Ok. I'm grabbing onto this topic a bit late, but here goes.
I have used an iPhone 5 for a year now, and it's changed my life. I
grabbed up a cheap crappy Android device at the beginning of April
this year, but it ran I think Android 2.6, so it wasn't very fun.
Still, finding that I could actually use it gave me hope. About two
months ago, I bought a Nexus 7 FHD and have been slowly gaining in
both proficiency and respect for the Android platform.
Here's my take on the main issue, games, with some sub-issues below.
First, there's a game, Star Traders, which I really like. It's
available on both iOS and Android, though there are some slight
differences. The Android version does some odd stuff, but it's
useable. I haven't figured out how to make the ChoiceOfGames games
work, and I've tried several of them. I can't read the pages and I
can't seem to find the radio buttons, but if some people say they
work, they work.
As for other games, the big problem is that the ExploreByTouch feature
of Android was added in 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and some games were
developed before that, so you either have to turn off Explore By Touch
or suspend Talkback, Android's native screen reader. IOS offers the
triple click home command to enable and disable Voiceover, but Google
hasn't implemented anything like that for Talkback, so you have to do
a bit of fiddling to make it work.
Finally, as for development, you're absolutely right. It is very
possible to make accessible apps on Android; it's just that most
people don't really bother. It can even be free to make said apps,
which is great. Why throw down cash if you don't have to.
However, to be fair to the iPhone, there are other options to buying a
Mac and learning Objective C. The easiest is using a port of C#, a
programming language with which you are either familiar or can easily
become familiar, as it's rather like Java. There are other options,
though they escape me for now. The port of C# does cost money, but
it's $400 or $450, I think, rather than thousands.
Also, there's the pickiness of Apple's App store, and the developers'
program charges, but it's a question. There are plenty of people using
Android devices successfully, as it's now a much more accessible
platform than it was, but the majority still use Apple's product
lines. That means that you'd maximize profits, even given the
additional costs, by going the iOS route. Still, if you go with
Android, you'll be putting little money down, eaning you can charge
less and still profit.
In my humble opinion, the best solution would be play the fence, as
I'm doing. Essentially, if you can afford to do so, buy both.
finally, some cautionary advice that you probably already know.
The most wonderful thing about Android is that it's got a lot of open
source elements, though some of the elements most crucial to Android
are being swallowed up by Google and made closed source. Android
transitions smoothly between various apps providing various functions,
whereas Apple has each app sandboxed, meaning that even a simple thing
like sending an email with an attachment is pretty nearly impossible.
However, Android is highly fragmented. Many, many people still use
older devices (before 4.0) with crappy accessibility and poor support.
The only devices which are guaranteed an update are Nexus devices, and
even these aren't sure things, as the recent drop of the Galaxy Nexus
shows.
The safest bet, in my opinion, is to buy an iPhone and a Nexus tablet,
as I've done. First and foremost, they are both at the beginning of
their current tech cycles, and secondarily, this allows you to have
the portability of the iPhone for day to day tasks like calling and
navigation, but it allows you to have a dedicated amusement device in
the Nexus. Given that a new 16 GB nexus is $230 or so, and given that
a new 16 GB iPhone 5s is $200 or so on contract, you're throwing down
a little under $500 for the devices and gaining a foothold on both
markets.
Still, whatever choice you make, I'm sure that great things are to come.
I wish you luck.
