Android versus Apple competition

[tcofran]

Android is better because of the choices in more free apps, and the DRM in apple is a pain

[joelus]

Android has full integration with other google products so if you use google+, google docs, gmail etc android has native, seamless integration. That's a win for me. Android allows you to dictate e-mail, or get directions, for example by simply speaking to the phone. Android offers free, voice-guided GPS based navigation without the need for third party apps. You can set what apps are used by default for different things on android, whereas on Apple you are stuck with the default apps decided by Apple.
Widgets.

[arneduppi]

Android is better because it comes before Apple in the dictionary. The apple is not half eaten it's just when they took the picture Steve Job's balls got in the way. Android is better because I see a lot of Apple worshippers here talkin' about how great Android is.

[CrouxL]

An apple is the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh.
An android is a robot with a human appearance.
Once you are done eating the apple, what is left to fondle, er tinker with?!

[Scooby_Doo]

I am defiantly not a iSheeple, so android all the way!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...&defid=5465241

[ryan411]

Android is better than Apple because iTunes is a pain my rear end! After sukkelling with iTunes on my iPhone4 on loan, I will be opting for a nice droid instead as my new phone

[kilobits]

Hey Hey

I think the thing with Android is that it becomes an extension of what you need your device to do... it is shaped by you... almost like an android... your wish becomes its command.

With iOS... IT is the voice that you become compliant to. You end up being an extension of it... it seeks to define you... you become the automaton that it requires of you... it is Apple's way or Apple's way... not your way. iOS... them not you.

Android I think just says... let me do things your way... with you.

[nanatsuaazu]

Android is better because every one in this thread says so!

[Mike Hoxbig]

Android wins because Steve got Chuck Norris'ed from this world.

[Elimentals]

Android is better than Apple because iTunes is a pain my rear end! After sukkelling with iTunes on my iPhone4 on loan, I will be opting for a nice droid instead as my new phone

If that's your only reason you should switch to Ubuntu.

That way you dont need iTunes for whatever reason. Its syncs Music/Photo's and even app folders. Whats better is I use the normal file manager as seen here. and all this with stock (No Jailbrake)

Yeah I know, I just had to brag about Linux, can you blame me

[mercurial]

1. The Back Button – The iPhone lacks a back button, a feature which pretty much all Android phones have to begin with. For example, if you’re reading an email and you click on a link, it opens up Safari, and to get back to your email, you have to press the home button, and click on the mail app again. (This was somewhat fixed with iOS 4/5 multitasking but the functionality of Android is still better.)

2. Default Apps – So far, it is impossible to set default apps for certain actions on the iPhone. However, on Android, this is a piece of cake. If you want to set Opera or Dolphin as the default web browser, you can do so easily but on iPhone, you have to open the app up manually, since Safari cannot be changed as the default web browser.

3. Notification System – The Android slide-down notification bar is amazing, however, the iPhone notification system is horrendous. iOS 5 introduced a better notification system but that's because they blatantly stole the design of the Android notification system.

4. Widgets – Android Widgets are absolutely amazing. The iPhone lacks Widgets altogether. Android widgets can be placed on the home screen(s), and can provide you with quick news updates, live scorecards for sport, messages, your social streams, email, and much, much, more. With Android 4.0 (ICS), widgets are also resizeable.

5. Memory – Apple is too restrictive on what their customers can do and what they can’t. For example, the iPhone doesn’t have a slot for micro-SD cards. If you want more memory on an iPhone, you’ll have to pay an outrageous sum of money for an iPhone with a higher capacity of memory. Pretty much all Android Phones, on the other hand, have a compartment to put a micro-SD card into, and with the release of Android 2.2(Froyo), many apps can be saved onto the SD card, saving you a lot of valuable phone memory.

6. Integration – On Android, if you want, your Facebook contacts can be integrated into your phonebook. This a feature which the iPhone lacks. It also has integration with your gmail inbox, calendars, docs etc. You can pull all your contacts info from gmail directly onto your phone and store them there. This makes it easy when you get a new Android smartphone. All you do is set up your gmail account, which takes a few seconds, and all your contacts are imported to your phone in a matter of seconds.

7. Syncing – Personally, I hated having to repeatedly sync my iPhone with iTunes. With Android, plug your phone into the computer, and it’s just drag and drop, which believe me, is much quicker and convenient than syncing. So, your Android phone can even replace your USB. The iPhone can’t even be started for the first time without iTunes!

8. Android Market/Google Play Store – The Android Market/Google Play Store doesn’t send you back to the home screen every time you want to download/update an app. I have found this to be very irritating on the App Store.

9. Flash – Many Android phones have Adobe Flash support, while the iPhone only has html5 support. Without flash, many videos on the Internet cannot be viewed, making Youtube, Facebook Video, And TwitVid, some of the only video sites supported by the iPhone. I find this highly annoying and retarded. It's just another one of those restrictions that Apple places on their products.

10. Developers – Apple charges people who want to develop applications for the App Store $100/year, while Google only charges Android developers a once off fee of $25, so once again Android prevails.

11. Email – The email system on the iPhone is horrible. You have to manually check for email, unlike on Android, on which you are notified of an email as soon as it arrives. Also, if you have already viewed/read an email on your computer (eg. on Hotmail), it will appear as unread on your iPhone. This is a big disadvantage for people who use email a lot.

[mercurial]

12. Angry Birds is Free – Yep! On Android, all three versions of Angry Birds are free, unlike on iOS where they are $1 each.

13. Availability - The Android platform is definitely a leader in the number of smartphone models available on the market. New Android based smartphones roll out almost daily. Some are shipped to the regional markets, others worldwide. The top five manufacturers of Android based smartphones are Samsung, HTC, ZTE, Sony and Huawei. If we count in the Chinese clone industry, it really seems that Android has taken over the world. On the other hand, Apple iOS is present only in 11 models on the market (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch included).

14. Number of Applications - iOS is obviously the market leader by number of available applications because more than 500 000 applications are available through the Apple Store. The Android takes the second place with 320 000 - 350 000 of available applications. But Android has one crucial advantage over iOS is it does have a wider and bigger developer base since it is an open platform.

15. Support for third-party applications - All versions of Android platform feature a native support for third party applications. This is not the case with iOS as it has strict application authorization rules, so only a small number of third party applications get approved.

16. LTE/4G Networks - Some Android smartphones available on the US market support the new 4G/LTE standard (HTC EVO, Motorola Droid Bionic, LG Optimus, Nexus S). This new standard offers download speeds up to 300 Mbps, so it's a great thing to have a 4G/LTE ready smartphone. Apple recently tried to fool the world with their new iPad 4G/LTE nonsense, but failed miserably and they were forced to rename it accordingly.

17. Navigation - Allthough both platforms support the GPS navigation, the awesome Google Maps give the Android the upper hand. There are also tons of alternative navigation applications on the Android Market/Google Play Store. Once again, there is choice.

18. Better User Interface - Unlike the iPhone OS, Android user interface has been constantly refining and evolving over the years. With Android 4.0, Google has made the user interface much more polished and modern. The main feature of the OS is navigation buttons, these make it easier for the user to navigate around the phone. Unlike the iPhone with only one navigation button (Home Button), Android phones have back, menu, and multitasking buttons, which allow the user to very easily perform these actions whith out having to look for the virtual buttons in an application. Android utilizes the entire screen with screenshots of the running applications compared to iOS, where multitasking is only done using the dock at the bottom. iOS wastes the entire screen space when it comes to multitasking. On the iPhone there is only one thing you see, a page full of applications and nothing more. This makes the user interface very boring and dull as the space on your home screen not being used efficiently to provide rich experience for the user. iOS might be easier to use but it is time to move on from an operating system designed for technologically challenged individuals. The Android user interface separates your home screens from the applications list and provides a space that you can customize the way you want. This is the main reason why every single Android phone looks different and unique unlike the iPhone.

19. Control over network data - In the Settings app, colorful charts show the total data usage on each network type (mobile or Wi-Fi), as well as amount of data used by each running application. Based on your data plan, you can optionally set warning levels or hard limits on data usage or disable mobile data altogether. You can also manage the background data used by individual applications as needed.

20. Install any app you want - With iOS, developers and users are at the mercy of Apple’s standards board. With Android, there are literally dozens of app stores in addition to Google’s Android Market/Play Store. Want to program your own app and distribute it your friends? With Android, it’s no problem; just give your friends the install file, tell them to check the “Unknown sources” box in their settings menu, and you're sorted.

21. Keyboard Flexibility - If you don’t like Android’s stock keyboard, you have dozens of third-party alternatives, from Swype, SwiftKey to Better Keyboard on offer. All you need to do is download a new one from the Google Play Store and install it. It's that simple. Once again, freedom and convenience rules. Better still, you can buy an Android handset with a honest-to-goodness physical keyboard. If you don’t like the iPhone’s keyboard, you’ll need to jailbreak it in order to install an alternative.

22. Bigger Screens - With the iPhone 4S, you can get any screen size you want as long as it’s 3.5 inches. With the wide range of Android phones available, you can choose from tiny form factors such as the Motorola Charm, or huge ones, such as the 4.5-inch Samsung Infuse or the biggest one of them all, the Samsung Galaxy Note. It’s your choice, not Apple’s.

23. NFC Support/Mobile Payments - With a Near Field Communications (NFC) chip, Android phones such as the Samsung Nexus S and the HTC Amaze 4G can double as your wallet, allowing you to tap and pay at a growing number of retail outlets. In the future, NFC chips will also allow your phone to be used as an ID card or a keycard. Maybe then, Apple will add this promising technology to its phones.

24. Even Steve Wozniak says the following:

#1 Voice commands work better on Android.
#2 Voice commands deliver better results on Android.
#3 Android’s built-in turn-by-turn GPS navigation doesn’t exist on iPhone.
#4 The learning curve for Android is a bit steeper, but once mastered, has more to offer.
#5 Android could be to iOS today, what Windows was to Mac in the 1990s: a real threat due to licensing of the Android OS to hardware manufacturers. Woz acknowledges the similarity and sees it as a legitimate threat as he thinks Android is a better OS than Windows was at the time, also in terms of application design and aesthetic. “There’s not as big a difference [between iOS and Android] as there was between Mac and Windows”.
#6 The Apple app approval process is bureaucratic, whereas Android developers can get programs out faster, and push out tweaks as well as revisions in less time.
#7 Siri was better as a standalone program, and now that it’s built into IOS, is not as good. He especially called out Siri on requiring an Internet connection. He noted that it was particularly annoying when he wanted to call his wife, for example, and that he’s never had Android come back and say, ‘I can’t connect over the Internet.’”
#8 Since iOS 5, battery life is better on Android.

25. iTunes - Nuff said.

Apple -> Imprisonment
Android -> Freedom. You can create your homescreen(s) exactly the way you want it and you can load all sorts of customized ROMs whenever you desire to, giving you the ultimate freedom you deserve. The bottom line is that with Android, you have choice.

[Tom99]

Adobe Flash is a not available on IOS resulting in not being able to open sites like cartrack (amongst others.)
IOS is too freaking contolled and restricted, it is capable of sooo much more.
Andriod is pretty much capable of anything.

[MrCanhaM]

Variety - iOS only has one phone, the iPhone whereas there is a variety of Android devices, so if you're looking for a touch screen only or a physical qwerty keyboard Android unlike iOs has you covered

Navigation - With google maps unlike iOS you don't need to look at the screen when driving, all you have to do is listen and drive with its world class GPS navigation

Customization - iOS is not very user friendly when it comes to customizing how things work. With Android you can choose the default app for mail, music, web etc if you don't like the default apps then you can change them to what works for you unlike with iOs

Widgets - With Android you can put any widget you want on your homescreen that suites you & what works for you unlike with iOS

User Interface - honestly speaking iOs are ugly, they are so plain & boring whereas the Android devices are warm and inviting so when you press the menu button you are welcomed by a great and awesome menu whereas the iOS devices menu is pretty ugly, plain and boring

Larger Screen Size - Android devices have larger screens than iOS which is that much better

Flash - No argument needed, flash is better
Total Google Integration - Google+, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calender, Google Search and everything else google is available best for Android

And finally, iOS apps crash more than Android apps : http://goo.gl/tF1R7

Oh not to forget for us South African users there is an android that suits your pocket unlike iOS which prices are well over R5000 with Android they can range from just over R1000 to anywhere under R10 000 so whether you want music or business, play or pictures or anything else there is an Android for you!

[paddy_za]

I recently moved over from iOS (I previously owned a 3G, 4 and 4S) to an Android device (HTC One X). All my iOS devices were jailbroken and customized as far as possible with what a Google search deemed to be the top rated Cydia mods. Despite this I could never shake the feeling that I was being presented with a dumbed down piece of software. I shudder to think what it must be like for users who lack the technical knowledge to jailbreak their devices; something that Apple are definitely trying to stamp out based on how difficult it is becoming for hackers to jailbreak newer releases of the iOS firmware.

iOS users tend to argue that iOS' appeal lies in its simplicity and the fact that it 'just works'. While this is true and I agree to a certain extend, I now find myself able to accomplish far more tasks with far less 'touches' on my One X. Tasks that previously required me to bounce between a number of different areas of the operating system, can now be accomplished by a menu popup displayed by simply tapping and holding on an item. The email app is an excellent example.

Another point that fans of iOS tend to push is the smoothness and general feel of the GUI. This aspect is very important to me, and to be fair, my One X is the only Android based phone I have used so I cannot comment on the other phones, but the differences here seem to be negligible. In fact, while there may be minuscule differences in the smoothness of switching between screens, the fact that my camera loads in less than a second and is able to capture multiple images per second using burst mode completely overshadows any of this.

A lot of people have mentioned the apps so I won't say anything further about that, however I would just like to point out that in my opinion, the Google Play store is far superior to the iTunes store. It is a pleasure to navigate through and is far more intuitive. The user comments are also excellent and informative and I don't get the impression that I am being discriminated against, just because of where I live (the SA iTunes store is an absolute joke).

To do a full comparison of all the various facets of each operating system would be a bit drawn out and a lot of it can be regarded as subjective. I will concede that that there are areas that iOS is superior (love the design and build quality), but in my opinion these will all be addressed by new high-end Android devices very shortly.

These are my feelings after only having my One X for just a couple of weeks. I haven't even rooted it yet because I am enjoying the stock HTC Sense version of Ice Cream Sandwich so much. There is so much left to explore in that sense.

I hope none of what i said bleaks anyone out, at the end of this day it is all pretty subjective. Apple really need to re-evaluate their mindset and start providing firmware upgrades that offer meaningful feature and functionality improvements. Until then I can't see myself moving back, as much as I would love to