Comment by palata
4 hours ago
Wow I don't get all the downvotes I'm getting for that.
You answered to:
>> I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore.
With a list of apps, some of which only listed because they got Android support a few months later. And some of which I have never heard of (SmartSDR?).
I get why those apps matter to you, but it feels a bit arbitrary. While the quote refers to something that was more general (which suggests that "at a point, iOS had a lot more quality apps"). I am just saying that the answer "no but I checked the app I like on iOS and a handful of them don't exist on Android" was kind of one anecdotal data point in the discussion.
And my point about Android having a bigger market share was that my intuition is that probably popular apps end up on Android eventually, or alternatives exist.
I honestly really don't care if people prefer iOS, Android, GrapheneOS, or a Linux for mobile distro.
>I get why those apps matter to you, [...] I am just saying that the answer "no but I checked the app I like on iOS and a handful of them don't exist on Android" was kind of one anecdotal data point in the discussion.
No, you don't get why it matters to me. You assuming my comment was just a personal list of my favorite apps is way off base. To be clear, I have never installed nor used any of those apps on either iOS nor Android.
So if I don't have any personal connection to those apps, why do I have that list handy?!? Because I was researching possible coding strategies for a new smartphone app:
- have 2 separate native mobile codebases (Swift AND Kotlin) from the start and therefore can release at the same time on both Apple App Store and Google Play. Difficult and expensive. Finite time and funds means both native apps suffer from less features and polish.
- or start with deliberate handicap of just 1 native codebase (e.g. iOS-only for initial launch) and see if it can attract revenue/funding to pay for the other native codebase (e.g. then Android). Or do the reverse of Android-first-then-iOS. Focusing on just 1 native platform means the app is higher quality. However, the risk is a clone app could quickly show up on the other platform I didn't code for.
- or 1 cross-platform toolkit with something like React Native which is what Meta and Microsoft Office apps like Outlook did.
That was why and how that list was created. The purpose was to get enough industry examples to form a generalization of what others did. I often do software research and my notes let me make lists about it. (Another one of my comments listing software I don't personally use but I do know the monthly costs : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42331312)
I thought the iOS apps list was a neutral comment full of factual information and also counterbalanced with the areas where Android has an enormous influence. Yet somehow, my comment is still interpreted as some type of smear on Android. If you're confused about downvotes, I am too!
If you go back to the gp's comment I replied to, he literally asked: >"What else is there, where is the advantage?"
This thread is full of people replying with examples of the "what else". How could any of us seriously answer that question without the answers being criticized as "arbitrary" ?