Last time we checked, smartphones have become the de facto way to find homes for sale on weekends and makes up a pretty big chunk of the house hunting that happens at night on weekdays. As a matter of fact, 25% of all the window shopping that happens on Trulia at peak hours is done from a phone.
Remember this? A couple weeks after Trulia’s Android app made its grand entrance, we took a snapshot to see where most of our tech-savvy real estate geeks lived and where our iPhone/Android apps reigned supreme. Well, we’re at it again. Today, we’ve debuted a (1) rentals Android app that is designed to help people find homes for rent as well as (2) the FIRST real estate app for the Android tablet. With these two exciting new additions to the Trulia Mobile family, we thought it’d be a great time to revisit the iPhone vs. Android debate (when it comes to mobile house hunting that is). Let’s see what went down in the last five months, shall we?
Somehow I Don’t Do Think We’re In Kansas Anymore
In April, only a fifth of all the mobile house hunting that happened on Trulia came from our Android app. Compared with Trulia’s iPhone app, our Android app held the popular vote in just a small handful of cities in America’s Heartland, namely Kansas City, Greensboro, Wilkes-Barre and Cincinnati.
BEFORE
For the most part, this is still true (just look at the before and after shots) – Trulia’s iPhone app continues to be #1 in most cities across the country, but as you can see, Android is gaining some ground.
AFTER
Notably, only Kansas City made it on our top 5 Android cities list again – keeping an iron grip on its #1 position. About 150 days ago, only 65% of all the mobile house hunting in KC came from Trulia’s Android app whereas today it’s a whopping 88%. While it’s hard to say what makes one phone more popular than another, we’re just going to make a wild guess and say it probably doesn’t have anything to do with the 200+ fountains scattered throughout the city.
| # | U.S. City | Android | iPhone |
| 1. | Kansas City, MO | 88% | 12% |
| 2. | Springfield, IL | 77% | 23% |
| 3. | Baltimore, MD | 72% | 28% |
| 4. | Harrisburg, PA | 72% | 28% |
| 5. | Winston-Salem, NC | 70% | 30% |
Android’s Midwest and Southern Invasion
Right now, our Android app only has 36% of the popular vote amongst all the mobile house hunters on Trulia, but really, it’s just a matter of time – or so it seems. When we took a deeper dive into the data – way beyond the pockets of green bubbles (cities where Android dominates) in a vast sea of blue bubbles (cities where the iPhone is top dog) on the map – we couldn’t help but notice how Trulia’s Android app has seriously upped its popularity in the Midwest and South over the last five months. See for yourself…
| # | U.S. City | April 2011 | Sept 2011 | % Change |
| 1. | Indianapolis, IN | 13% | 45% | 246% |
| 2. | Atlanta, GA | 10% | 30% | 200% |
| 3. | Orlando, FL | 8% | 22% | 175% |
| 4. | Minneapolis–St.Paul, MN | 9% | 23% | 156% |
| 5. | Miami, FL | 10% | 25% | 150% |
| 6. | Austin, TX | 7% | 17% | 143% |
| 7. | Cleveland, OH | 11% | 25% | 127% |
| 8. | Tampa, FL | 11% | 25% | 127% |
| 9. | Houston, TX | 19% | 43% | 126% |
| 10. | Columbus, OH | 10% | 22% | 120% |
While we’re no fortune tellers, our gut tells us that Indianapolis (45%) and Houston (43%) are well on their way to becoming Android cities. As for the others, if their popularity keeps growing at the rate they’re going, we might see a more cut-and-dry 50/50 divide between iPhone– and Android-totting house hunters sooner than you’d think. But then again, it’s possible that the rumored iPhone 5 may be the dark horse that throws a monkey wrench into our crystal ball gazing.
