Fancy Graphs of the Week: iPhone Versus Android

As a new weekly feature, BoomTown is calling all those who make cool graphs about tech to send them to me pronto.

I am–truth be told–a secret stats fanatic. A bargraphaholic. Yes, even a closet pie-charter.

I also love pie (click on this very funny pie chart from GraphJam once to make it larger and on “next” to see other graphs in a slideshow.)

Thus, here are a few–click on the images to make them larger–comparing some stats about development for the iPhone from Apple (AAPL) and the Android from Google (GOOG).

They are from Flurry Analytics, a mobile analytics and monetization tools start-up in San Francisco, from a blog post titled “Smartphone Industry Pulse, July 2009.”

The first chart shows new project starts–apps in the pipeline from third-party developers–for the iPhone, and the second is for Android.

Both starts are up a lot, as you can see, although the iPhone wins in terms of sheer numbers. At this rate, said Flurry, “by the end of 2009, the App Store will easily surpass 100,000 apps.”

But, as you can see from this third graph below, Android’s growth rate for new project starts is accelerating, which is no surprise, since everyone did an iPhone app first (like All Things Digital, for example).

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Saqib Ali

Kara,

Have you checked out IBM’s Many Eyes repository of graphs? They have some awesome graphs/visualizations! And you can create your own visualizations too by simply uploading the dataset.

Being involved in UI development, I am always interested in graphs, especially the ones that project high dimensional data onto a low dimensional canvas.

I love graphs too! :)
Fred Hamranhansenhansen

Android has been incredibly disappointing. There are a number of handsets, but no good ones. Users only need one good phone each, not 3 bad ones. I hear people saying good things about Android and they never have an Android phone. They’re Google fans but they have no phone to buy to express that.

I’m suspicious of the Windows-type approach they are taking also. Nobody has ever made good products that way, and only Microsoft has made any money at it, and they had special circumstances in that they were always willing to break the law.
Pamp Lona

Kara I have enjoyed reading your articles in the past.

However, I found this one to be a bit of a snoozer.

I look forward to your future articles.
Saqib Ali

@Fred: I am a long time user of gPhone (both g1 and g2 (developer edition)). Can you please elaborate/quantify on what you mean by “disappointing”?

Fancy Graphs of the Week: iPhone Versus Android

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