For years, both Start-Ups and Enterprises have in the USA gone with an iOS-First strategy when pushing out a brand new mobile application based on the iOS USA market-share. According to the latest report, via Kantar:
iOS market share for USA is 34.5%, in EU5 iOS market share is 24.4%, and in China iOS market share is 23%. Oh but it gets worse, iPad sales are declining, AND the other top 5 mobile device brands saw increasing sales compared to declining sales of all Apple Mobile Products.
Picture it this way. USA has 300 million mobile device users. If you are pitching to VCs and Angels which number would you rather have? 92 Million iOS users or 183 Million Android users? Which do you think the VCs and Angels would rather have?
Some analysts will claim that it is form factor coupled with limited price points among iOS mobile models. But that is only the surface of a much bigger story. In 2013 when iOS7 was released with Apple's new Interpreted-Flat-Design analysts when comparing that to android were complaining about sloppy UI-design of android. But, that all changed when Google introduced Material Design.
After the introduction of Google's Material Design across all android devices, no one in the Apple-camp was laughing. In fact now, Android gets an equal amount of new users both from previous iOS users and WindowsPhone users all due to the quality Google Material Design operating system UI design.
Every Design Shop using and over-using Apple products is still stuck in that Apple-bias that Apple's Interpretation of Flat Design was design theory sound, it was not however. And that has do directly with Ive miss-applying visual design. Hollow icons that increase cognitive load is just one of the Ive-brain-dead-examples. Wrong font emphasis and brightness to such a bad extent that they just changed iOS software to add a new feature for users to adjust size and emphasis of the fonts rather than address the design theory goof.
If your firm's survival depends on getting the maximum of Android users you cannot and should not depend on an Apple biased Design studio to develop your android application. You should in fact ask for an Android Advocate that happens to be an android app designer and android app developer AND who is willing to stand steadfast on sound visual design theories and practices.
It is time now to do an Android First Strategy for most start-ups.
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