Where are all the spread betting Apps for Android?

As the owner of a top-of-the range Android mobile phone I nonetheless feel like the poor relation at the mobile spread betting party.

Whereas most of the spread betting platforms boast an iPhone app, the Android community seems to be surprisingly under-served by spread betting companies. It’s ‘surprising’ because Android phones outsell iPhones by a factor of, I don’t know, at least two-to-one. But I suppose the rationale is that “city types” are more likely to own an iPhone.

At my last count I counted three spread betting apps for Android, but the Capital Spreads one (which I liked very much) currently times out every time I try to log in, the Delta Index one (which was more of a mobile web site than a dedicated app) seems to have ceased operation since they moved to the Gekko Global Markets platform, and I’ve never really used the City Index app because I’m not too keen on their platform in general. But wait a minute, I see an IG Index app in the Android market, so I might take it for a spin, but first I’ll have to open an account with them.

Actually, I can access a number of spread betting platforms on my Android phone because they support Adobe Flash – which is more than can be said for the iPhone itself. But the mobile screen is a little small to make out what’s going on when running the regular Flash-based web sites in the phone’s browser.

An bigger-screen Android tablet should do the trick, buy the last one I tried went back to the shop the same day because it failed to live up to my expectations. Maybe the rumoured Google Nexus tablet will cut the mustard, and in the meantime my trusty Windows 7 Dell Duo laptop-cum-tablet will continue to serve me well. If it ain’t broke, I don’t really need to fix it.

Maybe mobile trading apps are merely a solution looking for a problem. But I would say that, wouldn’t I, as someone who is iPhoneless?

Tony Loton is a private trader, and author of the book “Stop Orders” published by Harriman House.