VCs all have iPhones. This is the #1 reason to develop for iPhone first.
So how many VCs have you profiled to come to this conclusion?
Android is for startups
221–230 of 310 posts
Re: Android is for startups
#222Being in the process of registering my LLC for an iOS Apple Developer account, I couldn't agree more. It's been over two months now of back-and-forth with Apple and Dun & Bradstreet, and the end is still not in sight. All I'd like them to do is take my $100 and give me the ability to test the free app I'm making on a device and then publish it, but apparently Apple feels a longer-than-two-month turnaround time is acc…
Why don't you want to register a personal account and convert later? It seems odd to complain about this when it's very straightforward to do, and you can be up and running almost immediately. I haven't even bothered with a business account, even though I've incorporated and have been selling my app for > 1 year.
Re: Android is for startups
#223>1990 is calling… and it wants its product development cycle back. In the early 1990s, many developers were using an OS called Unix, with esoteric tools like vi, make, sh, and emacs. They wrote software in ancient languages like C, C++, Python, and Objective-C. Their programs communicated over TCP/IP networks using sockets. If you were lucky enough to be working on a military contract, you would be exchanging documen…
Huh? It was windows basically and iteration was depending on the App author.
Re: Android is for startups
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of what you said makes sense. Firstly on iOS you can send as many IPAs as I want to friends, testers, colleagues etc provided I've gone through the 30s process of adding them to Apple's list. This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform. Secondly if your app is intended to be cross platform. Then why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work…
We are not comparing Dev tools. We are comparing Dev life cycle and methodologies
We are talking about choosing iOS versus Android for prototyping. My point is that the iOS development experience is far superior to Android in particular because of the strength of the simulator. How you "get your code running" is the most important part of the dev life cycle.
Re: Android is for startups
#225>1990 is calling… and it wants its product development cycle back. In the early 1990s, many developers were using an OS called Unix, with esoteric tools like vi, make, sh, and emacs. They wrote software in ancient languages like C, C++, Python, and Objective-C. Their programs communicated over TCP/IP networks using sockets. If you were lucky enough to be working on a military contract, you would be exchanging documen…
Huh? It was windows basically and iteration was depending on the App author.
In 1990 microsoftland, most people were still using DOS. Borland had Turbo Pascal and Turbo C products on the market for a number of years - vt100 style text menuing systems were still king in MS-DOS.
Windows 3.1 was released in 1992, which was the real starting adoption point for the majority of the market.
By that time, the NeXT computer had already been out for four years, the Mac and X Windows were eight.
I was actually just pointing out that software development, as a discipline hasn't advanced that much since 1990. The number of KLOCs freely available to use within your code has increased dramatically. The documentation (which was on paper pre-WWW) has improved exponentially. The tools, OSes and languages? Pretty much a plateau there since the mid 80s peak.
Re: Android is for startups
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a Linux and Android user. My Android phone wasn't any cheaper than an iPhone and I can most certainly afford any Apple hardware I want. I also don't use Linux because I'm cheap, I use Linux because I love it. The hardware was exactly what I wanted too. I don't develop for iOS because I don't want to own a Mac. I (as a long-time Linux user) find OS X incredibly frustrating. There's also absolutely no reason to for…
There's also absolutely no reason to force developers to use a particular brand of hardware or a particular operating system to develop for a particular phone. Well, it costs money for Apple to support development on Windows and Linux platforms. Who's going to port Xcode and the simulator to run on those platforms? How many different types of Windows and Linux configurations are out there?
> Well, it costs money for Apple to support development on Windows and Linux platforms
The cost of doing that pales in comparison to what they are making off of iOS. If they can afford to keep developing iTunes for Windows, they can afford to port their other software. For some reason, I don't think Apple will go out of business if they give it a shot.
> How many different types of Windows and Linux configurations are out there?
So target the most prevalent ones. I don't know about all of the various configurations on linux, but it's really not so bad with Windows - just target Windows 7 or higher, and you should be good. Nobody is saying it needs to look nice or even look like a native program; we just want something we can work with, even if it looks like dog shit.
Re: Android is for startups
#227A lot of people seem to be missing the main point here. I don't think the article is actually advocating developing for Android and NOT iOS. I don't think it is even particularly advocating releasing on Android first. However starting your development on Android - as your first way of prototyping and finding your MVP - gives you a tremendous amount of agility and flexibility. You can create as many APKs as you want,…
None of what you said makes sense. Firstly on iOS you can send as many IPAs as I want to friends, testers, colleagues etc provided I've gone through the 30s process of adding them to Apple's list. This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform. Secondly if your app is intended to be cross platform. Then why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work…
> This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform.
WRONG. Contacting all 30 of your friends and WAITING for them to give you their device UUIDs and giving them long instructions on how to find it from iTunes if they don't know how? How is that easier than sending an APK to your friends which they can simply download and install? And you seem to just have glossed over how it's a waste of money to sign up for an iOS developer license to build an app that, you find out, nobody wants to use.
> why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work on the other platform. It's completely illogical.
Uhhhhhh, what? What do you mean OS-specific functionality? GPS? File reading and writing? Motion sensors? Buttons and text fields? Are you kidding me? Both Android and iOS have those. Do you even own a smartphone?
If you mean iCloud, why is that a problem? Even if you're developing for iOS, you can use Google Drive. If my startup had something to do with cloud syncing, catering to platform-exclusive cloud services isn't illogical.
> iOS is likely to remain the primary platform for prototyping. Why ? Because it is just so much nicer.
I'm pretty sure a "prototype" doesn't have to be "nice."
> The iOS Simulator "just works" and exactly mirrors your target devices.
Again, WRONG. You're not supposed to rely on the simulator precisely because it DOESN'T exactly mirror your target devices. It doesn't have motion sensors, uses your computer's internet connection as its own, uses your computer's processing power as its own, doesn't give you the same retina iPhone experience, etc.
Gee, have you even tried developing mobile apps?
Re: Android is for startups
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of what you said makes sense. Firstly on iOS you can send as many IPAs as I want to friends, testers, colleagues etc provided I've gone through the 30s process of adding them to Apple's list. This isn't some giant inconvenience that warrants completely switching a platform. Secondly if your app is intended to be cross platform. Then why would you start creating OS specific functionality you know will never work…
My company has prototyped on both platforms, and I strongly prefer Android for this purpose. Test flight is significantly more inconvenient for all parties than sending around Android apks. So is Apple's provisioning process for development (you'll certainly have to figure out how to re-provision your development devices a few times). Android's OS integration also makes for better demos of our app. Since it's a remot…
I love Android. I really only develop for Android. But to say the Android emulators are better than the iOS simulator (or even comparable) is hilarious to me.
The reason everyone tests on hardware is because the emulator is %@$#ing slow. i7 @ 4.2GHz, 12 GB of RAM... the emulator still takes MINUTES to start and runs unusably slow.
The iOS Simulator on the MBP work gave me (mid-2010) runs at basically native speed.
I do some development with Cordova. During development I either test on my Android phone or an iOS simulator. Those are the only realistic options.
Re: Android is for startups
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
If $100 a year would allow me to develop iOS apps on my Linux laptop I'd be fine with that. But $100 a year + paying for overpriced apple hardware doesn't sound appealing.
Exercise for people who think Macs are overpriced: find a machine with a solid state drive, excellent battery life, well built case, and high quality keyboard and trackpad for substantially less than the price of a Macbook Air.
Just remove well-built case and high-quality keyboard from that list and I can buy a laptop with much, much more power for the same price as a Macbook Air.
Re: Android is for startups
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Play gift cards have been available less than a month in most of the world. I'm not sure when they were first made available in the US.
Google Play gift cards in the US go back to August 2012, IIRC.
To clarify the parent comment, I see iTunes gift cards for sale at grocery store checkout lines. Perfect spontaneous purchases. Where do you even buy a Google Play gift card?