Your post is missing the main gripe of many developers so far. Which is that there's far more money in iOS land than there is in Android. It's hard for an average game to make more than $100 a week.
With the amount of competition in the iOS app store, how easy is it to make more than $100 a week from an iOS game anymore? There may be more people doing it there but there are probably also more apps languishing in obscurity. Android is gaining in popularity and it seems like the situation for developers is improving. I think the main challenge is creating a unique, engaging game for any platform.
There's no doubt that iOS apps are bringing in more money now. However, the Android market shows you actual sales stats for apps and its clear that some people are making money on Android too. I also find it hard to believe that Android's current hardware sales volumes aren't going to eventually pull up market sales too. They may always lag behind Apple's but I'd be very surprised if the ratios stay as skewed as they are now.
If you're already established and successful in the iOS store then it makes sense to stay there. If you're starting from scratch then it's not quite so clear-cut, I think.
I take some issue with this argument. Not necessarily to say that it's false, just to say that it's not a strong argument or at the very least holds little foresight.
As an example I recently downloaded Words With Friends on the Android, became immediately annoyed with the ads and was at a loss when I tried to find a pay version. I emailed them and although they replied within hours (fantastic!) they said they don't have a paid version at the moment (it's in the works).
I'm reminded of John Carmack's ad-hock survey of iOS and Android users to find how many people would have spent at least $20 for apps[1], and then he explains in more detail why we won't be working with Android at that time. His reasoning is solid, but that survey puts an exclamation on the same point you're making, which is unfortunate.
It's easy to claim nobody pays for things on Android if there's nothing there worth paying for. It seems to me this would make Android a prime market rather than a poor one.
I've personally spent at least $40 on Android apps in the last year or so (mostly games) and will spend plenty more as developers come and give me reason (or at least a chance) to give them money.
For instance I wanted an app that would block calls and SMSs and do a better job than the built-in functionality.
I found an ad-supported app that did the job, but the UI was awful.
So I tried to buy a non-free app that had good reviews -- problem was that the developer wouldn't allow purchases from my country, so I couldn't purchase it.
Also, as a developer Android is a poor choice for me, not because there's anything wrong with the platform, but because Google doesn't allow me to be a merchant that receives money from them (I'm not in one of the approved countries).
So the only option available to me as a developer is to release ad-supported apps. And with ads the UI experience suffers, so this automatically puts me in a don-t-give-a-shit state of mind where I don't care about experience as much as I care about volume.
This goes round and round, but on the whole I think that the quality of Android's marketplace represents an opportunity precisely because the competition is doing a poor job.
Well, that might be true or not. It is just another topic. Just because there is Android in the header doesn't mean all Android topics are equally important in this discussion.
