A metrics-based comparison of secondary user quality between iOS and Android

Native mobile applications gain popularity in the commercial market. There is no other econom- ical sector that grows as fast. A lot of economical research is done in this sector, but there is very little research that deals with qualities for mobile application developers. This paper compares the qualities of the iOS and Android platforms, where developers have to deal with. The base of the research form 45 iOS and 35 Android apps that are developed since 2009 in a Dutch mobile service agency. With the help of the factor-criteria-metric model one project metric, three OO- metrics and two method metrics are defined to analyze the apps. Except the project metric, in all test are statistical significant results found, but with a practical view, only OO-metrics show big differences. These results show that the iOS framework acts more like a white-box frame- work compared to Android, that acts more like a black-box framework. The calculation to the sub factors show that iOS scores better with adaptability and modifiability. In modularity and testability is almost no difference found. Understandability and self-descriptiveness are better on Android. The geometric mean of all sub-qualities results in no difference.