Over the past couple of years we have received a number of requests to produce a Digiguide TV Guide app for Android. It is something that we have discussed in great depth and we have spoken to a number of developers about the possibility as well as conducting a survey of Digiguide customers to get their opinions on the subject (thank you again to all those who participated). Due to the continued number of requests we felt that we should offer an update as to why no Android app has been released thus far.
It has often been pointed out to us that Android has a huge share of the smart phone market, representing close to 80% of market share as opposed to Apple iOS which has around 15%. We appreciate this and realise that despite what the commercials (and indeed representation on film and TV) would have you believe, not everyone is obsessed with Apple and owns an iPhone.
However the very simple reason why we have an iPhone app and not an Android app at this point is that it is a far less complicated process to develop an app for iOS than many other smart phone devices. When developing for iOS we only had to ensure that the app worked well on a small number of iPhones and iPads. Android on the other hand has over 12,000 different devices with many hardware variations such as screen sizes, motion/position sensors and processers as well as multiple software versions. Therefore an Android app would require a huge amount of technical and financial resource to produce and as such, we have to carefully assess if it would be in our best interest to invest so much time and money into it’s development.
In short, we are still looking at this option, talking to developers and assessing it's feasibility. If we had made a definitive decision to not produce an Android app we would have announced it and explained our reasons why. We fully appreciate that some Digiguide customers may still be frustrated that we are yet to produce an Android app and cannot make a promise as to when one will definitely be available, all we can do is please ask you to bear with us, as soon as we have a final decision either way we will announce it.
Thank you for your patience and continued custom.
The Digiguide Team