Akshay kothari founder of Alphoson Labs(http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/28/2011-android-iphone-apps/) seems to imply that in 2011, app developers will considering writing apps for Android first. There might be some truth to it, and it could probably happen, but I think the statement is incomplete. To really analyze this, we need to segment app developers and study each segment closely. Only then, we can truly say that a particular segment of app developers might prefer to develop for Android first in future. There are basically serious professional app developers whose lively hood depends on app making money. And then there are hobbyist app developers. The professional app developers are usually a firm of size from 2 – 200 developers are full time into building apps.
See the app market comparision of Apple vs Android app store. Over 70% apps in apple store are paid vs over 60% in Android market place are free. This trend can partially be explained by the fact that most Android developers come from the web/java world bringing with them the free software mindset. I am not against open source, but I think free software movement has gone a little overboard. Historically, advertisement has not made enough money to justify the loss in revenue firms have seen due to free software movement(I am referring to free software and not open software movement).
There is no doubt that it has been difficult to make money on Android market place and if you look at the below chart by the end of September, the number of paid apps fell further to 35% on Android market place.
This mind set of building free apps will continue to make it difficult to make money on Android as consumers will not pay for it, if there is a good enough alternative available for free. This will make professional developers think twice before developing for Android first. Of course if they have an iPhone version of the app, they will for sure port it to Android to increase the market size.
On the other hand the hobbyist developers(who do not completely depend on making money from apps) will prefer to develop for Android first simply because of the market share of Android. There is a little doubt that Android will outsell iPhone in 2011 and it makes sense for hobbyist developers to build for Android first.
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