N1120A

I'd want to look at the stats for Bay Area iPhone vs. Android penetration. I'd imagine that heavily affects this, as United's highest yield hub and most tech penetrated hub is SFO.

planemechanic

Facts have nothing to do with snobbery. Apple device owners USE their devices, SPEND more money on them, and HAVE more disposable income than the typical android user. Simple FACT.

Why would any company decide to support an OS owned by the opposite demographic noted above?

Incorrect, though if you meant to say that more then half of smartphone owners out there own android devices you would be correct. The problem is that many studies have shown that the average iOS user actually USES their devices to a much higher degree. Pay is one clear example, it took the leadership role in wireless payments within weeks of release, because iOS owners actually USE their devices, unlike the average android user.

LASUA1K

The fact remains, more Android Devices sold, but more iphone users actually use apps than Android users.

Androids are flooded with free upgraders.

Bonehead

Thay have to. Apple devices have been overpriced relative to the competition since the PC was in diapers.

embarcadero1

This is just fanciful thinking. iOS device use skews wealthier, largely because of Apple's insistence on the tie in to their e-commerce ecosystem.

Android users are more diverse, just about equally divided between high and lower end users. That said, Android users are much more likely to be extreme mobile users. iOS users almost always have other iOS devices and are relatively less likely to carry out complex transactions on their phones. Those with Android devices on the low end are much more likely to be mobile-only.

The real reason companies release on iOS first is that it's easier and cheaper to assemble a team of iOS developers than it is to do the same job for Android.

planemechanic

Despite all facts to the contrary.

StingWest

I think this was spoken in jest - the part about the upgrades anyway!

--- from an avid Android user, app downloader (and upgrader)!

PS: Scott Penderson's explanation (#2 above) is probably correct - there are many nuances to the various Android device choices - making Apple (with its closed architecture) an easier implementation.

embarcadero1

To the best of my knowledge, there are no "facts" that claim that iOS users engage with more apps or are more engaged with e-commerce outside the Apple ecosystem.

The best publicly available report I know of is here: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/0...e-use-in-2015/

A few salient facts:

- 64% of US adults have smartphones
- About 10% of these smartphone sees have no other broadband access at home
- The younger the user and the lower the user's income (both highly inter correlated), the more intense the use of the smartphone.

Apple products have a specialist audience: they are older and somewhat wealthier than the population of smartphone users as a whole, which is overwhelmingly younger.

However, the older the user, the less likely that the user will rely on a mobile device for complex transactions. Android users are about evenly divided between high end devices (where demographics mirror iOS) and entry level devices.

The wealthier and the older a user, the less intense the use of smartphones is likely to be. About half this group has iOS devices. Younger and lower income users are much heavier smartphone users, and they're much more likely to have Android devices.

These are the only facts I know of. Planemechanic, if you're aware of any other published data, I'd welcome reading it.

Otherwise, the idea that iOS users are somehow more likely to use apps more often or to use them to buy airline related stuff is simply unsupported by empirical data.

jackadler1966

embarcadero1, here are some online reports I've found :

"As with holiday 2014 the larger share of mobile traffic and commerce came from iOS devices. IBM said that iOS devices drove 3X the e-commerce sales of Android. Apple users spent just under $100 per order vs. $79 for Android users."

marketingland.com/mobile-drives-nearly-half-e-commerce-traffic-pc-still-rules-sales-report-118629

"iOS accounted for a quarter of online purchases, compared to less than 7% for Android devices. Average order value was also higher, at $118.57 compared to Android’s $95.25 … "

9to5mac.com/2014/11/28/ios-ecommerce/

" iOS users spent $93.94 per order, nearly twice that of Android users, who spent just $48.10."

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple...ommerce-2014-1

These analytic reports are measuring total e-commerce, including merchants outside of Apple's ecosystem.

Another report shows iphone vs. Android has no age gap (both 40yo) but a sizable income gap ($85K vs. $61K)

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Dat...-Android-Users

embarcadero1

Thanks for the links to some interesting articles. Two notes of caution:

I would be very cautious about interpreting event driven numbers. The first two links are to reports on analytics from Valentines Day and Thanksgiving, respectively. I'm not so sure how these events relate to consumer behavior in general.

The last link misses out on the key to the puzzle: while iOS users are relatively uniform in their income and age, Android users show a bipolar distribution. About half are below-median age and income, the other half above.

In all of these comparisons, that demographic feature of Android will always add clarity to the analysis. Yes, iOS users skew older and wealthier than smartphone users as a whole, but it would be foolish to compare all iOS users to all Android users.

The rule of thumb from the Pew studies holds: the younger the user, the more likely that the platform of choice is Android, and the more likely that the use is either mosly mobile or mobile only. The Valentines Day study you cite reinforces this, as smartphones led traffic, but tablets led sales.

In my industry, we've found that developing for iOS is invariably easier but turns out to be a self-limiting strategy. As with the more public case of Über, targeting iOS is a good way to carve out a relatively affluent group that ultimately turns out to be too small to scale.

There are a couple of other articles that claim to show that Android users are, on the whole, more engaged. But I think they miss the point as well. An apples to apples comparison would be by device type, not by platform. You'd want to compare high end Android devices to iOS devices only:

Order value difference negligible:
http://www.businessinsider.com/andro...umbers-2014-11

Android has higher app engagement:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjon...ommerce-sales/

LASUA1K

Sorry, it was not. Honestly, I walk into Tmobile or ATT, and guess what phone I'm shown first. An Android device that is free to upgrade too.

Again, the fact remains, more Android Devices are sold, BUT, IOS users USE APPs more often, as 50% of Android users have 0 use for apps. My dad, in his late 70's wanted a flip phone, nope, he was sold a free upgrade with an Android device.

You can google the stats and see that Android users use app's less frequency. Our company, we develop both Android and IOS, and it's not even close. IOS accounts for more usage than Android, even though Android devices double Apple devices.

jackadler1966

Thanks embarcadero1, but also remember that airline apps are used to drive spend, so the more important metrics to look at are income and total spend, not just mobile tendency.

Globally, there is a strong correlation between iOS penetration and per capita GDP (with select countries in Europe being the exception) (see Kantar Worldpanel surveys)

embarcadero1

That's true, but there's a hazard in confusing correlation with causality. That hazard grows as a function of the heterogeneity of a population. You might use that correlation to choose iOS as a standard, but you'd better not be counting on business from Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, China... You get the idea.

If I were running tecops for a global airline, I would certainly develop and release for both platforms simultaneously.

jackadler1966

Singapore is definitely a first world nation, and it shouldn't be lumped with the other "up and coming" giants. Singapore with a 56/40 split between Android and iPhone, which isn't far from the US (54/42). Japan is the most even at 48/48 even split.

Obviously simultaneous dev is the best goal, but if you're constrained by resources and must prioritize one, many developers and corporations have chosen to prioritize for iOS partially for ease of testing but more importantly for its demographics. (MS Windows runs on a ton of device configurations, but you rarely see desktop app developers prioritizing MacOS X over Windows for "ease for testing".)

Corporations are simply following the money.

seagar

Interesting debate of Android vs. iOS but let's not give UAL credit for doing too much marketing. This is all about IT getting a product out the door quickly and with the least concern for 'oddities'. IT knows too well that there is only one Apple device vs. the many Android devices which have many variables. Processors, radio band, interfaces, etc. can be different requiring more effort for less bang quickly-one device is not 100% the same as the next. Windows phones face a similar challenge as Androids but Win10 may change that.