A year ago, my world changed when Instagram became available on Android. I got to be a part of this (new to me) world of photo filters and over-tagging. It even changed my habits. As a food blogger, I was already taking photos of food, but my photo taking became prolific. I started taking photos of graffiti, skylines, and my shoes. Also, I have taken more photos of myself which is now known as selfies. The other benefit of Instagram on Android is that I stopped carrying around my digital camera, so I thank Instagram for saving me from potential back pain in my old age.

I am writing this post to let all the lovely and creative startup founders and developers to step up your Android game. I don’t want to wait a year to play around with Vine, Mailbox, or Timehop on my phone. The hype cycle of new apps is getting shorter and shorter so it makes sense to launch the Android app at the same time the iPhone app drops.

There are more Android app developers now than ever before and more people who buy smartphones are buying Android phones.
Everyone knows there is a bit of iPhone elitism in the tech start-up world. It seems that only venture capitalists want to invest in iPhone apps, which is analogous to politicians only paying attention to the “donor class”. It is shortsighted to ignore the Android user. For example, a year after Instagam became available on Android, about half of its users were Android phone people. Growth and widespread adoption of apps can happen quicker if developers become more platform agnostic and stop worshiping at the altar of Apple.