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Comment by alwillis | Hacker News Reader

Not unusual; most high profile apps ship on iOS first, going back to Instagram [1], which was released October 10, 2010. Instagram shipped their Android version 1.5 years later.

[1]: https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/definition/Instagram

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Another, not incompatible explanation is that it's also just easier to develop for a handful of known iOS/iPadOS targets compared to Android's unbounded set of screen sizes and device specs.

If your app runs on iPadOS, you already need to support every "screen size" (window size)

Android is simply a much worse platform to make money on. Users spend <25% as much as iOS users. Why would they prioritize that?

In practice Android is much more difficult to handle the myriad of offerings - Have you ever tried both? To your other point, what app spend would Anthropic be worried about - they have a subscription model.

Anthropic supports in-app purchases for Claude subscriptions, at least in the US.

They sell through the app, too. And Android users are just as unlikely to spend outside of apps as they are inside them. Android deprioritization is a business decision, not a technical complexity decision.

Because 70% of the mobile phone world runs on Android.

It is like trying to make a living selling games to macOS users.

Please take a look at the percentage of paying Android users. It just does not compare. It's useless to count 2 billion users in third world countries who never have and never will pay anything in-app.

Users spend <25% as much as iOS users, and less than half in total despite larger user counts (having double the users who spend <25% each does not add up!), a gap that widens year over year. Why would they prioritize that?

Why would they care about prioritizing users who spend much less? Android pays <25% per user. You need a LOT more than 70% to make that worth prioritizing. Those users are just going to eat up free tier resources without paying. It's borderline parasitic from a business perspective.

Android users are more likely to be useful for spreading word-of-mouth reputation to Apple platform users, than they are as direct spenders. Just another reason to ensure Apple platform features don't trail Android.

iOS/iPadOS aren't exactly the same, without bothering to count, there are about 10 screen sizes to account for, and Apple contrary to Android world, doesn't have somethine like JetPack, either the user updates their phone or there are no new features for the apps to rely on.

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