Android is consumers' choice, but developers stick with Apple

Android is now the top-selling platform, Samsung's Android-running Galaxy S handsets are outselling Apple iPhones by a mile, and the Android Market recently marked its 18 billionth download. But for good reasons, says analytics firm Flurry, app developers are choosing iOS over Android nearly three to one.

Developers set up analytics several weeks before shipping their apps, giving Flurry — which is used by more than 55,000 companies across more than 135,000 applications, by its account — a peek at what's coming to market. In a study looking at the number of new projects initiated each quarter, Flurry found during the first quarter that 63% of projects were in iOS and 37% in Android; by Q3, Apple projects had risen to 75%, while Android fell to 25%.

Estimating the whole of the fourth quarter, the firm swapped 2 points from Apple to Android, putting iOS at 73% and Android at 27%.

"Over the year, developer support for Android has declined from more than one-third of all new projects, at the beginning of the year, down to roughly one-quarter by the end. While the market nearly doubled for both platforms, we believe key events changed the proportion of support between these two platforms," the firm shared in a Dec. 13 blog post.

One event of note was the expansion of the iPhone to Verizon in February and Sprint in October. Others were the launches of the iPad 2 in February and the iPhone 4S in October.

Android, by contrast — despite the army of OEMs supporting it — doesn't have a "truly recognizable flagship device," says the report.

That's not what has developers supporting iOS three times more than Android, though. What does? Flurry offers three reasons.

One is the fragmentation issues resulting from Google "not curating the Android Market" (CP: Android could cost operators an avoidable $2 billion a year).

A second is money. After developers anecdotally told Flurry that they make three to four times as much developing for iOS, the firm ran some numbers to see for itself.

"We find that, on average, for every $1.00 generated on iOS, the same app will generate $0.24 on Android," it wrote.

The final and largest reason: getting paid. Apple has insisted that users tie a credit or gift card to their account, ensuring payment, but Google hasn't, "resulting in lower revenue generation possibilities on the platform." With its recent $0.10 app sale to drive new account sign ups, and the folding of Google Checkout into Google Wallet (Unfiltered: Google says bye-bye to Checkout, hello to Wallet in mobile payment move), however, its seems to working to change this.

Looked at from another perspective, Google's, as the Bits blog recently pointed out, is a happy problem. While designers generally find Microsoft's new Windows Phone platform "gorgeous and uniquely designed" and, as one developer put it, featuring "some of the most innovative user interface work that is being done right now," most only have enough resources to design for two platforms.

What they're choosing? Clearly, iOS and Android.