eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) CEO Larry Page announced some positive news about the Android platform during the company’s second-quarter earnings call July 14. These include 550,000 Android devices activated each day, coupled with more than 6 billion Android Market downloads.
However, all may not be as rosy as it seems.
Research from mobile analytics firm Flurry suggests Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) launch of the iPhone 4 on Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZW) in February and the iPad 2 in March helped lure developer support from the Android platform to Apple’s iOS.
New Android project starts on Flurry’s network, which the researcher counts by the number of platform SDKs downloaded, have dropped from 36 percent in the first quarter to 28 percent in the second quarter.
This marks the second quarter-over-quarter slide for Android in 2011, following a year of big growth for the platform, which peaked at 39 percent in the fourth quarter last year.
Flurry researcher Charles Newark-French, who said Flurry iOS and Android new project starts grew from 9,100 in Q1 to 10,200 in Q2, attributed the launch of the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 to the developer defection from Android.
Following three years of exclusive sales by AT&T, Verizon moved millions of iPhones. Meanwhile, Apple has sold nearly 30 million iPads to date, including millions of iPad 2 slates, which are thinner and lighter and provide cameras.