Specifics of application development for iOS and Android. Are you Apple or Android lover?

In the previous article, we talked about the basic facts surrounding the iOS and Android operating systems . Today we want to have a look at our ongoing development of applications on various platforms. At Synetech, we develop applications for iOS and Android, and our teams are fighting hard for the truth of their platform. How do the development guarantors from our team work with these systems? What suits them and what would they like to borrow from the competition? Read an interview with Jirka "Speedy" Rychlovský (Android) and Vojta Pajer (iOS).

An age-old duel of iOS vs Android fans

It's like Brno and Prague: two camps that are waging an age-old struggle. Whether you're carrying an iPhone in your pocket or trying to avoid everything coming out of Steve Jobs' workshop, you've probably ever had to defend the choice of your phone in front of supporters of the opposite camp. It is no different here.

What can you hear in our corridors or read in our conversations over Slack?

"Android can be trusted to the level when, right after I process a necessary operation in internet banking app, I immediately delete it again." 😊

"Do you know when a version of the iPhone with usb-c, a 120+ Hz screen or a fingerprint reader on the display will come out? Or at least with a normal price?"

"Even iOS users prefer Google Maps…"

"…It's just here that Apple maps are worth a fart, in the US it is much better." 😊

"So Android may be innovating, but realistically you only have Android 11 on Google Pixel Devices which is only about 0.1% of users."

"Unlike Siri, Google Assistant doesn't fall asleep…" 😊

"…Unlike Google, Siri doesn't send all the data back to Apple."

"I'm distancing myself from these debates. It seems to me that making fun of Android is the same as throwing stones at a small defenseless child." 😊

Similar discrepancies exist within the development of applications for iOS and Android. We just asked Jirka and Vojta about them.

In what language do your teams program and what technologies do they need to master?

Jirka (Android): Our programming language is Kotlin, which has become the official language for Android application development. We work in Android Studio, which is a development environment that has replaced the original, largely loose and often buggy environment, Eclipse. It is built on IntelliJ from Jetbrains, which for me is one of the best IDEs on the market.

Vojta (iOS): The official programming language for iOS application development is Swift , which is tailor-made for the operating system. Some older applications still use Objective-C, but it's hardly workable anymore. Our development environment is XCode, which Apple created itself to create applications in.

What makes each platform unique and what do you enjoy about it?

Jirka (Android): I enjoy how variable the platform is, you have to take care of a lot of things and you never know what will happen on some particular "device". It's also nice that you can actually produce anything and always somehow bypass the default regulations and rules. Our system is more benevolent. I also like the end result design of the applications more, iOS is very minimalist. Android is more intuitive for me.

Vojta (iOS): I like the minimalist design of iOS applications. They’re "smooth". It’s true, not everything is allowed, they kind of "lead you by the hand", but not in the wrong sense. They set the direction that developers can take. And Swift as a language is absolutely great!

Is there anything you would borrow from another platform?

Jirka (Android): Maybe it is the upsides of simplicity. There are actually downsides with the freedom that Android allows. Every manufacturer can do whatever they want. You have to adapt to a lot of different devices and displays. iOS has everything clearly lined up - you know exactly what device is capable of and the type of display. And that's easier. The downside of Android is the support it has for many versions of the operating system. Developing for iOS is easier in this regard, Up to 80% of the users on Apple have the latest OS a month after its release.

Vojta (iOS): The ability to modularize the code is great on Android. In terms of clarity, "reusability" and probably speed, it's very nice. It can more or less be simulated on iOS, but not quite.

What makes your development team strong on your platform?

Jirka ( Android): I can probably say for both platforms that our added value is reactive development. This means that we do everything asynchronously. We don't wait for something to happen, because it's going to be happening somewhere in the background and it's not blocking us. We also use multimodular architecture, which is recommended by Google and we are good at it. Usually we dig something up before Google prepares it. We apply the latest innovations in application development.

Vojta (iOS): We don't use multimodular architecture, but we basically do MVVM (Model-View-View-Model), which we have modified a bit to suit us. We are thus able to estimate the length of tasks within hours with very good accuracy, which is praised by our clients. We also have quite a lot of know-how in augmented reality and we also liked the newly added Swift Package a lot. Thanks to them, we can capture recurring patterns on projects, which we extract into our internal packages. These then simplify our development of other projects.

Developing applications for iOS or Android… the key is to have fun with it

There could certainly be many more reasons why one system is better or worse. But more important for us is that we can constantly develop and improve on both platforms.

But it's fun for us to talk about, we don't have any intention to give up the bickering between the platforms :) It's a folklore that we actually enjoy. And what about you, do you have any guaranteed reasons for why you think your operating system preferences are justified? Write them to us!

Would you like to strengthen our ranks at SYNETECH and come bat for one of the teams? Contact us, we are always happy to welcome new reinforcements on both sides of the barricade.

Are you interested in developing an application for Android, iOS or both? Contact us, we will be happy to talk about it also.

Who are our Jirka and Vojta platform guarantors? What are they doing at SYNETECH and what is their experience?