Is the iPhone Better Than Android?

[mrlynn]

I just have a stupid-phone, which I use for. . . phone calls! So I don't know anything about 'smart' phones.

However, my daughter and her husband just got Androids (on his parents' family plan), and she was showing me all these tricks the gizmo does.

Over on HotAir, there's an iPhone thread,

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/04/go...elf-aware/

where some claim the Android has had voice-recognition like Siri for some time now. In the comments, there's a link to this hardware comparison:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/iphon...-and-tita/

So I'm confused about all the hullabaloo. Is the iPhone any better than the Android? If so, why?

/Mr Lynn

[deckeda]

Didn't read those links.

An iPhone is hardware, Android is software. Be careful when "comparing" them.

[Chakravartin]

mrlynn wrote: I'm confused about all the hullabaloo. Is the iPhone any better than the Android? If so, why?

1. The interface is clean and consistent. Android is less about offering the user a good experience and more about offering handset makers a cheap and flexible operating system. Some Android phones are fairly easy to use. Others less so.

2. There are more and generally better apps for iOS. There really is an app for almost anything you'd want to do with your phone. It's easier to develop apps for the iPhone because there's a limited range of hardware to design for and the App Store makes it easy to sell your stuff. When you design for Android, you have to consider the dozens of different different screen sizes, memory, GPUs and CPUs that your app has to accommodate. There are also a half dozen major outlets for software for Android, which might sound good (competition usually favors consumers), but each one uses a different system for purchasing and installing apps and that gets confusing. And because of this apps usually offer a better experience on the iPhone even when they are made for both platforms.

3. It's safer. There's malware for the iOS, but Android is loaded with it.

4. It sync's with your Mac without exposing your private info to 3rd parties. Syncing an Android phone generally requires handing everything over to Google. Some people don't like that idea.

5. The iPhone/iPod dock is almost omnipresent. It's in stereos, receivers, soundbars and automobiles. You could use a minijack cable to connect an Android phone to one of those devices, but the dock lets the device control the phone where the minijack is limited to transmitting audio. It's very convenient for me to plug my phone into my car's stereo system and be able to navigate my playlist from my car's stereo system, controlling it using buttons on the steering wheel.

There are some annoying limitations to the iPhone ecosystem. One that I encounter frequently is the fact that Bluetooth file exchange is disabled in the iOS. This means that the most common way to exchange contacts (vCards) and files between cell phones doesn't work. If you get a car that has phone-controls you can't transfer your contacts to the car's address book. And (until iOS 5 ships) you're stuck using iTunes whenever you want to sync. And it has that kludged iPod interface that offers almost no control over your playlists from the phone. Mostly small annoyances. No device is perfect for everyone.

[sekker]

Also, don't confuse voice recognition / dictation with Siri.

Siri is closer to the IBM Jeopardy champ Watson than anything else out there. Siri uses dictation tools - but they are modular. If Apple develops / buys something better, it's plug and play with Siri.

Android software has had better dictation than iOS, yes. But with iOS5, that difference seems negligible.

[Robert M]

MrLynn,

The question should be is the IOS vX better then Android vX. The IPhone itself is just hardware. You can compare hardware specs of a particular version of the IPhone running the IOS to a particular smartphone that runs Android. In some cases, one will definitely be superior to the other. My Phone 3GS can't compete spec wise with some of the newer smartphones that run Android. Just as the IPhone 4 is better in many respects than some Android based phones.

When it comes to the OS, it's a tough call sometimes. I have an IPhone 3GS (and will soon upgrade to an IPhone 4S). My wife has an HTC Incredible. Both are great phones but there are things about the IOS that I much prefer over Android. But, there are things about Android that are better than the IOS. For example, on the iphone, adding wireless networks is a piece of cake. It was a pain in the butt on my wife's phone. I plugged the correct information into the configuration pane and the phone refused to connect to the wireless network. I repeated the process. Nothing. It finally worked on the third try. I've never had an issue like this on my IPhone.

On the IOS, I have a _tremendous_ problem trying to move the flashing cursor to a particular spot in a word or paragraph. For me, it's near impossible to the point where it's easier to delete the entire word and retype it. Ridiculous. If there is a way to make it easier to move the cursor to the spot of my choice in a simple manner, I've yet to find it. I find this isn't as much of an issue with my wife's HTC Incredible. Not sure why but it's proven true for me time and timeagain.

Long story short, compare the hardware to hardware and OS to OS. It makes for a more fair comparison.

Robert

[Fritz]

I have a 3G that was with ATT before I JB'd and unlocked it.
I loved it for 2 months until ATT was overloaded here in NY.
I understand from friends that the 4G is much improved.
ATTs customer service still blows. Verizons' is stupefying.

When my contract ended I changed to T-Mobile and an HTC Sensation as I needed a phone for overseas travel where (VzW) CDMA has little reach. Had the 4Gs been out at that moment, I might have reconsidered with VzW, just for US coverage.

Phone and app wise, both are quite developed. But the Android system itself, is no where near as developed as iOS. I don't think it will be as Google as other ways to make $.
But from my experience, both OSs need lots of work. Apple is just as guilty of having incomplete apps (IE: iCal, AddressBook) and concepts as Droid does, let alone the 3rd party apps in both cases.
But, there is something to be said about OS "control".

Getting use to sync with an Android phone took a couple weeks.
The iPhone is very smart and it happens quite intelligently.
I can't answer to fears of "cloud" sync. Our info is everywhere in the ether.


The T-Mobile system adds UMA ability that I very much doubt will be added anytime soon by any of the other 3 major carriers.
That was a deal maker for me. My phone works everywhere there is WiFi, even in bumfsck Sao Paulo.

I have, basically, unlimited service for $5 less a month then ATT and about $15 less then I paid with VzW. After 6 months of use, it will be $15/mo cheaper. Some deal I got.

The HTC sounds infinitely better on incoming and outgoing calls then the 3G ......... But that was the 3G.
I used a friends 4G recently. It's better, but the HTC still kicked.
HTC phones (display) eat battery life. But you can swap batts yourself, quite easily.
HTC phones take a licking and keep on ticking. Maybe the 4G does, but my 3G didn't.

All said, the 4Gs looks like a serious buzz. Dual radios make it much more friendly.
New guts. Siri looks like a true match contender for Android voice recognition.
I like walking Manhattans busy streets and answering a text without paying any attention to the device itself, so that I can be aware of the "drivers" and characters around me, who have their noses in their smartphones.

Is one better then the other? Depends on your perspective and needs.
For me, not appreciably to have to put up with ATT or VzW.

I wish phones had a sensor that would make them useless when in vehicular motion.
The number of moroons I pass making left turns into oncoming traffic while texting, talking, making up, and watching a DVD all at once is insane.

What could be so important??

[cbelt3]

It's actually quite simple.

If you want a device that Just Works... get an Apple device.

If you enjoy the search for software inconsistencies and issues... get something else.

I buy and use Macs (at home) because I don't like fussing with computers on my off time. I do enough of that at work (in Windows).

If I had the time and energy, I'd probably be screwing around with Linux and whatnot. I did once, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble to me.

My spare time is worth too much to me to deal with half-baked technologies.

[the_poochies]

cbelt3 wrote:
It's actually quite simple.

If you want a device that Just Works... get an Apple device.

If you enjoy the search for software inconsistencies and issues... get something else.

I buy and use Macs (at home) because I don't like fussing with computers on my off time. I do enough of that at work (in Windows).

If I had the time and energy, I'd probably be screwing around with Linux and whatnot. I did once, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble to me.

My spare time is worth too much to me to deal with half-baked technologies.

:agree:

I was never able to sync my various cell phones and PDAs seamlessly with my Macs over the years. They always seemed to be, at worse, "Windows only" or, at best, required third party software or some complex workaround to play nice with my Macs. Address Book and iCal sit unused on my Mac because I was never able to transfer contacts and events from my electronic gadgets.

My LG phone was pretty slick when I bought it in early 2008 but since then, the effort to get music on that phone, or photos off of the phone, became too much of a PITA, so I only used it for calling and texting.

I can't wait for iPhone 5 any longer, because my old LG isn't gonna make it that long. It would be nice for once to be able to schedule events on my Mac and look up addresses if my phone isn't handy.

[DharmaDog]

I haven't used an Android phone in over a year. The last time was when the Sprint Evo 4G came out. I was sort of indifferent to it. Didn't see that it was measurably better or worse than the iPhone 4 I had just purchased. My colleague that purchased the Evo and let me use it for most of the day kept pointing out the kickstand on the back and the fact that it could be used as a hotspot. Couldn't care less about the kickstand, and the hotspot was something I'd use maybe less than 10% of the time. But that's mostly hardware or carrier issues, and not a real differentiator of the phone's OS. For him, however, the hotspot was a big deal because he travelled a lot and would lead projects a client site's where his consultant coworkers would be unable to get on the client's network for sometime until the consultants' network account were set up.

Last week my family took a road trip to visit my in-laws. While in town I was pressed into "computer guy" duty for my wife's grandparents - setting up Skype with a webcam, buying/installing memory, setting up new email accounts and transferring old email, etc. All in Vista...blech!

Well it came time to get his recently purchased Android phone (not sure which one) configured for the new email account - I can't believe how unintuitive that OS is. I couldn't quickly figure out how to set up the new email account alongside the existing one within ONE app. I only spent maybe 10 minutes trying to figure it out, but I didn't have more time to invest. In the end I got it working, but he now has TWO icons for email on his home screen - one for each account. I know that's going to cause him problems.

[LaserKun]

I'll answer your question - yes.