I must admit, when a friend and I decided to take up app coding as a hobby to see if we could make a game, I thought mobile app coding was the same across the board. Guess what? It is not the same. Surprise I know, don’t get me wrong I didn’t think it was identical but I did think it would be more cross-platform than it is. Specifically, we’ll look at the differences of aesthetics between iOS and Android in this article.

In a nutshell, it’s easier to make good looking apps in iOS than in Android. Hipmunk UI/UX designer and iOS developer Danilo Campos explains: “The very simple short answer is it’s easier to make a good-looking, attractive iOS app compared to making an Android app.”

It’s no surprise that when you look at an Apple product vs. a Google product that the Apple product is going to most likely be more polished and sleek, also more expensive. This should give you a hint as to which one cares more about these qualities when it comes to software as well. Now that I sit down and think about it, it makes perfect sense, I just hadn’t thought about it.

Though many things that Apple product users such as myself see as issues with Android many Android users see as benefits. This might be true but some of these are the very reason for the apps not appearing as polished. One thing is for sure, it is is not for lack of talent in the Android development scene.

Let’s look at the reasoning before I am strung up by the Android users:

• Fragmentation: iOS devs have fewer resolutions and hardware profiles to worry about. The Android market is saturated with devices with different resolutions and hardware specs.

“Android devices come in different shapes and sizes, different screen resolutions, different device speeds – and that’s actually a huge hurdle,” Karma app co-founder Lee Linden told Wired.

• Images: Hipmunk generates its Android assets in three resolutions: 1x for older devices, 2x for high-resolution devices and 1.5x for other devices. Campos states that this is a must to avoid artifacting in some apps. The issue with this is that you’re spending more times on things like images and not on ground-breaking and cutting edge technology development. Even if you are, that’s added time and expense that iOS devs don’t have to worrry about.

• Tools & Documentation: Surprisingly, tools and documentation is less robust when it comes to Android. I say surprising as Android is more open than iOS. Part of that is that Apple has had a 20 year head start in developer support. That’s when you have to ask yourself, how old is Android really? That’s how long Google has been at developer support and it doesn’t come without some growing pains.

Campos states, “It feels like you’ve got more documentation, both officially sanctioned and thirdparty, so that makes things smoother.” He adds, “One of the hangups [with Android] is so much of the stuff doesn’t feel fully documented.” “Ryan, our Android guy, has to go digging around in the source code to figure out some XML formatting piece that isn’t made clear. That’s been painful for him.”

Overall, Google is learning from their developers and fixing many of the issues. Adding developer support pages to Google+ and also adding a much more robust Android training regiment. With these improvements, some issues still persist. The fragmentation remains as a major issue as less than 3 percent of Android devices currently run Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0). I’ll continue to monitor the progress as my company utilizes Google Apps for Business and I am a fan of all things Google, except Android. Sorry Android fans, it just hasn’t lured me away from iOS… yet.

{via Gizmodo}

Earlier this year, in February, Apple promised its iAd developers that they would increase their payouts later on in the year. This would give the developers who use the iAd service a 10% increase from the current 60% of total earnings. Apple’s decision to raise the payouts isn’t all that surprising, when considering that Apple currently pays its iOS app developers 70% of the total revenue, 30% of which Apple keeps for themselves.

Now, the iAd platform is on the same level of iOS development in terms of profit for both the developers and the Cupertino based company. During iAd’s initial launch, it gained only a small network of advertisers willing to put up with Apple’s higher than usual prices, and a number of restrictions by which they must comply. The minimum buy-in for the mobile ad platform was decreased by Apple from $1 million to $100,000 since its launch in July 2010 with iOS 4.

This new price is down from a $300,000 minimum which took effect last July. AdMob is the leading mobile ad service of choice, particularly on the Android platform, because of its abilities to support multiple platforms at once, and with its substantially higher adoption and usage than Apple’s iAd. With this increase in payouts, Apple may increase the number of developers in its iAd program, however, the company still has much improvement before the service experiences increased adoption.

{via iMore}

Google’s Android is increasingly becoming popular as most handset manufacturers are adopting the Android platform. We recently reported that Google’s Android Market is expected to surpass the number of apps available in Apple’s App Store to become the largest store for mobile apps. But, does more apps mean more revenue?

According to a new report by IHS Screen Digest, the paid app market will double by 2014 and Apple is expected to retain 60 percent of the paid apps market. In terms of revenue Google’s Android Market is witnessing strong growth as revenue for 2011 is predicted to cross $425 million but is still far behind Apple whose revenue is projected to cross $2.91 billion.

RIM turned out to be the biggest loser as the BlackBerry platform for apps hasn’t attracted many new developers.

The app market (including Apple, Google, Nokia, RIM) is predicted to grow 77.7 percent in 2011 making it cross the $3 billion mark and is expected to show tremendous growth by 2014 and crossing $8.3 billion in revenue.

Google’s Android continue to grow in the number of apps however Apple’s strong presence and well defined ecosystem will help the Cupertino based company maintain the lead when it comes to revenue share.

The availability of quality apps for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad certainly helps in pushing the sales for Apple and Google is also trying its best to experience App Store’s success with the Android Market place.

App Inventor is a tool by Google (still in beta) which promises to enable almost anyone to create apps for the Android. It allows you to visually design your apps using “blocks” based interface. The App Inventor team also claims that you don’t need any programming knowledge in order to develop an app or game.

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

The Android platform is not the only one to enjoy this DIY tool to develop apps. GameSalad offer similar game creation tools for the iOS platform.

It will be interesting to see if the public release of App Inventor will give Android Market place the boost it was looking for.

Are you excited about App inventor for Android? Have you used GameSalad to create any iPhone game? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

App Inventor in Action