bringing these two into the discussion for now. 

In my earlier post I had covered about which platform to go for as a consumer. But from a business perspective, stakes are more high when you are a developer and thinking of extending your existing software or creating a new one for the mobile devices. Making mobile apps and a good one at that takes a lot of time, energy and money(tangible, intangible) so its important to figure out the canvas before you start building.

Choosing that canvas is what I would delve into.

Just to share, I am not a mobile developer, at-least not yet, but I am interested in technology, the mobile space and being a very heavy user of apps on a everyday basis I am very inquisitive of the business side and the scope of innovation it has to offer.

The world of software is rapidly getting replaced by Apps be it on Mobile or on the Browser as extensions.  And more and more people are moving away from Computing on their desktops/laptops and using their mobiles/tablets for all their computing needs.

So its imperative for software developers to also think of having presence on mobile or else their relevance in today’s fast evolving technology will rapidly fade. And it’s no mystery that all things be equal among software providers, it the value addition, its who gives you more value for the buck, which ultimately decides which software provider will be in business and thrive, or even survive to begin with.

The question is fairly simple – iOS or Android?

Sub-question even more simpler – Mobile or Tablet or Both.

I think once you have answered the main question, the sub-question shouldn’t be very difficult.

From my point of view, I would require the following to even begin contemplating to answer the first one,  iOS vs Android, should I choose –

1. Target market region – continent, country, state : This will help you get some idea of which platform your customers or potential customers are on or will be. For example, if majority of your customers are already using iOS on at-least one device, building an Android app will exclude them right from their start and vice-versa.
2. User Personas of your existing customers  : These will give you some idea of what devices they are on and whether they own multiples devices such as tablets and if yes then which one.
3. Your plans of the extent of presence on mobile/tablet : You need to be reasonably clear as to how much are willing to invest in building your app and to what level. If all you want is basic functionality to extend the existing PC software, then there is a chance that you can build on multiple platforms right from the start. If something deeper then you should have as much clarity as possible in choosing a platform.
4. Your team as it stands or are you willing to outsource the development work(part or in full) : If you plan to build your app in-house then you must assess which platform your developers are comfortable on and why. Since they are ones who will be slogging it out, having their consensus is critical. Even if they are not well versed with the platform being chosen from a business perspective, you may want to have some kind of training sessions to get them going. If you plan to outsource a part or a chunk of it then you need to do some homework on existing developers and shortlist a few to start a conversation. Their history of building apps, coding capabilities, support capabilities need to be looked into before bringing them on-board.
5. The latest trend as far as usage on mobiles go :

• Dominant mobile platform region wise along with version statistics – This is to further breakdown which version is in use. Whether majority in iOS are on the latest version or not. If Android then there are multiple versions still running. Why is this important is because, if you are building on the latest version of any platform but if your customers are using old versions then chances are some functionality which you spent so much time on may not even usable on their versions. This needs to be correlated with the regions as per your customer profile.
• Paid vs free app usage stats on each platform – Which platform is able to sell more paid apps than free ones. You can also have a category wise breakdown, say your category is Arcade Games, then whether more people are ready to pay on iOS or Android for a particular game. It may also help to have usage statistics, for example, whats the % of people who have downloaded the app, but have not come back in terms of using it. How many % of them are on old app versions even when you have updated your app. Whether people update paid apps more frequently than free ones.
• Developers statistics – Are developers earning more on a particular platform, compared to other platform, is there any particular category where earnings is more even though overall earnings may be less. Like for example, in Games category Android developers are earning more, but within Games, Arcade games developers are earning more on iOS.
• Commerce statistics on the platform  : Reflects spending habits. A lot of transactions are taking place on mobiles. Whether it is buying movie tickets, shopping, buying travel tickets packages etc. This gives an indication of the user persona of the platform customers. If more transactions happen on iOS, then this info can be useful in certain decision makings viz-a-viz your app. For example if you want to have in-app purchase or your app is a paid one, this info can be very useful.

These are fairly comprehensive data to help you in your decision making.

Some other decisions you will have to make at some point or pivot as need be –

• Start with Phone or designed not scaled for Tablet or both at the same time.
• Free or paid ?
• If paid, should we start with promotions.
• When to have promotions if at all?
• App road-map, how often to release updates, release notes.
• Ads or without ads
• Marketing the app(a whole new subject of discussion all-together and may be a blog post)
• Other topics like UX, UI which is more of going into the blueprint, design etc.

Hope the above info gives helps you in some way to start your app journey to the mobile/tablet. Let me know if I have missed something or if something needs to be fixed/updated in terms of content.

Anirudh

The Perfect Smartphone!?

 

Came to know about Marques Brownlee from Vic Gundotra’s Google Plus feed. Marques has a quite common man feel to him and hence reviews seems easy to connect to and not driven by any particular brand’s vested interest.

Also going by the number of videos he has and the interaction from viewers, he seems to be quiet popular with what he does. 

Check out his channel on You Tube, its quite an enjoyable watch. 

Coming back to this video, its interesting how different manufacturers have their own strengths and some were quite a revelation for me. Didn’t knew Motorola was good at batteries, but then if you stop being in the phone business for a long time, how will one know! 🙂 HTC is definitely good at design, though I was surprised iPhone doesn’t get mentioned here.

Obviously, this perfect smartphone is pure wishful thinking, as its hard to do everything right with real constraints and specially on the pricing factor! Still fun to watch this by Marques.

Fantastic Read : Google Android’s 3 UX Design Principles and 2 Jars of Marbles

 

First thing first, I am an Apple fanboy and love every moment of my iPhone past one year since I got it. But my love for technology/innovation and intention to constantly improve the UI(User Interface) thereby leading to a better UX(User eXperience) has always superseded my brand bias. If something is good, it is, if something is bad, it is, if something is ugly, it is. And everyone be it Apple, Samsung Google has everything(design is vastly subjective!)  though the level of each differs from time to time.

A user may take something for granted as it has cost him something in order to experience it. Be it swipe gesture on an app, be the beautiful colors and physics on a game, be the simplicity of a product, be the display, etc. But what usually goes unmentioned is what goes behind the screen to provide the experience to the end user. What is simple to the user is incredibly hard for the developers to pull it off. Any one can present complexity, but to present simplicity is quite complex!

So when I came across the article headline as mentioned in the title of this post, I was eager to read what goes behind in Google’s Android to provide the front Android experience. And I must say I am very impressed the way Google is always working very hard to improvise the UX and is also willing to share its design process.

Though Android developers would already be familiar with these as its part of the developer site, but as a non-developer(so far) I was very inquisitive about it. Also since I am a heavy app user and do try new apps quite often, I tend to notice which apps make me want to come back and which I am not very keen to go back as the UX is so bad even though the content may be worth revisiting.

Read the article on Medium.

Visit the Android Developers site for more.

 

Anirudh 🙂

D11 Conference : Interview with Apple’s Tim Cook(video)

 

Its not everyday that we have an interview with the CEO of the most elusive technology company – Apple! And this is the second time consecutively that Tim Cook’s interview – sort of – opens D Conference! So I was very keen to hear what Tim has(if anything) to get us excited.

Frankly, as a CEO of Apple, Tim is a bad orator. His tone his sharp, but the content is disappointing and far too measured. You are one of the most profitable technology company in the world with a mountain high pile of cash lying…you can be less measured and more cool! Except is “profound” interest in wearable computing, “vision” for TV and that there “can” be a low price iPhone in future, opening up of iOS API’s for more services, I really didn’t learn anything new. He said the usual thing which we anyway learn during the annual/bi-annual product launches. At those times since he actually has so much to share, I am engrossed, but otherwise he really needs to catch up. If he has hired a trainer, its time to fire him/her! Those long pauses, speaking extremely thoughtfully can be very very boring more often than not! Also from Walt and Kara’s expressions, they were clearly bored and at times confused to what Tim was saying!

Apple needs to bring more of its top management in the public view and share what according to them the future looks like! Google blew everyone last year with their I/O conference and didn’t disappoint this year(more on that in a separate post) too! That is what really got me excited!

Apple, just being visible 1-2 times a year and then hiding all the while will not help and its clearly showing with waning interest and the stock getting hammered!

Apple, please do something and bring back the excitement which Steve excelled at!

What makes Google’s Maps so good!

Now a lot has been said about how disastrous is Apple first foray into its own Maps. For those who are not aware, with iOS 6 Apple has pushed Google Maps out of its system(an app is yet to come, if at all it will!) and replaced with its own Maps app. I may cover what I have discovered in the new Maps in a different post but lets say if I use that to reach somewhere, I seriously don’t know how I will go and where I will end up.

But comparing Apple Maps and Google Maps is a  bit unfair as Google Maps has been where it is now with 7 years of humongous work. Give some time to Apple and I am sure it will reach or even cross where Google will be!

More on the interesting and insightful article –

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/what-makes-googles-maps-so-good/

Enjoy the read!