According to AppShopper, there are currently 1.17 million iOS apps available on the App Store. And according to AppBrain, there are 1.27 million Android apps. I take these numbers with a grain of salt, since these are two different sources, with two unverified data collection methods. But for the sake of argument, let’s accept these numbers, move on.

Here’s the point:

Most promising app startups with venture capital investments that we analyzed are either building apps for iOS and Android simultaneously or are still iOS-only. Looking at 119 recent Y Combinator incubator participants and Google Ventures seed investments, of those offering apps, more than 90% had iOS apps, about half had both iOS and Android apps, and fewer than 10% only had Android apps. Among those with both, their iOS app typically launched several months ahead of their Android app.

In my VC wanderings, these numbers seem to ring true.

As to why, there’s the much-discussed fragmentation of the Android market, but more interestingly, there seems to be a “dog food” issue that drives this trend.

Indeed, among the startup founders we interviewed, their personal familiarity with iOS came up repeatedly as the reason they built for Apple first.

Most startups build things that they test internally for some time before they release even an alpha build to a more public test group. Developers refer to living with your own product as eating your own dog food, or dogfooding. You make it, you live with it. This makes you intimately aware of the apps benefits, features, and shortcomings before you move to the next release level.

Is it possible that entrepreneurs who reach the point of releasing an app tend more likely to be iOS users than Android users?