Android-First!

The starting point of LBS wasn’t the release of iPhones, there where a lot of geeky stuff around before. But the explosion and exploitation of location as part of our Smartphone experience within apps came with the rapid growth of iPhone sales. It’s indisputable the number one gadget to create mainstream usage of LBS and who thought there would be a shift?

Last year we saw Google’s Android coming from nowhere and today it’s the dominating OS for Smartphones, but the flood of LBS apps hasn’t been as creative and fast growing as it was on Android; instead it is almost like two religions popped up. Pro iOS (now incorporating the iPads and iTouch as well) and Pro Android. Either or. Which is kind of stupid and stone age, think if someone said today “no, I can only use a Philips TV!”?

Anyway it has been a very strong trend for mobile service developers to first go iOS and then maybe Android if they could muster the challenge of moving to another platform (which means – is there enough money?). The standard analysis is that the consumer segments that run after iOS devices are not the same as the Android buyers. Arguments like these are common:

“they know it’s an iPhone they want while the ordinary consumer don’t know what Android means”

“The status of an iOS device is so much higher than of an Android device”

“iOS is for design people and Android is for Tech people”

These statements could be true, I doubt it, and I think all of this is now changing. A really interesting sign came today with Foursquare announcing that they will go Android first with their updated check-in LBS app. The pure amount of Android devices (independent if user knows Android or not) and the spread to continents, consumer groups and Smartphone models leads to the logical decision.

If it’s going to continue? I think so as long as the sales and activation of Android OS models continue. I’ll leave it to others to decide if it’s bad religion .