In the current tech-driven era we all are engaged using powerful mobile applications, which have dominated our everyday life like never before, mobile apps have become so omnipresent, and it is impossible to imagine our life without using our smartphones. Therefore, all the credit goes to well designed and furnished social networking apps like Instagram, Whatsapp, Facebook, and LinkedIn as well as ecommerce lifestyle apps. However, on a current digital landscape, iOS and Android apps have captured the vast chunk of a global audience. So, it is not an extravagance to believe that the mobile app users across the globe have split between Android and iOS. However, we shouldn’t forget what iOS and Android developers invest as they build excellent mobile apps, so it is necessary to difference between iOS and Android app development from the developer’s perspective.

So, here below are the given few distinctive technical difference between iOS and Android app development process.

Development language
The most significant difference between Android and iOS is that Android has Java for building mobile apps where most of the iOS programmers depend upon Objective-C and Swift to create the software as well as mobile apps. Nevertheless, the language does not place much pressure on developers since both have an enormous size of the active community ready to assist’ whenever a difficulty in development hinders the progress. However, in the case of iOS app development, users have an original Apple MacBook to gain the perfect understanding of iOS programming.
Integrated development environment availability (IDE)
When it comes for the mobile app development environment, both iOS and Android platform use different tools, where Google’s Android has launched more powerful multifunctional Android Studio, the IDE which is superior and more accessible than older Eclipse ADT. So, the android studio is highly capable of optimizing the platform-specific development process. On the other end, iOS developers use XCode for developing Apple backed iOS apps. Thus, it is the most productive environment for building amazing apps for Mac, iPad, and iPhone devices. However, it also has the possibility to find the mistakes or bugs in both syntax and logic even after code gets fixed.

Deployment speed
The acceptance process or review process for Android powered apps to be released on Google play takes lesser time as compared to an iOS-based app to get on the Apple store. The reason is that Android based apps are checked with an automated tests, while iOS apps require personal experts verification of about 7 days. So, Google allows developers to handle some errors, or multiple versions to be submitted during a day. Therefore, Android engineers have to be careful in order not to publish a mobile app with errors, while there is a risk for the iOS app to be rejected even after waiting for a response from the experts.

Differences in design
Simplicity, minimalism, and compactness are three significant pillars of mobile app design. So, both iOS and Android provide incredible features which can help to fulfill the typical expectation of UI appearance. Therefore, Apple element like icons, button, and pictograms follows are generally minimalistic or succinct. Nevertheless, Android designers also practice almost similar design structure, steering clear of peculiar icons, massive buttons, and lines which may degrade the user experience. So, in the latest Android operating system, the sensory panel on mobile devices can be easily felt with the multitask panel as well as it is getting improved on and off. However, iOS multi-task windows kept separate and miniature where Android also prefers to interchangeable tabs which can cover a major portion of the device screen. Thus, both the platform contains a variety of button styles like Android has a floating button, whereas iOS emphasizes more on simple, controlled yet aesthetically elegant modern design with lines.

Platform specific registration fees
Even if you’re mobile application looks reliable, you being a developer need to pay some money in order to upload your app to a distribution platform like Google Play Store or Apple store. However, Google play store usually demands $25 towards registration fee from Android developers. Apple, on the other end, leaves as much as $99 for your iOS app to be identified by the world of iPhone users. Hence, arguably we can understand that the iOS app development seems a less economical as correlated to Android apps, so you need to be ready with $99 and a given Mac system to develop apps for iOS platform.

Monetization and profitability
IOS app developers tend to generate higher revenue out of their investment and end up receiving regular income flow, unlike Android application, which is mainly because iOS device user mostly belongs to the group those living standards are defined by a strong economy. On the other end, Android solutions creators can have an opportunity to earn steady revenue from their applications since there is a vast number of Android devices users distributed across the Asian countries, which are helping for contributing to the higher Android smartphones sales. So, the Asian economy has an extensive power to impact the app downloads in Google Play and Apple store. However, users living in developing countries don’t have the tendency to spend on slightly expensive iOS apps, where Google is now focusing on affluent markets like UK, Europe, and the USA to benefit from their extravagant mobile application users and can get more profit out of it.

So, for wrapping up,’ there is a continuous race between iOS and Android apps, where mobile app builder has an opportunity for learning and monetization for both the platforms right from the difference explained above to depending on your goals, vision and future career prospect. Therefore, it is crucial to land your choice on the factors of technical challenges, process ease, and availability of resources because all the mobile app users seek an excellent, well-conceived and perfectly designed mobile app which they will never regrets using.

Source URL: https://medium.com/@wishvite/top-6-differences-between-android-and-ios-app-development-36806846ff4c

Author's Bio: 

Vivek Ghai has over 18 years of experience in software services industry. He is the founder of a software company specializing in web and mobile application development. He has hands-on experience in operations, digital marketing and business development in the technology industry. He advises start-ups and also is a technical co-founder for few of them.