The Mobile Apps Gap: For Every 10 Apps Built 7 Are iOS

Flurry Analytics has released data, drawn from its logs, that illustrate mobile app developers’ continuing preference for Apple’s iOS over Android.

Among other reasons, Apple’s iOS offers “efficiency” and a “homogenous device base” (iPhone, iPad). By contrast, Flurry observes that Android is highly fragmented and that the problem “appears to be increasing.” Indeed, there are numerous Android devices, with different hardware and screen sizes, as well as different versions of the Android OS: Gingerbread, Froyo, Ice Cream Sandwich, etc.

Flurry reports that “for every 10 apps that developers build, roughly 7 are for iOS.” The company says that the iPad has been instrumental in cementing developer loyalty. Unlike the smartphone market where Android dominates, the iPad remains unrivaled in the tablet market.

Notwithstanding “shipments” data from IDC, Gartner and other firms showing Kindle Fire and other tablets encroaching on the iPad’s market share, Flurry shows the iPad with 88 percent of the tablet market.

As has been pointed out in the past, iOS developers also make more money than Android developers. Flurry says that iOS revenue is on average 4X greater than that from Android.

“For every $1.00 a developer earns on iOS, he can expect to earn about $0.24 on Android,” according to Flurry.