They are rolling out a completely new app for actual current accounts and, we’ve been always told that development on features for this app/prepaid was slowing down because it would be pointless to spend time on an app we are doing away with.
If they are saying the are aiming for parity before current account launch, I take it disparity between the current account apps is not as large as we are now experiencing. We all have to wait for current accounts anyway so, patience!
I don’t get involved in mobile coding etc but I have never understood why Android is so far behind when it comes to apps etc. Surely being ‘open’ and what not should make it easier to do things should it not where with iOS you have a lot of restrictions and approval processes?
I was curious, so I timeline’d the features. The survey was this one.
If you look at it from the view that iOS waited 9 months for Targets and Android should therefore wait the same, the only things really missing are Pulse, Export and Touch ID.
It is a shame new features are not coming out at the same time (maybe after current release).
Android caught up hella fast as far as I can tell. Then there was a shift towards getting the current accounts done which has slowed visable progress. That’s not to say Android is ahead behind the scenes.
I’m sure it makes things a lot easier if they are in the same position support wise, as to not get confused when dealing with problems.
No, it’s more difficult. Building for 100 devices from 10 manufacturers is harder than building for 5 from 1.
I stopped using Monzo a good few months ago because nothing seemed to be changing on Android, I felt it had just been left behind and iOS was their priority. Not consciously, I just kind of drifted away from it because it just seemed to kind of stop.
At the same time I opened an account with B (Yorkshire Bank) - which as someone pointed out in another thread, is the same 1970s tech with a shiny app. But as an end user, that’s kind of irrelevant because it does the same kind of things as Monzo and Starling do - except the real time notifications. So why have the hassle of having to ‘top-up’ a pre-paid card when there’s a fully functional bank account already out there? The B account was so convenient that I slid into using it full time.
Then my invite for an account from Starling came, which kind of reminded me of all this. I started testing out Starling, which in turn led me to use Monzo again to compare. Monzo is so much better than Starling, in my opinion. The novelty of that circley graph thing wore off quick.
I am excited again for Monzo, and I really want a full account when they start on Android.
But with a few updates (mainly push notifications), B would basically be on a par with Monzo/Starling - especially on Android! This is from an ‘old’ but relatively small bank. Imagine what the big banks with billions upon billions of pounds behind them could do? I wouldn’t go with a big bank ever again - but I do feel that they’re catching up fast and there’s a risk now that the start-ups could be overtaken. 
The likes of HSBC or Barclays could literally buy in a ton of developers - rip everything off - stick it out there with a multi-million pound ad campaign and the start-ups would be dead in the water - specially Monzo on Android.
That’s my worry. The old banks have definitely realised and are on to this, otherwise the likes of B wouldn’t exist.
The gap will be closed in a few months. They’ve been closing it behind the scenes but haven’t released the features yet as they’re current account only. Really, what’s the issue? They’ve achieved an incredible amount with a tiny amount of resource.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not trying to slag them off. I think it’s amazing what they’ve done. The creativity, innovation, hard work and balls of these people is brilliant.
I know you can’t just magic up coders and they don’t have unlimited funds and that it is so much more difficult and complicated than I, as a non- developer and non-entrepreneur can imagine.
But as an outsider looking in, these are my worries - specially with the Android app. With Android being the more used and more popular mobile OS - there’s more of a risk in it being behind I’d imagine? Bigger market to steal,
“most popular mobile OS”
I’ll have to disagree. In Monzo’s target market it is definitely not the most popular mobile OS, if it was we wouldn’t be having this discussion to begin with as the app would’ve been up to date.
Depends on the source, and who Monzo consider the target market (which I’d say has been evolving the last two years).
I accept that iOS users are seen as more fashionable, more likely to go along with things, however you want to put it…
But assuming they want Monzo to eventually be mainstream, my point is very valid. If you google it, you get varying numbers, reporting that up to 90% of all smartphones run Android.
I get that the iPhone on and off has been the best selling individual smart phone. But if you take just the Samsung, Sony and LG flagship phones of the last two or three years - I’m sure their sales combined outstrip iPhone sales.
Flagship Samsung, Sony and LG phones are bought by the same/similar demographic as iPhone users, surely? - you could even argue that they’re more likely to be a bit more tech savvy and individualistic and therefore more likely to go for something different like Monzo?
Maybe there’s a bit of a London techy bubble effect going on with this iPhone stuff?
But I’m not a developer, coder or market researcher. Just pointing out my concerns as an end user, looking from my point of view.
I’m an iOS user but the thing that always bothered me about the Android updates was people were told “these features are coming soon” or “coming really soon, watch this space” etc. Then 6/7 months later nothing had happened and these threads then started asking about the features and where they were. If they were never going to be released until the current account, Monzo should have just said that. I know there wont be such a disparity come the current accounts which is good for android users
The argument is irrelevant. Monzo aren’t targeting iOS over Android or vice versa. They simply started with one and are playing catch-up with the other and soon they’ll be equal.
Then the logical follow up here is… If they could, why haven’t they? 
Maybe they have 
Are you suggesting that Monzo is actually an undercover operation from the legacy banks?
Maybe they’ve already bought teams of coders. We wouldn’t know a thing about it until they launched and we were drenched in publicity.
Like how Apple takes things that have been around for years and markets them as if it invented them and masses of people don’t know any different.
While this maybe the initial cause, it’s clear that little to no effort has been made to allow the other to fully catch up. With the announcement of the bank account being iOS only, this just furthers the poor narritive that iOS is clearly preferred over android.
Plus machine learning support on iOS has been announced today…
Catchup?
Where are you getting this from? If you look at the product update blog posts, it’s clear that far more features have been added to the Android app than iOS recently.
Also (from earlier in this topic) -