Alright, I've been looking somewhat into Android development. Does anyone do app development? If so, I'd like to start a discussion/argument about which phone operating system is "better" all-around for programmers.

I'll start by making a case for Android dev:
1. Java (Android) > Objective-C (iOS) Objective-C is an incredibly verbose language, as Apple seems to constantly be trying to change things simply to become the standard, even if the changes don't make sense.
2. Android costs less; it only costs 20$ to be able to submit apps to the market, versus Apple's 100$.
3. Android has less apps; from a developer's standpoint, I see this as a plus. If there are less apps out there on the market, you have less competition, and your app will probably do better.
4. Android is a more "open" phone; as an example, emulators such as programs that can load roms for NES/SNES/GB/GBC/GBA/N64 are allowed and in fact plentiful on the Android market. The way I understand it, emulators are not allowed on the iOS app store. Also, with Android you can even have things like Ubuntu for Android. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen anything like that for iOS.

That's the way I see it; correct me if I'm wrong, of course. What do you think?

Objective-C... verbose? I always found it to be an very nice language that's simple in how it implements object orientation, and keeps essentially all compatibility with regular old C. Java on the other hand... can really get messy. Java's known to be on the more verbose side of languages, and I'd personally pit Objective-C somewhere in the middle in comparision. Of course, they have many features that are alike, but I would never call Objective-C "incredibly verbose" unless you're going to call Java "super incredibly verbose" as well.



Not sure if I see this as a valid sense of reasoning, since it's gonna cost you more if you want to gain part of a larger app market, with more opportunities.



Well, while it's not directly related, less apps usually means a smaller market in general. Which also means that there are fewer people buying apps in said market. Therefore, you'll have less competition for ideas, but you will have less sales.

To be honest I've never actually used Objective-C; however, I've only ever heard bad things about it, kind of like PHP. Maybe that's just my personal bias showing through. Certainly I didn't mean to put Java on a pedestal, it has its own problems.

Another thing is that Apple takes something like 30% of the profits on all apps in the market, versus Google's 0%.

Well, silly, you should try it out first before you make an assertion like that



Very true, but at the same time, the iOS market is quite a bit larger, so if you end out successful you should be able to end out way ahead of many Android developers.

If you consider the time and fees (i.e. Application fee) that go into an app, a lot of developers don't actually make a profit unless the app gets popular.

While yes, Obj-C does suck, so does Java.

Calling obj-c "verbose" in the same breath you talk about Java is a bit crazy, btw :p



More importantly for your likely uses, Android supports side loading so you can share your app with your friends without submitting to any marketplace.



Not really. Both have beyond massive marketplaces that it doesn't even make sense to worry about the raw number anymore. Latest numbers are something like 700,000 apps & 25 billion downloads for iOS and 500,000 apps & 15 billion downloads for Android. You're not going to stand out in either without have a very, very good app or very, very good marketing.



For learning, write for whichever one you have.

For most other cases, write for both.