App developers may trade iOS for Android and BlackBerry
While Android has for sometime been outpacing iOS on the consumer side in terms of growth and market share, developers have still clung to iOS for building new apps.
However, new research shows that 2012 might be the year that changes.
According to research and analysis firm , developers will start thinking of Android as more important than iOS for development projects and apps in the coming 12 months.
鈥淎 smartphone platform鈥檚 success is dictated not only by the pull of consumers and the push of handset vendors and mobile operators but also by a healthy economy of applications delivered by third-party developers,鈥� said Adam Leach, Ovum鈥檚 devices and platforms practice leader and author of the research, in a release.
鈥淭herefore, it is important for all players in the smartphone ecosystem to understand the choices developers are making today and the downstream impact of those choices.鈥�
In its second annual developer survey, Ovum also learned that developers have a strong interest in the Microsoft Windows Phone platform, which has seen some interesting consumer-side activity, and in developing for BlackBerry devices.
Mobile development in general is for devs, with a full 66 percent of developers in a recent survey saying they planned to work on mobile projects in 2012.
However, the split between operating systems has been decidedly in Apple鈥檚 favor since the dawn of the smartphone age.
Research published late last year showed devices, while Android devices only captured around 27 percent of apps. And that uneven split was more in Apple鈥檚 favor than just three quarters before, when the figures were 63 percent for iOS and 37 percent for Android.
Of course, all this is driven by money; and while some research suggests that iOS apps make more money, Android advocates tell another story.
In a , ad network CEO Dale Carr wrote, 鈥淐lick-through rates on iOS are more than double what they are on Android, but the cost per thousand is only 30 percent higher. This would indicate that Android developers are getting more bang for each click.
鈥淐ombine this with another recent statistic that Android generates twice the ad impressions of iOS, and you have Android earning more in real dollar terms from ad revenue.鈥�
For more tech news, follow us on . And don鈥檛 forget to sign up for the weekly .
