Iphone VS Android
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1. Hardware: Choice vs. Polish
Hardware is the first place that the differences
between the iPhone and Android become clear. Apple is the only company that makes
iPhones, giving it extremely tight control over how the software and hardware
work together. On the other hand, Google offers its Android software to many phone makers
(Samsung, HTC, LG, and Motorola, among others, offer Android phones). As a
result, Android phones vary quite a bit in size, weight, features, user
experience, and quality. It’s not uncommon to hear that some Android phones
regularly overheat or freeze up or that some models are simply low quality.
This inconsistency of quality isn’t an issue for the iPhone.
Apple offers users a single choice: what model of
iPhone do you want (3GS, 4 or 4S), not what company’s phone and then what
model. Of course, some people may prefer the greater choice Android offers.
Others, though, will appreciate the simplicity and quality offered by the
iPhone.
2. OS Compatibility: A Waiting Game
If you want to make sure you always have the latest
and greatest features that your chosen Smartphone operating system offers, you
have no choice but to buy an iPhone. That's because Android makers are very
slow about updating their phones to Google's latest Android OS releases and
sometimes don't update their phones at all. While it's to be expected that eventually
older phones will no longer have support for the latest OS, Apple's support for
older phones is generally better than Android's. Take for instance, iOS 5, its
latest OS. It includes full support for the iPhone 3GS, a nearly three-year-old
phone as of this writing. Because of that, roughly 75% of iPhone 3GS-4S users
were running iOS 5 6 months after its release. On the other hand, Android 4.0,
codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich, is running on just 2.9% of Android devices 6
months after its release. This is partly because the makers of the phones
control when the OS is released for their phones and, as that linked article
shows, some makers have been slow to release it to their users. So, if you want
the latest and greatest as soon as it's ready, you need an iPhone. Winner:
iPhone
3. Apps: Selection vs. Control
While the iPhone App Store offers more apps than
the Android Market--about 425,000 versus 250,000 (as of July 2011)--overall selection isn’t
the only factor. Apple is famously strict (some might say unpredictable) about
what apps it allows and how it changes its policies, while Google’s standards
for Android are somewhat more lax. Many developers have complained about the
emphasis on free apps for Android and the difficulty of developing for so many
different phones. As a result, not all of the best apps make it to Android, and
those that do don’t necessarily run on all phones. Winner: Apple, but not by
much
4. Gaming: A Growing Giant
Just a couple of years ago, video gaming--and
especially mobile video gaming--was dominated by Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP.
The iPhone has changed that. The iPhone (and iPod touch) has rapidly become a
major player in the mobile video game market, with tens of thousands of great
games. The growth of the iPhone as a gaming platform, in fact, has led some
observers to forecast that Apple is well on its way to eclipsing Nintendo and
Sony as the leading mobile game platform. Beyond that, the general expectation
that Android apps should be free (noted above) has led game developers
interested in making money (i.e., almost all of them, and certainly all the
major ones) to develop for iPhone first and Android second. In fact, due to
various problems with developing for Android, some game companies have stopped creating games for it
all together. While Android has its fair share of hit games, the iPhone has the
advantage here. Winner: iPhone
5. GPS Navigation: Free Wins
As long as you’ve got access to the Internet and a Smartphone,
you never have get lost again thanks to the built-in GPS and maps apps on both
the iPhone and Android. And while both platforms sport GPS apps that can give
drivers turn-by-turn directions, only one has a high-quality, spoken
turn-by-turn GPS app that’s also free: Android. Android users can use Google
Maps Navigation, an app that’s not available for iPhone, to get free
turn-by-turn directions to virtually anywhere. While there are lots of other
GPS apps for both platforms, there’s no equivalent free app for iPhone. Winner:
Android
6. Flash: Is It Worth It?
The iPhone famously doesn’t run Flash--and never
will--and makers of Android tablets trumpet that their devices do. If tablets
using Android can run Flash, will Android phones be able to do the same? At one
point it was hard to say, but now we can: the answer is no. Or not any more
than they can now. That's because Adobe, the makers of Flash, have ceased
development of Flash for Android. After reports that the experience of running
Flash on Android was never very good--many reviewers have pointed out that
Flash doesn’t work terrifically well on Android tablets and that it drains
batteries quickly--Adobe's decision seems to validate Apple's original point:
Flash is bad for batteries and device stability. While its lack of Flash
prevents the iPhone from viewing some web content, many sites have alternate
versions that work with the iPhone. So, iPhone users do miss some of the web,
but less and less all the time. And, they may miss the parts of the web, but
with HTML 5 set to displace Flash and Flash's own maker admitting it can't make
a version that works well on Android, you'd have to conclude Apple wins this
one. Winner: iPhone
7. Battery Life: Consistent Improvement
Because of the greater variety of hardware used in
Android phones, Android’s battery life is more varied and, on average, less
than the iPhone’s. While early iPhone models had batteries that required a
charge nearly every day, that’s no longer true. With recent models, it’s
easy to go days at a time without needing a charge.
The story is much more complex with Android, thanks to the large variety of
models that run it. Some Android models now have 4-inch screen or 4G LTE
networking, both of which burn through much more battery life. To
get a sense of what that means, some 4G LTE Android
phones are being touted as successes because they can work 8 hours straight
without a charge. That means they don't last an entire day, just a work day.
I'm sure the faster networking is great, but that's too much of a trade-off for
me. Add that to the battery-intensive apps Android phones run (including some
in the background that the user doesn’t necessarily know are there), a charge
every day (or less) isn’t unheard of. Winner: iPhone
8. Screen Size: How Big Is Too Big?
If you're looking for the biggest screens available
on Smart phones, Android is your clear choice. It's not uncommon to find
Android phones with 4.3-inch screens, and the HTC One X offers a 4.7-inch
screen, while the Samsung Galaxy Note stretches the ruler at 5.3 inches. So,
for sheer size, Android it is. The question, of course, is whether a screen
that big on a phone is actually a good idea. After all, phones go in our
pockets or purses, they're held in our hands and to our faces, where huge
devices may not necessarily be a benefit. And as we've seen already, large
screens consume more battery power. To date, Apple has always offered the same
size screen on the iPhone: 3.5 inches. Instead of making it bigger, its new
screens are better: the Retina Display technology makes them much higher-resolution
than Android screens. Still, if it's raw size you're after, Android's the
choice when you're looking for a new Smartphone, choosing an iPhone or Android
phone isn't a simple task. While both phones offer a lot of great features,
they may seem so similar that it's hard to distinguish between them. If you
look closely, though, you'll find that there are some key differences. Thirteen
of those differences are examined here to help you decide whether an iPhone or
Android phone is right for you. Winner: Android
9. Networking: Android Leads in 4G
For the fastest wireless Internet experience, you
have to go to Android. That's because--for now--only Android devices support
true 4G LTE networking, the wireless data standard that is succeeding, and out speeding,
3G.Not all Android devices have 4G LTE, and not all areas of the U.S. have 4G
LTE available yet, but if you've got a compatible device, have an available
network, and are on a carrier with 4G LTE, some Android phones can offer
blazing-fast speeds. While iOS 5.1 changed some iPhone signal-strength
indicators to show "4G" instead of "3G," there's no true 4G
LTE iPhone--yet (click the link above to find out why). It's a virtual
certainty that the iPhone will include 4G at some point in the future, the
question is only when. When that happens, this category will be a tie. Winner:
Android
10. Carriers: 4 vs. 3
If you like to have a lot of choices, Android is your best
bet. Just like there are many Android phones from many companies, you can also
get Android phones that work on any of the U.S.’s four major phone carriers:
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. On the other hand, the iPhone is only
available on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Both options are
available through the many small, regional carriers in the U.S., Too So, if
you’re already a T-Mobile customer, or just want maximum flexibility, Android
should be your choice.
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