Why I prefer iOS over Android… Part 2
It’s been a year since I really dug into iOS development professionally instead of just as a hobby. I’ve written 7 applications for iPad and iPhone, mostly medical but one for advertising. A while back I wrote a post about how I preferred iOS development over Android and I wanted to just get back in here and update my thoughts I have accumulated since then. It was suggested by an Google/Android fanboy because he thought that once I had more experience, I might change my preference for iOS. Let’s get my conclusion out of the way before I talk about details…. I still prefer iOS development for the same reasons I did a year ago… Let’s look over the list.
Oracle’s Acquisition of Sun and Java
This still stands… I don’t care for Oracle’s acquisition of Java very much. Now I know this really has very little to do with Android since the version of Java Google has frankensteined for Android development is a subset of the language. If Java had been open sourced, I wouldn’t care so much about this.
Language Performance
Objective C still performs better than Java, but you hardly notice it since hardware had caught up to iPhone these days.
Fragmentation
I ported an iOS application to Android a few months ago. It was a simple application but I had a very difficult time. All of the choices for phones to support and resolutions and testing. Fragmentation is worse today than it was a year ago. Maybe with Google’s acquisition of Motorola, we’ll see a unified Android market that we can easily develop for. User Interface and Tools Interface Builder and XCode are still superior to Eclipse and Android SDK. Interface Builder is more intuitive and I can rapidly develop and interface in a fraction of the time I can in Android. Marketing and Control Google has started to catch on with respects to marketing and control of the crap that it was allowing into it’s store. This is not as much of a difference these days. I figure that it will get even more and more comparable.
Malware, viruses and Spam apps
Google has done a much better job of vetting and removing these types of apps… My hats off to them for this. Now we’ve quickly reviewed my reasons from last year… let’s look at a few new ones.
1. There is no competing tablet for the iPad as of yet…. This is a huge deal since I can target two popular devices with a single project. Also, once I am done with an iPhone application, I can easily convert that application to and iPad project and then customize it to provide a richer interface for the iPad.
2. Binary Plist…. No doubt the fastest way to transmit and consume data from a Web Service on iOS. Android developers prefer JSON because other than XML, it is pretty much the defacto standard. JSON is really fast but really slow compared to Plist.
I could throw a few more into this list but I think it is enough for now. To the Android fanboy that suggested this a year ago, thanks for making me do it… I am grateful.
I would hardly call the previous commenter a fanboy for pointing out the flaws in your previous arguments. Nothing he wrote was worthy of derision or scorn as it was objective and constructive.
Your follow up post further highlights a lack of experience with the Android SDK and shows your inability see anything as positive if it falls outside the “perfect” development environment provided by Apple.
FYI: http://www.cocoanetics.com/2011/03/json-versus-plist-the-ultimate-showdown/ (there is some doubt)
It's funny how Android folks get offended if you call them fanboys. There isn't any doubt in my testing. I performance tested both and plist won every time… but what does it matter anyway. I use Plist for iOS and JSON for Android. Getting into a pissing match over this is just a silly as getting into a pissing match over iOS vs. Android.