[gorbypark]

I've heard a few people theorize about why Android exploits seem to pay more. The theory is that Android is 1) very fragmented, with each manufacturer having different versions and modifications and 2) updates are much slower/non existent.

To get the top payout, you'd need to come up with something that works across all manufacturers versions of Android and probably across 4 or 5 major versions. You might be able to find an exploit for all Androids running version x, but if that version only has 10% of the android market, you wouldn't get a full payout.

iOS users tend to heavily be on the latest version, or one version behind at most. As an example, most recent iOS exploits in the wild seem to be using iMessages. On iOS, you can focus your efforts at one thing. On Android? Your surface area is much smaller because each manufacturer is going to be shipping their own messenger app, for example.

[ranndino]

Looks like there's finally a benefit to Android OS being such a clusterfuck with some many versions being currently active on a significant portion of devices. Not updating quickly increases the number of versions floating around.