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Comment by shitlord | Hacker News Reader

I wish they had an Android app. Hopefully, it's in the works, because I would definitely try it out.

I have an Android, and I'm more eager to get the web app. I'm typically in front of a computer during market hours, so I'd rather not have to whip out my phone just to make a trade (especially if I'm day-trading). It's faster and more efficient. I wonder why it's taking so long to make the web app.

This is pure speculation on my part and I have no basis for saying it so take it with a gigantic grain of salt. It is important to remember when someone offers you a free service you are NOT their customer. So you need to determine who is the customer.

In this case the obvious, though maybe not correct, inference is that their customer is the order execution companies that they are selling their order flow to. If that is the case, it is in robinhoods best interest to make that order flow as "dumb" as possible such that it doesn't make order volume go down.

It might be that it is a tactical decision not to provide high fidelity trading interfaces (via the web or otherwise) because those make their product (you) less valuable to their customer (the order routers).

Again, purely speculation, but it seems a reasonable hypothesis.

They're working on it: https://robinhood.com/android/beta/

I wish you could just trade through their website. I don't understand why they think people would prefer to trade on their phone over their computer.

Are Android developers that hard to come by? I can write for Android, if anyone needs it.

No, but it's expensive, and it's more cost efficient to iterate on iphone first.

I would have guessed it's more cost efficient to work on the web version first. Don't think most of the people who want to trade want to specifically do it on an iOS device.

Agreed but their product is mobile-first. They want to attract those people that spend 90% of their time on their smartphones. It's like asking why did Supercell / Clash of Clans not launch a web version first :)

I put $1,000, which is not stuck in there as I don't have an iOS device at my disposal anymore. I can understand that writing a mobile app for Android is an extra effort, but their app is not that complicated! It's a lame excuse and we're allowing companies not to develop on the biggest mobile platform in the world. I think iOS hackers should boycott non-Android platforms as well as a matter of principles (like accessibility, equality, free choice, etc.) and not be selfish and allow this negative trend to continue!

I've been waiting so long for an Android app. It will happen, eventually

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