Skip, I'm surprised you feel the App experience on both platforms are equivalent, as I've found that is not the case as even a cursory comparison of games availability for example on each platform reveals gaping holes in Android's inventory. 

Also, as John "DVD" Lech Johanssen the developer of the most popular iTunes replacement in the Android MarketPlace says, there are far more quality apps on the iOS app store.  

Let's look more closely at the largest segment - games - to get some hard data.  The Android OS is severely lacking in big name game titles released by all of the largest mobile Game publishers:
* Gameloft – 136 games for iOS vs 12 games for Android
* Capcom Mobile – 27 games for iOS vs 4 games for Android
* EA – 74 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Ngmoco – 42 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Pangea – 24 games for iOS vs 0 for Android
* Popcap – 5 for iOS vs 0 for Android
* ID's new game Rage is only being produced for iOS

And total number of games:
iOS = 38,000 vs Android = 13,000

Although Popcap and EA have said they will start porting some games to Android soon, this disparity is not likely to change much with iOS developers making 50x the income ($1 billion) compared to Android ($21 million) over a similar timeframe  according to Larva Labs and with piracy ranging from 50-97% on Android.

The situation is the same for business apps.  The Android App market just does not compare to iOS.

The number of Android apps is deceptive because anyone is allowed to upload apps and none of them are reviewed or checked for quality or to make sure they aren't spam, malware or just "hello world" apps. 

As a result, 45,000 of the 100,000 apps in the Android Marketplace are spam apps according to AppBrain. Likewise over 50 phishing apps masquerading as Banking apps, a wallpaper app that actually sent premium SMS texts and quite a number of spyware and adware apps have plagued the Marketplace.  

As such, when you actually do a bit more digging it becomes  apparent that if apps are your thing, you would indeed be limiting or shortchanging yourself by buying an Android phone instead of the iPhone. 

-Mart

I neglected to mention that many commentators point to Android phones having a larger marketshare than the iPhone means more potential customers for developers. However, it is only unit sales of Android phones in the last quarter that have surpassed the iPhone, but of course the iOS platform is far larger than just the iPhone. When you take sales of the iPod Touch and the iPad into account, more iOS devices are sold every day (275,000 - 300,000) than Android devices (200,000 - 250,000).

In addition, the existing installed base of iOS devices is around 130 million compared to 30-40 million Android devices, so developers have a larger target market in iOS users that is growing at a faster rate than Android and that is acknowledged to purchase more apps (17.2 million) per day vs the number 2 store GetJar which only manages 3 million per day.

All up, it is evident that Android faces many challenges to get anywhere close to matching iOS in the App scene meaning that for the foreseeable future, any app-oholic would be unwise to go the Android route at this point in time.

-Mart

Does Android have a decent Craigslist client? I find myself spending a lot of time with that app.

@Mart - interesting data points. However, with over 50,000 non-spam apps in the Android marketplace, the app-oholic would hardly be deprived on Android. Both markets are large enough now so that success is more a function of whether the must-have killer apps are available.

Also, Apple's tightfisted control of their app store filters out legitimate apps, not just spam. The often arbitrary review process imposes costs, risks, and inefficiencies on developers that do not exist with Google. (My friend's company built a salesforce.com client that took months for Apple to approve, and by the time they did, the company had given up and moved on to other things.) For this reason, I don't think it will be long before the Android app market surpasses Apple's in breadth and depth.

@Sean
At this point in time the must-have killer app is games (they are the most popular category) and as the figures above demonstrate, Android is missing the vast majority of these - both top tier names and home-grown dark horses.

As far as Apple's approval policies are concerned, they loosened up significantly a few months ago so that even Google Voice and browsers like Opera and Skyfire are now available for iOS and the average time for approval is now sitting at 4.05 days with a max of 24 days according to 148Apps.biz.

For those apps that Apple doesn't approve, Jail breaking is now legal under the DMCA and the Cydia Store is well stocked with options. Most Andoid geeks also jailbreak (root) their phones to get around the less-than-open policies of carriers.

Even with Google's policy of allowing absolutely any junk, spam or malware into the Marketplace, the number of new iOS apps per week still outnumbers Android. Developers go where the money is and it is just not on Android as Larva Labs found:

"Overall we estimate that $6,000,000 has been paid out to developers for games, and $15,000,000 has been paid out on apps. That is a total of $21,000,000, nearly 1/50th the amount paid out to devs on iPhone.

This really indicates how much of a cottage industry the paid Android Market remains, with insufficient sales numbers to warrant full-time labor for paid content”

With this sort of data, it is not surprising that iOS developers outnumber Android devs 43,185 to 10,199 according to AppStore HQ.

-Mart

One might get the impression that Android is a unified OS where every app works on every phone. Developers know that this is not the case, and many, but not all users do. But to ignore the issue completely or to hand wave it away is misleading at best. Apple somewhat heavy-handed iOS and App Store control issues have as one positive outcome that buyers know that the apps they buy will actually work on their own device.

Oh, and here's what John "DVD " Lech Johansen, the author of DoubleTwist the popular iTunes replacement for Android has this to say about the Marketplace:
"Google does far too little curation of the Android Market, and it shows. Unlike Apple’s App Store, the Android Market has few high quality apps.... just a few examples of what’s wrong with the Android Market. ... 144 spam ringtone apps (which are clearly infringing copyright) are currently cluttering the top ranks of the Multimedia category... Developers and users are getting fed up and it’s time for Google to clean up the house."

-Mart

@Mart

I can't speak about games since I don't really play too many games. iPhone may well have better games. But I can say that I found the Android apps *better* than the iPhones apps. And almost all of them have to do with the usability of the apps. The lack of multitasking really killed usability of iOS for me. Apple's done a lot to narrow the gap with iOS4, but then Android's gone further again with voice input. The seamlessness of locating a store by using a voice input or the search widget, finding the store. Adding it to contacts, looking it up on the map and getting driving directions and navigation is all such a smooth operation. iPhone apps all look sexy. But suffer from usability. With DropBox and KeePass, I can seamlessly download my personal information updated on the PC and open the Android KeePass application. The lack of file system access means that while I can do the same with the iPhone, it's more cumbersome. These are just a couple of examples. I could go on.

For most people, the iPhone may well be good enough. But it was like a breath of fresh air when I switched from the iPhone to Android.

You do bring up good points. But I should point out that the developers who complain most about Android fragmentation are either game developers (possibly with reason) or inexperienced developers. My two Andoid apps moved from 1.1 through 1.2 without much effort at all and the same app runs on all versions of Android. If you write to the API, don't use absolute layouts, use device independent pixels, you are unlikely to run into too much trouble. I was pleased to find out that my app worked beautifully on the Samsung Tab without changing a line of code and unlike the iPad, it looked excellent. Of course the UI needs to be changed for the table to really utilize the extra space more efficiently, but that's the same on both platforms.

There certainly is fragmentation, but that's because phones are not being updated with the latest OS and Google needs to do something about it. But that's chaffing only for the power users who are really a minority (in both camps). Most users will not care and many will just go to the Market and install the apps that can run on their phones. The apps that can't run on their phones will not even be visible to them. Still, this is one area that Google needs to learn from Apple and tell the Carriers where to get off.

Developers will go where the money is and while it may currently still be with iPhone, it will not stay that way. It's a numbers game and Apple simply can't win. Even with all the iOS devices, Apple is just barely outselling Android *phones*. When tablets, Google TV etc., Nook, Toasters sprouting Androids will flood the market, Android devices will do to iOS devices what Android phones did to iPhones all 3 quarters this year - outsell by a margin of two to one.

@Millnd,
your comment that you find Android apps "better" than iOS apps is interesting as every article I've read to date has highlighted the opposite - that is many Android apps suffer from the same problem as Linux on the desktop - far too many options and settings for normal people, making it a great OS for geeks, but not the general populace.

I take your point about local file access and I agree that some improvements could be made in that area though the benefits that sand-boxing apps from each other makes in terms of security and malware protection shouldn't be understated.

Fragmentation has certainly proved to be a problem for at least one high-profile developer with a second version of the multi-million dollar selling Angry Birds app having to be created for compatibility with lower-performance Android phones. The fact that carriers are the cause of the vast majority of Android users not being able to update to the latest OS version remains a very big disadvantage for the Android platform.

In terms of the numbers game, the fact remains that iOS is comfortably ahead of ALL Android devices by between 120% - 138%. Android phone numbers already include most Android Tablets as the vast majority of Android Tablets include phone hardware (eg. Dell Streak, Galaxy Tab etc) in order to get access to the Android Marketplace. The number of tablets that don't include cell phone hardware is tiny as the iPad has captured 95% of the tablet market for the last two straight quarters with Android dropping from 2.9% last quarter to 2.3% in the most recent quarter.

In terms of Android-based media players, the iPod continues it's juggernaut status capturing between 70-80% marketshare with the iPod Touch making up the majority of those numbers. There have been approximately as many iPod Touches sold in the last 3 years as the entire installed base of Android devices to date.

The iPod has demonstrated that an "open" OS or ecosystem does not always win as the many big players in the Plays For Sure alliance found to their chagrin as the iPod and the iTunes Music and Media stores have continued to obliterate the best efforts of Microsoft, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Samsung, SanDisk, Creative, Archos, etc for the last 9 years.

It has become very evident in recent times that Apple now has the upper hand when it comes to component pricing due to the vast economies of scale that competitors can only dream about. For example, have you seen the new Galaxy Player 50, Samsung's attempt at competing with the iPod Touch? It is fatter, has only16% of the screen resolution, half the battery life, no HD video recording, no VC camera, lower storage and yet it is only $30 cheaper than Apple's device.

Likewise, notice that Android manufacturers have been completely incapable of competing with the iPad (95.5% marketshare). The best they can do is release tablets with less than half the screen size and tie them to expensive 2 year contracts and even then they are not cheaper.

No, there is absolutely no guarantee that Android will walk into the Tablet or Media Player or TV markets and capture a majority share. Carrier subsidies, exclusivity agreements and other artificial barriers make the phone market a special case that one would be foolish to assume would point to success in these other device categories.

-Mart

@Mart - One last point regarding the future of the app market on both platforms.

Having recently upgraded my 2-year old iPhone to the iPhone 4, I was extremely underwhelmed. Yes, the screen looks a little nicer and it runs faster. Big whoop, there's absolutely nothing revolutionary about it. It appears that Apple's platform is reaching it's innovation asymptote.

That means Android and iPhone are essentially competing on nuts and bolts features - e.g., camera resolution, screen quality, size, weight, reception, price. Given all of the hardware vendors Android has on its side, I think it has the advantage with consumers in that kind of fight. And where consumers go, the apps will follow.

Interesting discussion.

@Sean,
The dominance of the iPod for the last 9 years against a myriad of different competitors demonstrates that it is not about the nuts and bolts or who has the best spec sheet or most choice at all.

Just about every iPod competitor has boasted features that iPods were lacking for a long time whether it was FM receivers or transmitters, wifi, SD card slots, removable batteries, bigger screens etc.

However people kept and still keep buying iPods decimating the Plays For Sure partners and leaving Microsoft's Zune with a 1% rounding error market share.

Why is that? Well a large part of the reason is the ecosystem. The iTunes player software and the online iTunes store continue to capture 70-80% marketshares and end users have all built up large libraries of music, videos, movies and now apps which makes for a large disincentive to migrating to a different platform.

Also, the iPod and iPhone rule the roost in 3rd party hardware peripherals. Walk into any store and what do you see? Rows and rows of iPod and iPhone cases, iOS dock connector equipped HiFi systems, clock radios, car kits, GPS amplifiers, bike mounts, sports arm bands and other peripherals. Buy a new car and you find that 70% have iPod/iPhone connectivity options and steering wheel integration.

With no other individual phone model or manufacturer coming anywhere near the unit sales of the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, and no common Android dock connector standard or form factor, there remains no motivation whatsoever for hardware peripheral manufacturers to stop giving Apple their virtually undivided attention.

The vast success of the iPod, iTunes, the App Store and the iPad all indicate that there is no guarantee whatsoever that Android will win significant marketshare in the media player, tablet, Auto or TV markets. This means that numbers-wise, iOS may very well maintain it's lead over Android in quarterly sales as well as installed base into the future.

Even if, quarterly sales numbers-wise, Android does manage to someday surpass iOS, the severe lack of profitability, high piracy rates and reluctance of Android users to actually pay for apps all means that iOS will continue to be by far the most profitable for developers and result in the iOS App ecosystem continuing to be the richest in numbers, quality and depth of choice.

If you are an app fan as Skip Ferderber professes to be, or you have a yearning for the largest array of top tier games on your mobile device, then on all the evidence presented, Android is a poor second best choice to iOS.

-Mart

I live in an area that Verizon covers, but the ATT does a very poor job, so no iPhone for me until Verizon finally get it.

Yes, Google has pretty much said "the App is the Browser".

This is its strategy for Chrome as well.

They correctly envision a light weight browser type platform on the client, with the Cloud hosting "apps".

As you may have seen, it is quite easy to simulate a Desktop using JQuery/Javascript, so over time, the Google approach should dominate.