Startup - which platform to start from?

Question

Android

There are at least 3 mobile app ideas.
1) Mobile social. network (which differs significantly from the current ones).
2) An application related to working with images (not photo processing and other Instagram, but something else).
3) A very interesting project in the field of education.
From what I know, I want to start learning programming by developing one of these applications along the way. I know how to use photoshop and design (+ I can read new design docks for Android/iOS).
What I have - a macbook, 2 android phones, 500 dollars (if you need to buy an iOS developer account).
The question is - under which platform (iOS / Android) it will be better and easier to start and why (reasoned please)?

Answer 1

You need to start from your target audience. Why the hell write for iOS, if there is 0.005% of the target audience? Same for android. If you don’t know your target audience, it’s better not to start at all, especially social. network.
And all these epithets: significantly different from the existing ones, something different, a very interesting project - nothing more than hallucinations, until you check them out on hundreds of living people. And not on their mothers / brothers / sisters / friends, but on people from the street who will honestly say that the idea is shit.

Answer 2

A little to the side. Sorry.
For the "Mobile social network (which is significantly different from the current ones)" I would send for forced labor, for fifteen days. When are you going to smoke?

Answer 3

1) the entry threshold is $90 for a license for iOS, which is valid for only a year, against $25 for android and indefinitely (it would be better to spend money on advertising);
2) compiling the application is much more complicated and confusing compared to android, and longer, despite the fact that xCode itself puts it on the AppStore;
3) on android you wait several hours to check the release (I had 2-6 hours maximum even when I posted on the weekend), on iOS 2 weeks, nothing less. On TesFlight, the wait is a couple of days (I had 2-3 days on average), android has a couple of hours for a test version, or even less;
4) the audience on android is larger and the output can be faster.

Answer 4

You have to start from the website. It makes no sense to develop an application if there are no people who will use this application.
Build a landing page and start collecting pre-orders. If you get a couple of thousand, you can start development on the platform that dominates in pre-orders.
A scheme like "I'll write an application, put it on the market and users will come" - does not work.

Answer 5

The platform is not important, these ideas are going to fail. Not even because the ideas are bad (although this is a fact), but because you have no experience and understanding of how such projects are made.
Do it on any platform, it still won't fly. But you will get some experience and understanding. There will be more informed questions to follow.
It seems to young people, conditionally 20 years old, that right now I will launch some idea of ​​my own on the Internet, and everything will be trampled down thanks to the magical “virality” and I will immediately become rich.
There are two points here, the lower the entry threshold (you have 500 bucks), the more competition.
If there is no competition, then either entry is very expensive and prospects are doubtful, or there is no demand.
And yes, as already mentioned in the comments, you need to proceed from demand, and not from your idea. If it is impossible to estimate the demand, then with 500 bucks I would not meddle in this niche.

Answer 6

ios is simpler, the audience is no less.

Answer 7

Learning programming on the example of a project and a startup are two very different tasks. A startup is basically a medical