A large-scale investigation into the demand for mobile developers has revealed that Google’s Android operating system is seeing greater demand than ever before, and is on track to overtake demand for iPhone developers in 2012.
The investigation was conducted by Freelancer.com, a global freelance outsourcing site which allows employers to post jobs and have users bid to take them on. The site looked at the number of iPhone development jobs posted in the second quarter of the year versus the amount of Android development postings (from a total of around 110,000 posted jobs). They found that although the iPhone is still seeing the most demand, Android is closing fast. Between April and June there were 1,702 Android jobs versus 2,985 iPhone, however Android’s figure was up a massive 20% on Q1, whereas iPhone job postings only increased a modest 9% in the same period. iPad-specific jobs also increased far less than Android – by around 11%.
While Android began to leave iOS in its wake in terms of sales several months ago (Google CEO Larry Page announced last week the search giant was now activating 550,000 devices per day), Apple’s App Store has maintained the lead in terms of app quality and developer profitability, with a number of studies showing that iOS owners are far more likely to buy paid apps. The Android Market sports a much higher percentage of ad-supported free apps, and the lack of any approval process means a few bad eggs slip through. However it’s important to bear in mind many apps are not directly profit-driven, such as banking and consumer apps, or social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. These services simply need to make sure their users can take advantage of their apps, and Android’s increasing popularity dictates an incresed demand for developers.
The numbers from Freelancer.com could show the beginning of a developer shift towards Android. Popular location-based social network FourSquare recently planted their stake in the ground by releasing an updated Android app before its iOS equivalent – the company had first released on iOS and had until recently treated both operating systems as equal.
