Survey Finds App Developers Prefer Apple's iOS (NewsFactor)

Piper Jaffray released a new survey of iOS developers on Monday in which 47 percent of the respondents said they are also building Android-based mobile apps. However, 100 percent of the respondents building offerings for both platforms said they prefer iOS over Android because apps for Apple's mobile platform are easier to develop and monetize.

During last week's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Piper Jaffray asked Apple iOS developers to identify the other mobile platforms on which they have worked. Google's Android led the pack at 47 percent, followed by BlackBerry (36 percent) and Windows Phone 7 (13 percent).

"Note that 36 percent of respondents only develop for iOS versus 30 percent in a similar survey we conducted at WWDC in 2008," observed Piper Jaffray analysts Gene Munster and Andrew Murphy. "We believe Apple's strong developer base will help it to maintain and gain share in mobile."

The Top Platform

App developers around the world also rank iOS as the top platform for monetization, according to a survey released last week by Vision Mobile. On average, software written for Apple's mobile platform made 3.3 times more money per app than Symbian developers, 2.7 times more than Java ME developers, 2.4 times more than BlackBerry developers, and 1.7 times more than Android developers.

"The important insight here is that large device sales do not translate into higher app monetization for developers, as the case for Symbian shows," the Vision Mobile researchers observed.

One reason why Apple exceeds other mobile platforms as a revenue generator is that Apple's App Store doesn't allow consumers to try apps before they buy. This indirectly increases developer revenues, according to Vision Mobile.

What's more, the highly popular games category dominates in the App Store. Games accounted for 45 percent of the revenues from paid downloads at the App Store during April, the Vision Mobile researchers reported.

The Highest Potential

When asked which mobile platform has the highest potential for future growth, Piper Jaffray noted that 51 percent of its survey respondents tapped iOS, 40 percent said Android, and nine percent selected Windows Phone 7. Still, among those iOS developers who also work on the Android platform, "two-thirds believe Android has the highest potential for growth," Munster and Murphy noted.

The strict limitations that Apple places on iOS developers was the top complaint for 38 percent of the survey's respondents at WWDC. Apple's lengthy app-approval process was also cited by 11 percent of the respondents.

Additionally, 40 percent of the respondents had a variety of other complaints. For example, some said Xcode -- Apple's suite of tools for developing software for Mac OS X and iOS -- is old and dated, Murphy said.

The patent lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court against several iOS developers has attracted media attention in the past two weeks. However, iOS developers attending WWDC last week didn't appear to be worried. "Nobody indicated any concerns for legal issues," Murphy said in an e-mail Monday.

The iOS developers surveyed have an average of seven apps in Apple's App Store, with 93 percent of the respondents creating apps for the iPhone and iPod touch also producing apps for the iPad. By contrast, only seven percent of the respondents writing apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch also produce Mac apps, with none developing apps for Mac exclusively.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20110613/bs_nf/78930

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