Programmers at Ubermind are diversifying their app store loyalties. Once the company’s mobile-phone software developers trained all their attention on making applications for the Apple iPhone. No longer.

The 34-person team at Ubermind, maker of the popular iLightr app that makes a virtual flame on the iPhone screen, recently began building apps for a rival mobile-phone operating system. They’re now releasing two apps a month for devices based on Android, the software backed by Google, in addition to the five monthly apps they release for the iPhone. “We have no plans to abandon” the iPhone, says Ubermind CEO Shehryar Khan, who says his company’s sales have doubled in the past year thanks to iPhone apps. “But we are not going to put all our eggs in one basket.”

Of the more than 125,000 programmers registered to create apps for the iPhone, a growing number are branching out to build apps for Android and other operating systems.

The Apple App Store is still growing, with an stock that recently surpassed 100,000 games, e-books, calendars, and other apps. It remains the largest downloadable mobile app store by a wide margin. But the larger the App Store gets, the harder it is for developers to manufacture money from it. That, combined with sometimes expanded approval times and dismay by Apple’s gatekeeping decisions, has led some developers to branch out or switch allegiances altogether.

When the App Store made its debut in July 2008, it was the first. Now developers can choose among plenty of operating systems. Apart from Android, there’s BlackBerry App World for Research In Motion devices. Carriers are opening their own stores, too. The App Store’s share of mobile app downloads may slip to 20 percent in 2014, from 70 percent that year, according to consultant Ovum.

‘We Are in that to compose Money’

Android is…

Original post by dhiram