mobile-appsConsidering a location based app which needs a lot of users in a specific location to be useful. Would it be better to take it slowly and work on optimizing and figuring out new features for the iOS app or launching an Android version be better?
The problem with only having iOS in a location based app is, most of the users are Android users: (iOS vs Android rate: 84.7% vs 11.7%). This creates a problem where 88% of your marketing efforts are gone to waste and keeps the user count in the app low.
From my personal experience, having released a social iOS app in an Android country, you should start with the dominant OS in your area and then, when you are sure that you found the product-market fit, launch on the 2nd platform. It’s easier to control and faster to progress. (We learnt it from the bad way)
Of course the no1 question is what skills do the co founders have, meaning that if you don’t have an Android developer among the co founders and you are beginning with Android, DON’T hire or outsource the android version cause it’s far too early to do this and you will probably waste lots of resources. Start based on your existing skills, try to get validation (or product-market fit, even better) and then expand to make your audience/market bigger.
I hope I helped a little bit ;)
The decision may rely on two factors: Service and market.
If the service serves users independently to each other, then it seems more valuable to focus on the application quality.
If the service depends on a “crowd” effect, then it is essential to spread more to be really useful. Higher quality and better features can wait to see if the service really sticks.
In the case you present, you need a lot of users, so supporting Android and iOS sooner seems a good choice.
The target market(s) is more fundamental: Are the platforms significant in the target market?
The numbers you mention show the “lots of users” is in Android, so that indicates that supporting Android sooner is important.
On a market like, say, Japan, numbers are different. iOS is very strong there, so the decision may be reverse, or just harder to make (I do not have recent numbers, but iOS is significantly stronger in Japan).
The decision depends on the specifics of your business. It seems to me (considering the above) betting on Android soon is a good move. But in the end, there is the resource issue, as mentioned by Apostolee: Need for an Android developer (or an iOS developer interested in diversifying).
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