Funny thing - regardless of where you put ground, all the voltages are positive relative to the negative battery terminal. Because voltages are always in reference to something (usually our reference is ground or the negative terminal). If you ever have to measure voltage, you’ll notice the device has two probes - you can only measure voltage between two points.

But putting them there is almost definitely a bad idea.

Yeah, if you’re working on really high-performance apps, I can see why iOS would be easier. I’m guessing it’s because the hardware that runs iOS is exclusive, so they can create simpler and more reliable APIs for that kind of thing. Android supports pretty much anything, so consistent APIs and performance is much more difficult.

But I’d posit that your development case is somewhat narrow. Tons of apps only rely on more basic APIs and base-system components–where computations are happening (CPU vs GPU) isn’t even considered, and doesn’t matter. There’s still more variation in performance, but it’s usually negligible.

I can certainly sympathize with your case, though.

It really depends on your budget and what you define as an “easy fix.” For tons of people I know, they’d rather send something in for repair or buy a new device than spend twenty minutes searching for a solution.

From a developer standpoint, I can affirm this. Android is much easier to develop on, presumably because Android doesn’t lock down as much functionality as iOS. Neither is “right” or “wrong,” they just have different philosophies.

Oh, and Android has a much lower barrier to entry to begin development. Apple charges significantly more to publish apps, and you can’t really develop iOS apps without an Apple device. Not a big deal for the big players, but indie projects have a harder time.

It increases your chance of drowning, but not for the reason people usually think.