Ask HN: Launch iOS/Android/Both?

3 points·sushidev··8 comments

Hi Everybody

I think this question applies to really almost any app/startup. What do you think should we launch: one version on one of the platforms or both? If one then which one?

EDIT: More specifically - I'm talking about tablets (iPad/Android tablet of choice).

Yours, sushidev

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Well you decide if you can afford financially to make both in the same time, but if your app gets hyped a lot on blogs and such and it's a good app, too, I can tell you potential users will get angry with you for not launching for their platform as well.

Eventually we intend to launch for both platforms, but the question is whether it's worth the effort to do it at the initial launch.

What functionality do you require that only a native mobile application can provide?

One option is a mobile-optimized web application, with simple native apps wrapping your URL, one for each supported mobile platform.

Well, I can't tell more about the application but one of the requirements is for it to work offline. Doesn't it cut out the web app option? Otherwise maybe I can set up a local http server on the device?

There is offline local storage in HTML5 [1]. It is supported by recent versions of iOS and Android. A local HTTP server should not be necessary.

[1] http://diveintohtml5.org/storage.html

Actually 5mb is not enough for our needs but if we put that aside, still there is a problem of where to load the Web App itself from when the device is not online?

Or this is where the native wrapper comes in?

iPad only if tablet only: Android tablet market is still immature by comparison

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