According to Russell Ivanovic at app developer Shifty Jelly, that's just a story that is continuously repeated by the tech press without much grounding in reality.
Russell was prompted to write on the company's blog by a post on Daring Fireball by John Gruber, a noted Apple blogger and iOS app developer.
In his post, Gruber references a member of the team behind the Android version of the
I worry endlessly about falling into this trap myself. That Android is a fragmented mess for developers. That Android devices are prone to janky scrolling. I seldom jump on articles that reinforce those beliefs immediately; I’d rather be late to link and right than early to link and wrong. Yesterday’s link to the BBC iPlayer Android lead’s admission that their Android team is three times larger than their iOS team seemed to me a strong indication that my hunches remain correct.
Russell responded directly to Gruber:
Sorry to disappoint you John, but a talented Android developer works at roughly the same speed as a talented iOS one. They make the same apps, of the same complexity, in the same amount of time. Sure there are differences in platforms and API. Some things are quicker to do on iOS, others on Android. Long story short, there’s not a lot of difference when it comes to development time.