John Carmack: iOS Still Better Than Android For Mobile Game Development

John Carmack, the id Software co-founder who essentially created the modern first-person shooter genre from scratch, has once again said that the iOS platform is the best mobile platform out there when it comes to game development. He said as much last year at QuakeCon, but here we are one year later and iOS is still king. Sorry, Fandroids.

The reasons for the superiority are largely the same as they were last year: Android is far too fragmented to develop for, both from a hardware and software point of view. How many Android devices out there still don’t have Froyo? Mine doesn’t! (It’s the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon Wireless, by the way.) And how many different hardware configurations are there between the various HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc. devices?

Compare that to iOS. An iPhone is an iPhone and an iPad is an iPad. (Nothing stops developers from saying “you need an iPhone 4 or higher to run this.”) Plus, Carmack says developing for iOS is just “fun.” Can’t beat having fun, can you?

Carmack also says that he’s still constantly evaluating both mobile platforms, so, if for whatever reason, things change, well, he’ll be there.

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