Recently Apple has been taking a severe beating on Wall Street. But is that beating justly deserved? More importantly, is it truly deserved in reference to its new global foe–Samsung?
No doubt the Cupertino company has a large-scale hardware competitor in the Korean electronics giant. And there is little doubt that Samsung is capable of producing very decent and competitive Android-based devices and able to market them affectively. But we think it is time to separate some fact from fiction and bring back a more balanced view about these two competitors and their head-to-head match up. We’ll do this by looking at the giant global building industry.
Looking at Developer Dollars and Attention
Architosh has recently published an extensive series on in-depth guides to apps for architects on the iPad. You may have seen these. In the enormous global industry for building design and delivery (AECO) where architects, engineers, contractors and owners spend millions each year on software to streamline efficiencies into their complex, data-heavy workflows, one device has truly take off: the iPad.
This is not to say that Android tablets do not have apps in this market space as well. They do. But in our research and our discussions with several key developers what we literally see is a market where the lion’s share of developer dollars and attention is firmly focused on Apple’s iOS–with a particular emphasis on iPad.
The Leaders Speak
Take Bluebeam Software, one of the hottest and fastest growing software players in the AECO (architecture, engineering, construction, owners) industry. When it comes to mobile platforms they are not even on Android. Their mobile tools are on Apple iPad and Windows tablet PC. When users of their software asked about Android on their website forums last summer an official company response stated that “requests from our customers for an iOS-based solution have been outpacing Android by a very wide margin over the past two years, and this is before we even consider feedback from our largest customers in AEC. Many of whom plan to implement iPads on the job site.” (see forum posts here).
Just last month Architosh published an interview by one of the brightest software newcomers in AEC from Finland–a company called CadFaster, Inc. They have had stellar reception of their CadFaster | Collaborate product for AEC and SolidWorks users worldwide. Their innovative mobile and cloud-based software works with CAD and BIM leaders Autodesk Revit, Bentley Microstation and Nemetschek Vectorworks Architect.
Tuomas Holma, CadFaster’s VP of sales and marketing stated, “We think the iPad is the most exciting platform for design at the moment.” In further discussion Tuomas actually referred to Windows tablets as future competition for iPad in the AEC world–not Android.
When it comes to worldwide CAD industry software leader Autodesk the company does in fact have some key mobile apps on Android also. But the company has a massive and growing collection of tools for Apple’s iOS that greatly outpaces any other mobile platform. For the most part the numbers speak for themselves.
next page: Speaking of the Numbers
Speaking of the Numbers
In our large count of all the key apps for just the architectural market side of the AEC industry our research shows that Apple greatly leads by numbers. There are vastly more high-quality apps available for Apple iOS than for Android in the AEC industry.
Some may counter that many of the best mobile apps are also available for Android. Well, that is true in some key cases. Autodesk’s excellent AutoCAD WS was first created on iOS but later came to Android. And BIM leader Graphisoft of Hungary also has its excellent BIMx app on Android–though it was first released for Apple’s iOS. One can cite several of these Apple iOS first cases. MCAD giant SolidWorks’s popular eDrawings has two excellent implementations in an app for iOS. The company recently officially tweeted that an Android version was coming later in 2013. What you don’t see are the CAD giants and leaders creating mobile apps first on Android and than officially tweeting that iOS is coming later.
And there is a reason for this that goes beyond Apple’s market share lead. In an upcoming interview article on Architosh readers will hear about Bluebeam Software’s perspectives looking at the various platforms. Matthew Harvey of Bluebeam Software explained to us that one advantage Apple has with its iOS platform is that from a developer’s perspective it is a “more standardized platform” and with Android there are many more flavors, which makes Android development “a little more challenging.” Whereas with Apple being a more standardized platform “it’s conducive to the commitment to getting your solutions developed to work.”
Both industry analysts and software developers are keenly aware that Apple’s iOS device customers spend more money on apps for their mobile devices than do Android users. If technical simplicity is an incentive for developers like Bluebeam Software to develop first for iOS, so too are dollars. Developing first for iOS means targeting return on investment dollars that can later fund extensions to other platforms like Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry.
Innovation Edge
With these advantages in hand Apple is leading the enterprise and SMB market segments across the entire AECO industry. Industrial giants like Germany’s Siemens have iOS apps for the control and management of complex building automation. Design and engineering software leaders like Autodesk have large and growing iOS app libraries and are using the platform to help create and define new markets. Many of the most talented and often the most established CAD industry software players, like IMSI-Design, have embraced the iOS platform full-bore and are creating extensive products (apps) with extensibility. And they are all doing this, by-and-large, mostly or exclusively on iOS.
But the talent edge isn’t just because already existing and talented large players (leaders) have embraced iOS first over rivals, many younger and newer mobile software players are driving innovation on Apple’s platform. Companies like CadFaster and M-SIX, Sensopia and the Morpholio folks. Or developers like FiftyThree, Inc, the group behind Paper, or Ukraine-based developer Readdle are all excellent examples of innovation on iOS.
So is the Samsung vs Apple debate more hype or more reality? From our informed perspective, we say more hype.
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