Apple iOS 6 vs. Android vs. Windows Phone (Comparison Chart)

By Ginny Mies, Armando Rodriguez, Daniel Ionescu, PCWorldJun 11, 2012 3:15 PM

printApple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicked off today with the unveiling of iOS 6 for the iPhone and iPad. Apple is promising over 200 new features in the latest version of its mobile operating system, but only a few of them were highlighted in the keynote.

June is an exciting month for smartphone fanatics as Microsoft is expected to unveil the next generation of Windows Phone at an event next Wednesday, June 20 while Google is expected to reveal its plans for the next version of Android, codenamed "Jellybean."

While some of the features Apple announced today already exist on competing platforms, Apple is putting its own twist on these updates. For example, Siri, Apple's voice-activated virtual assistant, is even smarter now with support for sports, movies, and restaurants. Siri can also directly launch apps, but you still can't control these third-party apps with your voice.
Apple is also breaking up with Google Maps and launching its own Maps application with iOS 6. It includes local business information, Yelp integration, real-time traffic updates, and turn-by-turn navigation. Naturally, Apple has also added Siri integration to maps so you can ask questions along your journey such as, "Are we there yet?" or "Where's the next gas station?" Apple has also added a 3D/fly-over mode to its Maps application, which shows you detailed 3D models of buildings and landmarks.

These updates certainly give Microsoft and Android something to chew on. While both competing platforms offer voice-command support, those features are crude in comparison to Siri's artificial intelligence and natural dictation. Microsoft's Bing Maps could definitely use a revamp in the next version of Windows Phone as its turn-by-turn directions feature is quite clunky (you must tap your phone at each turn).
We'll be revisiting this comparison later this month as Microsoft and Google roll out new versions of their respective mobile platforms.

Ref:pcworld

2012-06-26

App Retention Increasing; iPhone(IOS 7 lakh) Ahead of Android(4 lakh)

In great news for the mobile app market, app retention rates are improving as app publishers shift from an early focus on “downloads” to more mature customer acquisition and retention models. The overall app industry improved retention rates 19% over the last year. App publishers for the iPhone and iPad saw the greatest success, with retention rates 52% higher than those on Android.

Apps Marketing Evolves

In the early days of the App Store and Android Market (Google Play) publishers focused on developing an initial presence and, with the limited data available, could only measure success by the total number of downloads. However, many of those downloads were poorly acquired and never turned into long-term customers.

In March 2011, Localytics published research finding that 26% of downloaded apps were only used one time. Fortunately, another 26% of customers used new apps more than 10 times. This contributed to a shift in app marketing away from download metrics to a focus on customer retention and lifetime value that is producing results one year later.

Among customers who first downloaded a phone or tablet app in 3Q 2011, compared to 3Q 2010, both one-time usage and long-term retention numbers improved. One-time usage of apps dropped over 15%, from 26% to 22%. More importantly, those who used an app more than 10 times in the following months improved 19%, growing from 26% to 31%.

Apps Become Even More Dominant

As app customer retention rates improve, apps are increasing their dominance over the mobile. Nielsen reported that the average number of apps on a smartphone increased from 32 to 41 and apps’ share of internet usage increased from 73% to 81% in the last year.
Comparisons with the online web are also revealing. Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism released their 2012 State of the News Media report in March 2012. The report found that 29% of news app users launched the app more than 10 times — per month. That compares very favorably to the fewer than 10% of online users who visited a news website more than 10 times per month.
One of the key takeaways of these studies is that a publisher’s app and web users are very different. Websites attract many casual users who arrive from search, social or referring links. App users more purposefully install an app and return directly to it, self-selecting themselves as more qualified and more valuable customers.
iPhone & iPad Crushing Android App Retention

But not all apps are created equally. Delving deeper into the retention and user metrics, iPhone and iPad users are 52% more loyal to their apps than Android users. A healthy 35% of Apple iOS users launched an app more than 10 times after downloading, compared to 23% of Android users. The average Android app also suffers from 24% one-time usage rate compared to just 21% one-time usage rate for iPhone and iPad.


Improvements in both platforms suggests that many app publishers are simply building better apps, whether the app targets the mass market or a niché market. The general public surely gained experience over the last year too, and are likely making more informed, discerning choices about what apps to try.

iPhone’s far greater app retention rates is also an echo of the 94% retention rate of iPhone itself compared to 47% for Android (Piper Jaffray). When users upgrade from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4S, they might download the same apps (or transfer them) to their new device. In most cases, that iPhone 4S will look “new” to the app publisher even though the user might have months of prior exposure to the app on the older iPhone 3GS. To correctly identifying returning users across devices, publishers need to record registration data as part of their app analytics.

Methodology

Localytics provides app analytics for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and HTML5 apps on over 300 million devices. Two of the key metrics provided are the number new users and the retention of those new users. For this study, Localytics compared the retention rates of two cohorts: users who first downloaded an app to a new device in Q3 2010 and users who first downloaded in Q3 2011. The retention metrics for each cohort are based on how many times apps were launched on the devices through March 15th of the following year. All results are based on worldwide app usage.

Ref:localytics.com

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