Comment by mad_tortoise | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mad_tortoise | Hacker News Reader

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In terms of forethought, I can't imagine anyone outside of the US/EU developing an app solely for an iOS user base other than creating an MVP. And then even still, once you have proof it can work why build something that intentionally shuts off the majority of your userbase, or provides a lower quality product to the user base? If you are lean and starting out, don't put all your eggs in a Swift/iOS basket and then hope for a tool like this to sort out your problems. It may be an easy quickfix for a basic app, but once you go even a little bit deeper than surface level you're going to run into problems, have to backtrack and start over with either native Android code, or a cross platform framework.

That said the cost is also something that is odd, when you have free alternatives that provide far more mature ecosystem.

In terms of getting deep with existing tools, what is the difference here when using XCode as to Android Studio or VSCode? The tools aren't difficult to use, at least any more so than XCode. If you're not a developer then sure, but if you are then AS or VSCode should be a breeze. We're far removed from the days of Eclipse and Notepad++ where you didn't have the tooling, online resources or automatic fixes that these tools come with today.

So yeah maybe my experience doesn't see the need for this, which is exactly the issue here. Who is making the majority of the apps we use today? Who is paying to use tools that speed up development? Engineers like myself.

> In terms of forethought, I can't imagine anyone outside of the US/EU developing an app solely for an iOS user base other than creating an MVP. And then even still, once you have proof it can work why build something that intentionally shuts off the majority of your userbase, or provides a lower quality product to the user base?

I can see a simple reason for solely targeting the iOS user base, wherever one comes from: on average they earn more and spend more, making them better targets for both advertising and in-app purchases business models.

Apple’s AppStore represents 65% of global app stores consumer spend, and ~7% of iOS users spend some amount of money on apps, while on Android it’s ~4.5%.

On top of that, the hardware is much less diverse, making it easier have a consistent experience across devices. I still remember a client building an internal bar-code scanning app for their warehouse, then complain it didn’t work well enough, only to realise they had equipped their staff with the cheapest crap they could find, which had a terrible camera.

Back on topic, perhaps yhis kind of tool can be useful for teams who didn’t intend to or couldn’t afford to invest any effort into making an Android app.

> On top of that, the hardware is much less diverse, making it easier have a consistent experience across device

Which is why iOS is usually not the platform you need to worry about when doing cross platform projects. So it doesn't feel like a benefit to start on the least diverse platform and then move on from there.

> Back on topic, perhaps yhis kind of tool can be useful for teams who didn’t intend to or couldn’t afford to invest any effort into making an Android app.

But they were however able to invest in both iOS developers, the required hardware and this tool?

> So it doesn't feel like a benefit to start on the least diverse platform and then move on from there.

On the contrary. What are you trying to validate? That enough people are interested in your product. Anything that gets in the way of that is just another distraction, and there already will be more than enough of those.

> But they were however able to invest in both iOS developers, the required hardware and this tool?

Developer cost is the same. The difference in hardware costs, if there is any, is negligible.

The tool? It starts quite literally at 0$, and the first paid tier is 29$ / month.

There are two cases where I can see how it would make sense to focus on Android.

First, the WhatsApp example: you are making an app that, by its very nature, entirely relies on massive network effects, and somehow can afford to focus on growth without monetising.

Second, a product that targets people with average to low incomes.

Other than that, if you have to pick between the two, I don’t see the point in starting with Android.

This is such an ignorant First World perspective - for reasons I've stated in other comments. It's mind-boggling there are people like yourself who see's the world in such a narrow vision. As if the Third World doesn't exist and people who develop apps are only in the First World.

Really funny, that you probably consider yourself highly educated, and yet have zero ability to see why iOS is actually not the primary choice for engineers in the global south. Your two cases are beyond laughable.

I'm really sorry I'm being rude, but I highly doubt you have ever built a mobile app yourself if these are your hot takes.

I wanna expand by saying that is not even a full First-World perspective, but purely an US one.

In Europe iOS has a big market share, but Android is still the most used.

I’m not from the US.

And while Android has the largest market share in Europe, it still doesn’t change the fact that the iOS app store captures most of the global app store revenue.

Including in Europe.

Again, it exists.

It’s not where the advertising money is.

It’s not where most in-app purchases income can be found.

Don’t believe me? Have a look at Meta’s ARPU on a per country basis. Over $50 in the US, around 15$ in Europe, $5 in Asia-Pacific, less than $5 in the rest of the world.

Don’t like those numbers? Look at Genshin Impact’s.

Don’t like those numbers? Look at how much people spend on the AppStore vs the Play Store. The AppStore represents 66% of global app stores revenue, and 76% of global app stores subscriptions revenue.

Sure, since Meta and Google don’t operate there, those numbers aren’t accounting for a big factor: China.

Now, if you’re building Grab in Indonesia, sure, Android makes perfect sense as a first choice.

Making a utility or marketplace app for a specific country or region? Sure, adapt to your target. You’d have to be a fool not to.

We come back to "targeting people with average to low income". Because wether we like it or not, that’s most of the world compared to Switzerland, the US, Japan, Australia, and the like [0].

You can be rude all you like, it won’t change the numbers.

[0]: https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicator...

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