Regardless of the disputes about the advantages or disadvantages of iOS and Android from the point of view of hardware or software, you cannot ignore the fact that the release of apps on iOS is still the priority for developers. In the case of games, where the development costs reach astronomical figures, this trend can be traced even more clearly.
As an example, consider one of the most downloaded and highly rated apps — best Pro snowboarder Alto”s Adventure. Originally appearing in February of this year on iPhone and iPad (and now on Apple TV), the game quickly gained popularity due to its exciting gameplay and pretty graphics. WIRED magazine even called Alto”s Adventure “part of interactive art”.
Almost every publication has expressed a positive review, but after nine months after release the game is still only available on iOS. In September Noodlecake Studios has announced a version for Android and Kindle Fire, but the release date is still unknown. If you are an Android user who loves to play on mobile devices, this trend may become an inexhaustible source of frustration.
Realizing this fact, blogger Ben Kuchera wrote for Polygon, an article in which he said that the lack of high-profile releases on Android forced him to switch to iPhone. Although Ben prefers Android, and considers it a great advantage of this OS wide possibilities for personalization and flexibility.
But as a gaming platform, he said. Android is a pitiful sight.
“Android is a terrible OS for gaming, if you wait for new releases. So I’m done with her. I’m not the only one who finds your phone device more for entertainment than for mobile communication, and for these people Android is a bad choice. I don’t want to wait for the release of the Android version of The Room 3. I’m tired of announcements of Bethesda, looking how people are downloading Fallout Shelter on my iPhone during E3.
The same applies to the application for toys Disney Playmation. The developers claim that the Android version will be ready very soon, but right now the app is already available on iOS. I didn’t get to test these toys, because they were not available.
I don’t like that the most interesting games become available for Android only a few weeks after launching on iOS. Sometimes it happens through months and may not happen.”
The coachman asked one iOS developer the reasons for such significant delays with release of new games for Android. As it turned out, fragmentation “phones” in OS versions, screen sizes and other parameters, offering a huge variety of devices to users, delivers a real headache for programmers:
“In the case of iOS we test the project to 8 or 10 devices just because you need to check the work on the previous models. And many do not. But for Android you need to test hundreds of devices with different characteristics,” explained the developer Barry Meade.
Related to this is another factor not in favor of Android — the cost of development. On average, it is 30% higher than for iOS.
In addition, users of mobile devices from Apple are more willing to spend money on purchase than the owners of Android. This means that even at an equal cost, the developers will choose the platform where they will be able to make more money, to quickly recapture initial investment.
All this, of course, does not mean that iOS is better than Android. In the end, if you are not particularly interesting games on mobile devices, then this factor will not be as significant.
