[mncolinlee]

I would argue that debugging is also infinitely easier in the Android world, since plugging a phone into USB and authorizing ADB gives you full control to see everything on the phone. You can get full logs and debug control over the hardware. You can push and pull stack traces and files to and from the device with a single, three operand command line and obtaining hardware screenshots requires only a click in IDE.

Android also has a plethora of debug options hidden in a special device settings menu that can be hugely helpful for troubleshooting performance issues.

[gress]

You do realize that all of those capabilities are available in XCode?

[stefan_kendall3]

Uh. It's way harder to setup an android device for debugging. I just had to plug in my iphone and tap "use for development" at the prompt.

I'm porting an iOS app to android right now, and android is way behind on the development side of things.

[krschultz]

After you setup the provisioning profiles correctly, get the build schemes right, etc etc. Oh and don't forget to send Apple your tax id!

I would highly recommend using Android Studio + Gradle over Eclipse. IntelliJ is a significantly better tool for writing and refactoring code than XCode. Some of the tight integrations between XCode and the phone are superior (especially around profiling), but overall I think IntelliJ is a much stronger tool. Even something as simple as doing layout is vastly better on Android. There is no choice between 'in code or in Interface Builder'. XML + the viewer in Android Studio is the best of both worlds.

I also think Relative Layouts accomplish 99% of what auto layout accomplishes in a much friendlier manner.

[stefan_kendall3]

I didn't have to do any of that. Xcode creates provisioning profiles for you, and appcode created the schemes I needed. I think Xcode does a decent job as well.

And you only need a tax ID if you're trying to imminently release a paid application or an app with IAP. But we're discussing development, not release.

[mncolinlee]

Okay. I guess I mostly used iOS with the simulator and have less experience with their hardware interface. I just found the feature set for ADB to be pretty dang impressive. Most developers never touch even 10% of the the features even though some are very useful. I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison if someone has a link.

On the other hand, having iOS connect easily to a debugger disproves nothing I said.

[stefan_kendall3]

"Obtaining hardware screenshots is just a click in the IDE"

I shouldn't need a computer attached to get screenshots for my app. Power + home button, or cmd+S in the simulator.

Even my users can easily send me screenshots, some of the time unprompted even.