Android vs iPhone: A Never-Ending Tech Debate
If you are a big-time techie like us here at Gadgetshieldz, India’s leading mobile skins and screen guards brand, you probably have enough idea about the ever-so-famous debate of Android vs iPhone.
It’s not only a debate in the big-tech world if that’s what you think. It’s often an interpersonal topic of discussion among friends and close ones. Sales of iPhones have sky-rocketed over the past few years to the extent that you will barely see youngsters and millennials nowadays having an Android phone. And even if someone ends up on an Android, their first preference would be to go for a flagship or a mid-range one. However, this is just a tiny factor in which phone is better. There are so many nuances that you have to process through to match your compatibility needs from a smartphone. Let’s learn a bit more, part-by-part, and in detail.
When to consider an iPhone?
Ecosystem
In a general tech ecosystem, you can have as many devices you would like to add on that can connect to each other. But for this article, let’s consider a minimal, modern-style tech ecosystem consisting of a PC/Laptop, Smartphone, TWS, Tablet and a Smartwatch.
If you take any Android phone brand, they don’t have a seamless ecosystem as much as Apple’s except for brands like Samsung and Xiaomi.
You can still rely on Samsung’s tech ecosystem via One UI for a while, but for Xiaomi, it’s still pretty new and needs a lot of work. For any other Android phone, you can connect your phone to your PC via Link Your Phone feature, through which you can make calls and reply to texts from your PC. However, the connection falters quite often and there are other issues and errors, hence, making it not so reliable.
When you have an Apple ecosystem with an iPhone, your data will continue through all the interconnected devices in a continuation. There are barely any hiccups in an Apple ecosystem. Moreover, you can now easily port apps installed on your iPhone to MacBook via iOS to macOS without any hassle.
App Variety & Quality
If we are talking about whether the App Store or Play Store has a vaster collection of apps, Play Store takes the win. But is every app on the Play Store safe, secure and ad-free? Nope. Only a few apps have some security, and the rest of the third-party apps are very buggy and glitchy.
Play Store gives scope to many developers out there to launch their apps on Play Store, but not every app is effective. Moreover, even the apps that are verified and protected do not always have a smooth & responsive UI. This implies that Android simply does not have the best app optimisation compared to iPhones.
You can find good-performing apps on flagship Android phones as they’re highly spec-packed, but these apps lack a bit in performance.
Instead of buying an Android flagship, you can invest in an iPhone. An iPhone will cost you a similar price but will still give way better scope for you to use more secure and cleaner apps. The security of apps in an App Store is an outcome of a tedious & expensive screening process for each and every app. You’ll find relatively fewer ads and glitches and a smoother functioning OS.
Privacy and App Tracking
If you scroll through Apple’s Online Store frequently, you must have seen under every product about their privacy policies; “Privacy, that’s iPhone.”, “Privacy is built-in.”.
This might seem like a marketing gimmick to many iOS sceptics. But it is more than that because iOS provides better privacy and app tracking options. You get app tracking notifications every time you install an app, and you can simply deny giving access. In fact, because of this feature alone, Facebook faced a severe revenue loss as its primary revenue source is through intensive data collection to curate ads for the user.
However, this does not imply that Apple does not store any data about you. Apple does, but it does show quite a significant difference in data & privacy storage.
Cleaner OS
While few Android phone brands like Google Pixel and Motorola expertise in giving stock Android, most of such brands generally have heavy, power-consuming skins along with too much bloatware. While it adds a plus point for Android phones in terms of providing a variety, it also adds a negative point in terms of cluttering sometimes.
It’s agreeable that iOS UI has not changed drastically since the time it was launched for the first time in 2007. Even if there’s not much variation in the UI, it does look very organised and clean. iOS is so well optimised that it helps you carry on with usage for more time than expected for an Android phone with similar specs.
Better Software Update Facilities
We can explain this with an instance. Let’s say you got an Android phone other than a Pixel phone in 2021 with Android 11. The brand you bought your phone from promised you major Android updates for the next three years and security patches for four years. Currently, most phones with Android 11 should receive an Android 12 update, and some are receiving it. But you are one of the many people who have not got the update even when you have a relatively newer phone.
And this is the story of Android phone updates. The first update always comes to Pixel phones, and then other phones receive it over weeks or maybe even months, depending on the age and the type of your phone.
But this isn’t the case with an iPhone. Every iPhone receives OS updates for at least five to seven years. FYI, there is no such thing as a major update in iOS per se.
Each update is uniform, crucial and takes care of every concern in your iPhone, including security. Moreover, if an update is released on a specific day, it will come to every device no later than a week or two. The uniformity of devices and updates is what makes it so quick.
Better Customer Support
Customer experience is a significant concern of every brand and is of utmost importance. For any Android phone brand, no matter how known the brand is, customer support is not as great as you would expect.
You have to avail of their customer service number from their website, contact them, go to the nearest retail store and then get any issue diagnosed. For instance, if you need to get your broken screen fixed, you gotta ship it to the manufacturer in addition to all the steps mentioned before.
If you face issues like phone heating in an iPhone, you can get tech support a few clicks away on your phone, and they will run a diagnosis. So hassle-free, right? If you’re wondering how much you have to pay for this, we’d like to tell you that it’s FREE! And for more grim issues like broken screen or back panel, you can directly take it to your nearest iCare.
When to consider Android?
Price Flexibility
If you are looking for a smartphone that fits a specific budget and essential spec list that matches your requirement, Android is the best option. Android provides a plethora of phones in different price ranges with good specs. You can find a good spec phone for a price as low as ₹7,000 and as high as ₹2, 00,000; such is the variety of Android phones.
The same cannot be said for iPhone because the least expensive phone per availability in the Apple store costs around ₹44,000. You can buy an entry or mid-range flagship Android phone with power-packed specs at the same price.
Customisation Possibilities
As mentioned in this article earlier, iOS does not bother too much when it comes to customisation. Now they have made a little wiggle room for customisation, but that’s pretty much it.
With an Android phone, you can personalise endlessly. You can choose your own widgets and place them according to your convenience and usage. You can install a lot of third-party apps as well. You can even switch to another launcher downloaded from Google Play Store at your convenience.
Moreover, most smartphones, including the budget range, have Android 12. Android 12 has a strict Material You theme, which implies further customisation and personalisation to your device. You can customise your phone’s all-over colour palette based on your wallpaper. Pretty cool, right?
Presence of a universal charging port: USB-C
USB-C is a type of port you will find everywhere these days. Even a MacBook comes with a Type-C charging port, FYI. But iPad and iPhones don’t have such, at least for now. Currently, Apple is testing USB-C charging instead of the Lightning charger to unify their devices even more. But nobody is sure about when it will come into effect.
All Android devices have USB-C ports these days. You don’t have to buy a separate charger whenever you switch a phone. For instance, if you are shifting from a budget Android to a flagship Android like a Pixel or Samsung S series, you can use the same charger as your old phone.
Drag and Drop File System
Apple has iCloud, so you don’t exactly get to transfer files in and out from your iPhone to a system with the help of a data cable. You gotta rely on an internet connection to move your files between your iPhone and system.
iCloud is convenient, but we have trying days sometimes when there are network and data outages. On those hard days, it’s not easy to move around files if you have an iPhone, a Windows PC and a heavy workload to transfer. During such days you often wonder if iPhones had Drag & Drop File system.
But Android phones prove to be stellar at such times because you can just plug in your phone to your PC through your data cable and move files as you would between a hard drive or a pen drive and a system. It’s that easy and convenient.
Full of innovative tech
iOS and Android have innovated in their own ways. The former is a little behind in the context of more innovative features like NFC, Fast charging and in-screen fingerprint sensors that came in Android first.
Every year, a big bunch of companies launch a plethora of Android phones. There is so much competition that any one brand ends up pioneering new tech, which later becomes a bandwagon for the rest of the brands to jump into. This way, Android phones keep up more rapidly with the latest tech.
Verdict
iOS and Android are entirely different from one another. However, the differences between both are unifying now if you look closely.
iOS is taking a page from Android’s handbook and learning more about imbuing customisation in their phones, whereas Android is taking a page from iOS’ handbook and learning more about how to manage privacy controls. And this is just one thing amongst many.
Both the systems have pros and cons, which change relatively according to the user’s needs. Let us explain simply: –
Let’s consider ‘A’ & ‘B’ are two people with different requirements.
Talking about ‘A’, ‘A’ loves the idea of endless customisation over anything, has a limited budget and loves a seamless ecosystem. The best choice is to go for an Android phone, but the absence of a pure, seamless ecosystem is bothersome. So that’s a definite con for them.
Now talking about ‘B’, ‘B’ loves the idea of privacy over anything, has a high budget and loves endless customisation. Their best bet is on an iPhone, but they gotta miss out on customisation, which is bothering. And that is their con.
This proves that it finally comes down to an individual’s preferences. But here’s something important to be pointed out: iPhones are simpler to use. Everything about it is very subtle and tidy. They’re not as spec-packed as Android phones, but even the older tech they use, they modify and optimise that a lot, so even if your iPhone has 3GB RAM, it will run perfectly smooth.
Sure, Apple is lagging in innovative tech, but they invest a lot in perfecting and optimising the basics of older tech that work just as good or even better than what you have. They don’t crunch in too many phones, but they definitely crunch in quality in every iPhone they make.
Android is good in its own way because it’s fun to use! However, quality assurance is not guaranteed in every Android phone you use. In flagship phones like Pixel, you get the most out of Android OS, but the same can’t be said about other brands unless they have flagship phones. But anyway, you have more options when considering Android OS.
Whether you buy an iPhone or an Android iPhone in the future, check its compatibility with your OS and hardware requirements. Once you’re done, you can head to our site to scratch-proof your device with our mobile skins and screen guards.
