The popularity of Android devices has grown exponentially over the last year or so among both users and developers, but the Verizon iPhone and iPad 2 may be bringing iOS back to the forefront of their attention, according to a new report from Flurry Analytics. The mobile analytics firm looked at the 90,000 applications that make use of Flurry's SDK to see where the new projects are taking place, and found that developer attention to Android has waned significantly over first and second quarters of 2011, despite it growing steadily in 2010.
According to Flurry, developers created Android apps in increasing numbers all throughout 2010, with Android peaking at 39 percent of new projects in the fourth quarter of the year. That number went down slightly in the first quarter of 2011 to 36 percent, while 10 percent of developers started new projects specifically for iPad and 54 percent focused on the iPhone/iPod touch combo. And now that the second quarter numbers are in, things have slid in iOS's direction even more: 28 percent of new developer projects were targeted at Android, while 15 percent were targeted at iPad and 57 percent at iPhone/iPod touch.
Put simply, new projects for Android dropped nine percentage points between quarters (and 11 points since the fourth quarter of 2010). Flurry adds that the total number of new developer projects increased from 9,100 in the first quarter of the year to 10,200 in the second quarter.
"Studying the numbers, it’s readily apparent that Android has lost developer support to iOS," the company wrote on its blog. " Of note, this drop in Android developer support represents the second quarter-over-quarter slide, which follows a year of significant, steady growth for the Google-built OS."
What could have changed between the end of 2010 and now to draw more developers back to iOS? Flurry believes it was the introduction of the Verizon iPhone and the iPad 2. The firm described the previous lack of an iPhone on Verizon as a "significant vulnerability gap" in the iPhone's US distribution and went so far as to assert that the AT&T exclusivity "gave Android the opportunity to reach critical mass on other carriers, most notably Verizon."
That has finally changed, however, and combined with the successful iPad 2 launch this spring, Apple is positioned quite well, even if it has spent the better part of the year struggling to meet iPad 2 demand. "We believe that wholesale consumer acceptance and adoption of tablets, which just a year ago was questionable within the industry, is further luring developers to build for iPad instead of Android," Flurry said.
iOS fans should hold their tongues, though—we have seen Android device adoption grow exponentially before, and it could happen again as new devices come to market by the day. The latest to get the excited rumor treatment is an Android-based tablet from Amazon that is expected to hit the market by October and will likely complement Amazon's already-existing Appstore for Android. But will Amazon's efforts be enough to regain the developer attention that Android has lost for two quarters in a row now? Flurry cites Android storefront fragmentation as one of the major developer holdups:
"[T]he development community is concerned about the rising cost of deploying across the Android installed base, due to the double whammy of OS and storefront fragmentation," the company wrote. "With developers pinched on both sides of the revenue and cost equation, Google must tack aggressively at this stage of the race to ensure that Apple doesn’t continue to take its developer-support wind."
Listing image by Photograph by Wade Morgan
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