How to Convert an Android App to an iOS App (and Vice Versa)

When developing a mobile application, choosing an operating system (iOS or Android) might be confusing since both platforms have their pros and cons. At the same time, it’s often not possible to go for both platforms at the same time: whether because you’re building an MVP and have limited resources or it just doesn’t match your current business strategy or scaling plans.

However, if you already have an app for one of the OSs and decide to build another for iOS or Android, you would most likely benefit from it a lot. Let’s take a look at some numbers:

• According to Statista’s research, nearly 73% of all mobile users have an Android device. iOS users account for 26%. Thus, 99% of mobile owners use only these 2 operating systems. So, by developing two apps, you have 6.3B of potential users and/or customers.

Yet, if you’re not sure that you 100% need an app for another OS or have limited resources but still want to develop an application, we have a solution.

If you’d like to test out another market first, you can build a Minimum Viable Product. This way, you’d have a necessary set of features to understand whether users’ interest in your app is convincing enough for you to allocate resources on developing a fully functional app.

If you’d like to have a better understanding of what the cost of MVP might be, we have an article dedicated to explaining it in detail:

Is it Easier to Build an App for another OS if You Already Have a Well-Functioning One? 📊

Even though porting an app to another OS is practically developing it anew, it’s significantly easier and faster because of several reasons.

First of all, both you and your development team have something to lean on, meaning that you already have a concept and structure. All that’s left is adjusting an app to another OS’s requirements and finding alternatives to the features that can’t be built in like they were for your existing product.

Plus, during the development process, you will definitely find aspects to improve in your app and get a better product. You’ll also get to look at your digital products from a new perspective, which might bring you new ideas.

Furthermore, if you used specific programming languages to build your current solution, app developers might reuse some parts of the code to build a new one.

For example, Objective-C and Swift are programming languages for iOS development while Java and Kotlin are used to build Android apps. Both Swift and Kotlin are relatively new programming languages. That’s why they have a lot in common and developers can use the same code for different operating systems in some cases.

They also share a similar syntax. Therefore, developers who know Swift have rather high chances to understand the code written in Kotlin (and vice versa), which will definitely increase the development speed.

Is it Possible to Build a Fully Identical App but for another OS? 📝

You should make sure not to work with companies that offer 100% identical apps for both operating systems since it’s simply not possible.

Let’s take a look at why it’s not an option:

• They have really different UI patterns.
• With Android development, you have to pay a lot of attention to screen sizes.
• Certain features are enabled in different ways.
• App Store and Google Play have different requirements for apps’ approval.

In kiosks software development, screen size and resolution play a significant role, as kiosks often have large, touch-enabled displays that require tailored design and interaction patterns.

So, it might look similar but the back-end of functionality and navigational patterns wouldn’t be identical for the most part.

How to Convert an Android App to iOS Cost- & Time-Effective? 🕒

To make the development process faster and more cost-efficient, there are a couple of tips. They’re quite easy to follow and can be integrated into the workflow even before the development starts.

Firstly, you should keep in mind that going back to change the code is quite time-consuming since developers need to make sure that modifications didn’t cause any new bugs. Moreover, there are certain checkpoints in mobile development when adding even the smallest changes would mean that developers have to write a substantial part of the code anew.

To avoid such inconveniences, you can think everything out and perform research on what the functionality options are in advance. Surely, if during the process you’ll come up with new ideas or change your mind regarding some parts of the app, your development team would be happy to improve the app.

The situation for those of you who plan to port an iOS app to Android is a little trickier. Currently, 4 versions are actively used by Android owners:

• Android 11 - 16,2%.
• Android 10 - 33,7%.
• Pie (9.0) - 17,8%.
• Oreo (8.0-8.1) - 13,8%.

Surely, this will take some time and effort, but for an experienced development team, this is a regular task. Moreover, you don’t need to cover all the existing operating systems: for iOS, it would be enough to cover the last 1-2 versions, and for porting an app to Android, we recommend starting with v. 7.0 (Nougat).

Before going to the next subsection, let’s perform our own survey. What operating system do you personally use?

Follow the link to take a quiz

# 2: Screen Sizes & Resolutions 📲

When building a second application, it’s essential to take the difference between screen sizes and resolutions of iOS and Android devices into account. The situation here is often almost the same as with OS. Apple has quite a limited number of devices running on iOS so it’s a piece of cake for many developers.

With Android devices, however, things are more complicated. First and foremost, this operating system is used by many smartphone brands like Samsung, Xiaomi, Meizu, Huawei, HTC, etc. Thus, this means a much higher number of possible screen sizes.

Luckily, there’s no need to adjust the app to all possible screen sizes. The system works in a way that you make an app adapted for the 5-7 most widely used screen resolutions manually. Then, adapting to all the other options happens automatically.

You can check out the most widely used resolutions at companies’ sites that perform market research. For example, Statcounter, Worship. Surely, your development team will fill you in on all the details. So, if you don’t want to research it yourself, just talk to your development team or contact us — we’d be happy to answer your questions.

# 3: Interface Differences 📑

Interfaces of Android and iOS devices are totally different so, unfortunately, reusing the interface of the first app and porting it to another platform isn’t an option. The main conceptual difference lies in companies’ approaches: Apple uses HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) while Google prefers material design. Let’s take a look at a few examples and find out what it means for you as an app owner.

1. One of the biggest differences lies in object placement. The material design implies a hierarchical arrangement of objects while Apple tries to make objects look flush.

2. Unlike iOS, Android’s lists usually have custom icons and don’t have arrows on the right side.

3. The navigation bar in iOS has a lower height and a centered title. Android’s navigation bar has a bigger height with titles placed on the left.

4. Tools for picking the data also differ.

5. Moreover, we’d recommend paying attention to the typography. iOS uses San Francisco as a default font while Roboto is more common on Android.

6. Another noticeable difference is tab bars. We’d recommend paying extra attention to such small things that might not seem that essential. Yet, they together define the whole user experience.

On Android devices, tab bars are usually located at the top of the screen. Moreover, users can switch between different screens within the app by swiping right or left. On iOS ones, however, tab bars can be found at the bottom of the screen. This UI element is often supplemented by customized icons.

7. You should also pay attention to the app’s icons. If you’re porting for iOS to Android, it’s likely that you’ll be able to simply reuse the icon. Yet, Apple is quite strict when it comes to icon requirements. Thus, if you’ll need to port from Android to iOS, the chances that you’ll have to change the icon are high.

8. Buttons are different as well. Android devices tend to have buttons with shadows, while iOS ones look flatter. Plus, Android makes letters in CAT buttons capital quite often, while with iOS devices, capitalization is inconsistent.

9. Moreover, it’s important to keep in mind that iOS devices don’t have the Home Button on their screens, unlike many Android ones. More or less modern iOS devices don’t even have the button — users go to the Home Screen swiping up.

Plus, many Android devices have the Return or Back button. This allows them to go back to the previous screens. For iOS users, you’ll need to enable another way for it.

# 4: Testing 🔍

One of the most important parts of the development is testing the app. The testing isn’t just a phase — it should be consistent throughout the whole development process.

You and your development team should check if the design is consistent with your brand and adapted for the new operating system. For this purpose, you should look at the app as a separate unit without any relation to your existing app and as a part of your general brand.

That is, check if all features that the app already had are enabled (if possible), the UI itself shouldn’t be too different, unlike navigational patterns.

It’s also possible to create a hybrid “HTML5” cross-platform app using PhoneGap and similar tools. Yet, we strongly recommend you to avoid such a solution.

These apps often don’t have as smooth UX as native apps do. Moreover, hybrid HTML5 apps usually have poorer performance, a sluggish UI, and higher battery consumption.

If you’d like to learn about React Native more, you check out our article where we compare native apps and cross-platform solutions that were built using React Native: