Daring Fireball's John Gruber reckons Android's lack of exclusive games is a significant gap
What factors make an iPhone user jump ship to an Android handset?
According to technology blogger John Gruber of Daring Fireball, it comes down to one thing alone: apps. More specifically, exclusive apps.
In a piece titled 'Where Are the Android Killer Apps?', Gruber goes to great lengths to explain just why, having previously been a Nexus One owner, he doesn't actually miss his brief experience with the Android platform.
In Gruber's view, Android lacks any exclusive body of apps beyond those that exploit areas of the OS barred by Apple that would make an average iPhone user jealous.
As such, Google's platform trails iPhone by some distance, because Apple has sculpted its handset into an 'app console' a format that, like Xbox 360 or PS3, attracts consumers by flaunting a line up of exclusive software.
Console wars
"I'm talking about third-party developer exclusives - and the only ones Android has are ones that Apple doesn't want," Gruber says in the entry.
Using a list of the top 30 Android apps of all time compiled by guest contributor Alex Ahlund on TechCrunch, Gruber summarises that the majority of top games on the platform are either already available on iPhone, or are simply clones of top iOS franchises like Doodle Jump.
"Compare and contrast with the library of exclusive games for iOS," Gruber adds.
"Just in the past few days alone, I've bought three new exclusive iOS games, any one of which would surely beat any of the exclusive Android games on Ahlund's list of all-time best ones: Astronut from The Iconfactory, Rage HD from Id Software, and Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner from LucasArts.
"That games of this caliber are all exclusive to iOS is, arguably, the biggest hole in the argument that Android is to iOS what Windows was to the Mac. Say what you want about the quality edge that Mac software holds over Windows, but Windows has always had the games."
App appeal?
However, just why Android isn't able to compete with Apple and serve up an app console is a mystery.
Gruber claims developers are currently using Android Market as an alternative to Cydia rather than the App Store itself, serving up emulators blocked from sale on Apple's marketplace.
In contrast, after less than a month on sale, Windows Marketplace on Windows Phone 7 currently boasts a number of former App Store exclusives that are still absent from Android Assassin's Creed, Need for Speed: Undercover and Star Wars: Battle for Hoth to name a few although Microsoft's decision to put its money where its mouth is might explain a large portion of its draw with developers.
Nonetheless, Gruber claims Android is currently a long way from challenging iPhone on the app front, even though the platform is ultimately proving popular at the tills.
"Android, today, is thriving despite the fact that its third-party software library is very weak compared to iOS's," he concludes.
"It's not that most top-notch mobile apps are written for iOS - its that almost all of them are, despite the fact that Android, by most accounts, has surpassed iOS in phone sales and perhaps drawn even in unit sales overall.
"Android developer support has grown over the past year, but at nowhere near a rate that's commensurate with the growth in Android handset sales."
[source: Daring Fireball]