A recent report from mobile analytics firm Appfigures shows Google Play has finally overtaken iOS on total apps following one of the best year's for Android app growth.

Although the figure on its own is exciting, after looking at the figures released and the power of both apps stores, it is clear iOS is still just as good as Google Play, if not a bit better.

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IOS continues to be a bigger revenue source for developers, according to "Monument Valley" developer ustwo and "80 Days" co-founder Jon Ingold, both claiming iOS revenues to be significantly higher than Android.

Android's piracy is also quite a bummer for developers, compared to iOS' stricter controls over user experience. Ustwo once again provides data on piracy, claiming 5 percent of Android users paid for the game; compared to 40 percent on iOS (this includes unpaid installs). 

Both of those numbers are quite scary for developers, and points to why the free-to-play market is so prevalent on mobile, but Android is undoubtedly worse in regard to piracy.

The next big issue on the Android vs iOS debate is curation, something Google has started to use more on its own store, but not to the same extent as Apple's iOS Apps Store.

Neither store does curation well and both need to work on rules, transparency and also making sure bad, broken and/or malicious apps do not become available to users. Android has had its fair share of malware apps recently, but Apple has also mismanaged a bunch of app reviews, reportedly due to management issues.

The backbone of application development for Android and iOS plays a pivotal role for developers when choosing a primary platform, even though revenue also takes a big portion of the developer's choice as well.

Even though Apple is opening up iOS to more developer integration, Android still wins hands down in regard to what can be achieved on mobile, since it has far fewer barriers. However, iOS also has more efficient hardware like Touch ID and Apple Pay for developers to integrate, while Android has Samsung's crappy fingerprint sensor and Google Wallet.

People will argue till the end of time which platform is the best, but in terms of apps store it takes more than a simple "number of apps" or "number of app developers" to really become the best.

Source: appfigures

TagsGoogle Play, apps store, apps, developers, mobile