iPhone vs Android — My View
I’ve remembered ever since I was a kid, I always wanted a mobile device. Back then, phones had no touch screen and no app store. The major trend seemed to have been flip phones, or even the rare slide phones. However, this all changed when Apple initially revealed their first generation iPhone — which would shape and transform the future of phones into our modern “smartphone” that can do anything.
I was lucky enough to own an iPhone 3G, the first phone in the world to revolutionise the App Store. Having an app for any and every situation really changed my perspective on what mobile devices can do, and since then, I’ve used almost every generation of iPhone as my primary daily driver through the years. However, just a few years ago, I decided to make the switch to Google’s Android platform. The reason? Because I was bored. I was tired of seeing that the majority of people around me had the exact same identical phone as me, with the exact same identical software setup. I wanted to try standing out and being different in the sea of Apple devices — and what better than to use a phone designed from the start to house a pure Android experience, the Nexus 6P.
After using this phone as my daily driver for a little under 2 years, I have a good understanding of the pros and cons of both iPhone and Android. As an entirety, I do not think one side is better than the other — I believe that each phone is suitable for different types of people.
For my comparison, I have decided to compare aspects of each side that aren’t dependent on iterations or models. I warn that this is fairly lengthy (and is my first blog post!), and for those who don’t want to read through everything, I’ve written a TL:DR summary at the bottom of the page.
1. Software Experience
Apple’s iOS software, pushed onto all iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad models, is intuitive, simple and beautiful to use. Responsive multi-touch gestures allow for easy navigation around the phone. Within iOS, heaps of functions are all done under the hood to help you set up and do what you want to do faster.
Everything is fluid to use — the best way to describe it would be that using the software becomes instinct very quickly. Apple makes sure that things remain consistent throughout the entire experience; the back button in every single application is at the same place, the animations in every application are identical, and the muti-touch gestures remain consistent through every application. What this creates is an experience whereby the user learns about how to use the entire phone very quickly, despite only using a few applications. One of my favourite features that I used all the time on iOS was spotlight search — I loved that your phone could contextually read whatever you typed in (such as segments of a text message, or math equations), and gave you the results you needed.
Another addition I believe is underrated is 3D Touch. Despite the fact that many users aren’t even aware that this feature is built into their phones, using it has fundamentally changed the way that I can view my content. The ability to quickly peek at links to see what they contain, and the option to pop them open with just one single hard press is so easy and simple to do, and extremely fast. This technology is something that is only available within iOS, and at least for me, greatly changes the experience.
On the other hand, Google’s method of distributing the Android operating system is vastly different to Apple. Whereas Apple strictly controls which devices iOS is on, Google distributes its Android OS to various major phone manufacturers (such as Samsung, LG, Motorola, ect), who then modify the operating system for their own devices. The phone I had was using Google’s stock Android operating system, Nougat, which was not modified at all. As you can imagine, this means that the experience of using Android can greatly differ if you compared a user like me, and a user with a Samsung phone, for example.
Another side effect of this process is that updates can be significantly slower if you do not own a phone that uses stock Android. If Apple releases iOS 11, all supported iPhones, iPads and iPods will also get the update straight away, as they control the hardware running their operating system. However, if Google released the next iteration of Android, only their phones running stock Android would receive the update first (i.e. Google’s new Pixel lineup). Other phone manufacturers such as Samsung would need to take time to modify the software to suit their needs.
As my phone uses stock Android, all things I will say will make reference to this. In my experience, Android is not as intuitive to use as iOS — not everything is automatically set up for you, and the gestures aren’t as clear. However, after spending time learning to navigate around the phone, I found that the experience ends up being remarkably fluid.
Gestures are used primarily to navigate, along with the set of three navigation buttons lying on the bottom of the screen, acting as the replacement for iOS’s home button. This layout offers consistency throughout the experience. One major feature that I wished Apple would incorporate was the leftmost global back button, that would change to always take you “back” a step from wherever you were, all depending on your context. For example, pressing this button after typing closes the keyboard, or pressing it after opening an app takes you to the homescreen. This is leaps and bounds ahead of the iOS miniature back button, on the top left corner of the screen.
Speaking of the keyboard, the current typing experience on Android is superior in my opinion. The keyboard is much more spacious, and offers much more functionality compared to iOS, such as swiping to type, much more advanced autocorrect, and more customisation options. Although Apple is beginning to support third party keyboards, the level of integration is nowhere near Android right now.
A few major gripes I had with Android was that the experience felt fairly unrefined, in comparison to iOS. There were many small software bugs I encountered, such as the screen rotation lock not functioning properly, turning the volume up while watching a video can sometimes turn up ringer volume, and how a heap of applications (sometimes even stock apps) would crash for seemingly no reason. These things would rarely, if never, happen on iOS. Although these things don’t totally ruin the phone (and can be fixed with software updates), they really do disrupt the experience. Perhaps these software errors will be totally eliminated with Google’s new Pixel line, where similar to Apple, they will control the production of both the phone’s hardware and software.
2. Hardware
Continuing on from the last point, Apple controls the production of all hardware and software. Apple chooses to use the most premium materials for their phones, and the highest quality components. Buying an iPhone ensures that you have a sturdy, premium device in your possession. Furthermore, Apple is (for most cases anyway) on the forefront of mobile hardware, releasing one of the best multi-touch panels, cameras and CPU chips out available. There has to be a reason why when Apple releases a new iPhone, the competition also follow in that direction. Although I don’t fully agree with some of their choices (such as removing the headphone jack).
Comparing all Android phones is extremely hard, due to different standards of different manufacturers. Saying this however, means that there is much more variety in choosing an Android phone — you can pick a premium device, or a much more budget option. Looking at my Nexus phone and the future Pixel devices, the hardware specifications are still very impressive, and meet or exceed the iPhone. With all iPhones, you are locked into that generation’s design — if you happen to be someone who dislikes the design choice, there isn’t much you can do. Apple has recently begun to expand their lineup with the iPhone SE, but that only expands your given choice by 1, compared to the countless sea of different Android devices. However, this will come with a downside, in that hardware quality is entirely up to the specific manufacturer. Don’t expect to get a level of customer service and aid like AppleCare with every single Android device.
However, one thing that Google’s Android phones have been lacking is the optimisation due to the integration of both software and hardware. Looking at benchmarks for the iPhone 7 Plus, as well as the competing Google Pixel XL, we can see the effect of this clearly. Both phones use a 4-core processor, with very similar clock speeds, yet the differences in terms of benchmark scores (performance) is astounding.
As such, I noticed that when using my Nexus 6P, it would begin to get sluggish at times, despite the amazing hardware specifications in it at the time. Again, I am hopeful that this will change as we head to the future, where Google will begin to gain much more control over the process of integrating their hardware with their software.
3. Applications
Apps are what define the modern smartphone. They are the entire reason we have shifted from the prior generation of mobile phones to our current smart devices. As such, I believed that comparing the availability, size and medium of obtaining apps on both platforms necessary.
Apple’s app store is named, frankly, the App Store. The App Store was the original platform that exploded and created all these subsidiaries today. However, does that really make it the best? Apple’s policies on what developers can release into the app store are much more strict and rigorous. Apple ensures that apps released into the store work across the ecosystem of devices, have consistent menus, aren’t harmful to the user, and are fairly polished. For example, having your app icon 1 pixel off will have it denied from being published on the App Store. What this means is that when you download an application on your iPhone, you can expect a fairly high level of quality, and that it has been tested to function fairly rigorously. However, this also means that apps released on the App Store will come out much more slowly, and updates will not be as frequent. The rigorous testing process also means that apps have a limit to their functionality — Apple blocks them from controlling a multitude of items on the iPhone.
Looking at Android’s Play Store, the restrictions are vastly lifted. Google will still evaluate all submitted apps to ensure that they don’t harm the user ect. Applications on the Play Store can do much more to your phone, from changing your icons to completely redesigning your home-screen. However, this also means that they have a higher potential to do harm — Google’s modern OS does a good job at ensuring the user knows every detail of an application’s permissions on the device. Users are able to toggle certain permissions on and off — for example, you can prevent SnapChat from retrieving location data, but leave other permissions on if you wish. This level of precise user control simply does not exist on an Apple device.
Furthermore, Android gives you the option of installing unverified apps from third party developers that have not submitted on the Play Store. While this is somewhat dangerous (and not for those who don’t know what they’re doing), this gives users ultimate control over their device.
4. Software Customisation
In my opinion, I believe that customisation is Apple’s weakest point. Historically, looking back at iPhone, a fun fact was that Apple did not let you customise your own wallpaper (you had to deal with the classic iPhone black background) until the iPhone 4. Ever since, the only means of software customisation that iPhone users have are these three simple things:
- Change app positions
- Change home-screen wallpaper
- Change lock-screen wallpaper
At the end of the day, your phone will inevitably look something like this, as Apple intends:
Now, after using an Android device, the sheer amount of software customisation blows iOS out of the water. This was clearly my most loved feature of my phone. Within Android, we were able to change launchers (i.e. home-screens), completely change icon positioning (without being locked to that single-file grid), change icon size, add in and resize home-screen widgets, add scroll animations, complete custom keyboards, ect. Below are some of my favourite custom Android themes. You can really make your device your own, above and beyond of what Apple allows on their iPhone (shoutout to jailbreaking!).
5. Integration
The magic of using multiple Apple devices together is that they just seemingly work, without any effort from the user. I still remember working on an assignment on my MacBook, away from my phone, when I received a phone call through my laptop. I picked it up, answered and hung up through my computer, without once touching my phone, or telling it to redirect the call.
Apple’s ecosystem of devices work extremely well with each other, and iOS is packed with features to do so. AirDrop is a great example, allowing iPhone users to effortlessly send files to and from each other (and even nearby MacBooks!) with a few simple taps. Apple is also expanding to support integration between other third party companies and developers, the most famous arguably being Beats and Phillips Hue.
Android is a platform that is most famous for integration via Google Apps. Instead of relying on the purchase of expensive devices, one simply needs the ability to have access to their Google account via web browser. Although the ease of use is nowhere near Apple’s standard, it is much more accessible — you are able to share notes between any laptop and your phone, send map data through, and even edit/work on documents and excel spreadsheets on both simultaneously.
Personally, one of the most impressive features of Android is the complexity of custom integration services you are able to utilise. Specifically, using IFTTT, I was able to use my phone to control my lights using my voice, to turning on my computer and heater by asking my phone. I could set alerts so whenever it was about to rain the next day, my phone would text me saying “Don’t forget an umbrella, Alva!”. Although this took a bit of planning and research to implement, the result was an incredible experience that would never be achievable using an iPhone, with Apple’s set limitations.
6. Pricing
Apple will predominantly be the most expensive smartphone any user can purchase from the market. Prices for base products with the lowest specifications will often cost as much as a high end Android device. Apple products always cost a premium, and whether that is worth it is entirely up to the user. If you’re looking for “hardware performance per dollar”, it will most likely never be worth it. However, in my opinion, the experience and ease of use, as well as the service Apple provides, is well more than worth it.
Android phones give users choice — they are able to purchase the right phone for themselves, with countless of options. Whether you want a budget smartphone, a mid-tier one, or a high-end phone costing as much as an iPhone, you have a choice. With Apple, you either pay a premium for the best model, or pay for an outdated, previous generation phone lacking essential features.
TL:DR
In summary, I believe that both iPhone and Android have their place for different people. If a friend would ask me for what type of phone they should get, I would separate the two in the following traits:
iPhone
- Easy and intuitive to set up and use
- Super premium feel
- Diverse app store, with quality applications
- Not very customisable
- Magically simple to use with other Apple products
- Expensive!
Android
- Fluid experience after learning how to use the device
- Large variety of phones to choose from
- Diverse app store, with complete freedom on what goes on your phone
- Extremely customisable
- Large supported integration with third party applications
- Varying prices! You have options!
An iPhone is like living with your parents. You are told what to do, and guided through the process to make it as smooth as possible, despite lacking freedom of your own will. An Android device breaks the rules, and is the rebellious child that runs away from home to do whatever they want, on their own.