Android v. Iphone

Off-topic Chatter
21

Phones are sort of another hobby of mine so I will share my opinion.

Without a doubt the iPhone is a great phone. The shape and materials make the phone are far superior and feel like a true high end device. The OS is always smooth and usually has everything anyone could ever need or want. I usually recommend the iPhone to anyone that is in the market for a phone. Having an iPhone itself is sort of like saying a statement in its self and they usually hold their value really well if you ever want to sell. A lot of people also like the fact that Apple is the only manufacturer of iPhones and they only release one phone a year so you dont feel like you have outdated technology one month after buying your phone.

With that being said I have an Android phone and do not see myself switching anytime soon. I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and if you are anyone that likes to customize their things and like to have the openness of Android then I would say go with Android. I love being able to flash numerous ROMs and get to explore certain “hacks” that allow your phone to have custom toggles, BEATs drivers, and work better, faster, etc. I can do anything that an iPhone user can including group messaging.

I would ask yourself this: Are you someone that would like to customize their phones as much as possible and would like the openness of android and explore different ROMs? If no then go iPhone. If yes then go with android. If you go android I would greatly stress you go with a Nexus phone. Even stock I find it superior to other phones because it doesn’t have all the bloat pre-installed. You are also first to get updates directly from google and the community without a doubt has the best support for the Nexus phones. I am on the year old Galaxy Nexus and would not trade it for any other phone on Verizon even if they have better specs. I would have gotten the Nexus 4 but it is not offered on Verizon and other carriers suck in my area.

22

I hate the closed, “we own your device” mentality of Apple. But their hardware does seem to be far superior in terms of quality. I recently had both of my Android phones (a Motorola Droid 2 Global and a Samsung Captivate Glide) break in the same week. Both were lightly used and meticulously cared for. So I am quite disenchanted with Android devices at the moment.

23

alot of android devices are cheaping out on us. i have had android since the g1. that phone was a tank. next was a sidekick 4g, got it when it first came out. that phone was junk. htc inspire. both me and my fiance had nothing but problems. now she has a htc vivid, and i have the htc one x and they both are good phones. she has problems with battery draining, but i think thats some app on her phone doing it. the one x, it took the iphone route, and i cant use a memory card or swap the battery. but it has something like 32gb internal so no big deal.

im still waiting for another good android with a slide out qwerty. the g2 had come and gone way to quick for me to snag one. i think i had another android phone, but cant remember what it was right now…

24

I got the htc evo 4g,and I'm happy with it.Excellent camera and lots of storage(32gig card)also rooting opens up a whole ton of options.With rooting,you can use as a wi-fi hotspot which you can have internet to like 7 devices.I don't like the apple stuff because of all their proprietary crap,and TBH my son just got the iphone and I prefer android after messing around with it.The best part is not having to screw around with itunes because amazon mp3 has a ton of songs that instantly download to the phone.

25

Just curious, did you have a case for both of those?

Funnily enough, my brother used a Motorola Razr for a few years, but gave up after all the problems. He’d drop it onto the carpet and the screen would crack. And there was a ton of technical problems too, with the screen going black for minutes at a time randomly. I remember going to US Cellular every couple months to try to fix another problem with that phone.

I think Apple does use some quality materials, though I do like the gorilla glass alot of android phones use. Bringing up my brother again, he has an ipod classic which scroll wheel still works. Apple couldn’t put out a crappy product because if they did, it would ruin their reputation.

26

If you want a phone for speaking only, don’t go for smartphone.
As for Android or iPhone… well, right now I have Samsung Galaxy Ace, my first Android and my first touchscreen phone. Nice phone, I’d say, good O.S. I’ve played with many iPhones and I’d say I love them too :slight_smile: Smooth navigation, nice and readable menus, thousands of great apps, but… I don’t like the price of all Apple products and, already said by many, that mentality of Apple :bigsmile: If you have 500 bucks to spend… well, you have one version of iPhone or dozen of Androids to choose from. But, I somehow agreed with jcwarren, if you have enough $$$ and want an easy OS, etc, you can go for iPhone. If you want custom stuff on your phone, go for Android better. But again, both OSs has their pros and cons.

27

If it has not been said already, I’d like to say that Android has much more freedom than iOS, rooted/jail broken or stock.

With jail breaking, it seems you can do more because everything is in one place. It follows the same mentality as Apple and their ease of use.

On Android, there is much more you can do but you have to know where to find things or how to search for them.

Android is open source so it is much easier for developers to create custom content for Android including the OS itself. Apple keeps their code to themselves so developers must find out the code to make changes to the OS, that is why you can only make surface level interface changes to the OS. Whereas on Android you can change even the app platform engine.

I prefer Android over iOS because I can have everything exactly how I want it. My brother had an iPod that was jail broken and that still felt very limited to me.

I should add in that I do not like the feel of holding an iPhone, iPods are alright but the edges of an iPhone are not rounded and feel like I am holding a block of metal. A smooth solid-piece of metal, but one with sharp unergonomic edges.

28

SBSettings is essentially a settings window you can pull down from anywhere. I mainly use it to change brightness and turn on my hot spot. But you can also do lots of other things through it. Here a sample screen shot is. (Not mine)

Does android have this type of thing? My Android tablet does not, but it is only on 2.3.

Yeah, that's one of my pet peeves with them but if jailbroken they have no power over it. I tether mine regularly along with facetime over 3g (not allowed to) through the use of Cydia apps.

While Jailbreaking does give you access to a appstore of sorts you can still edit the actual code of your iphone if you want to go more advanced. For example, on ios 5 panoramic photos were programmed in but not enabled. However you could enable them by editing a select chunk of code.

So far I have not found anything on the iphone I want to do that I can't. It may take a bit of work and searching to get it to do what I want but it will.

29

I quite simply will not own an iPhone, or any other apple device. I dislike apple’s attitude and they seem to release units far too fast.

Bare in mind I’m in England, we have different networks and suppliers, but we now generally have to sign up for a two year contract, when apple releases a phone that can actually compete when you get it with the features of other phones I’ll think about it, but I won’t get a phone with a sub par set of features, just because of the logo on the back.

I use my phone for all web browsing, to give you an idea, I’ve never posted on blf from a pc, all my pictures come direct off the phone and as a transport fridge engineer with two toddlers in the house my phones get battered. My HTC desire hd has fallen off the top of articulated trucks, been chewed by toddlers, see’s use in rain far more than any electronic device should. It has never ever failed, I’m actually worried about what to replace it with when my contract renews, probably the latest Samsung galaxy as my partner’s doing well with her s3.

I can tell you something, it definitely won’t be an Apple product, they barely touch the specs of my current two year old phone.

Also, check the threads on issues with posting from Apple products compared to android units. Most popular is not always best option. Certainly not for phones, I want something useful and an upgrade to my current device, apple can’t seem to offer that.

30

Its all down to personal choice, everyone is different and so are phones.

On mobile so I won’t so quoting and screenshots. But I’ll do it later when in on my computer.

Sbsettings: Android has that in stock since 4.2. It is a secondary notification shade you can pull down. Either by swiping with 2 fingers or swiping down the notification try then pressing a button to switch to the quick settings. On tablets swiping down on the top left side will bring down notifications, swiping down from the top right will bring down the quick settings.

I believe Samsung has implemented a simpler thing in earlier versions of Android.

Most custom ROMs allow full customization of the quick settings, order and function of buttons etc.

Android allows tethering on stock.

Android is very modular, almost everything is an app. Example is what you said, the camera:
You can install an app to add new functions. If you want to replace the stock camera app with a newer version and you are rooted you need only to install one by flashing it. Simple as installing. I had Galaxy Nexus for my last phone. Android 4.2 had been released on test/review Nexus 4 devices at this time. Some people uploaded the package for the stock camera app from 4.2 so others could download it and install it on any Android phone or tablet regardless of system version (to some extent).

With Android you can also change default apps to open for file types or links. Eg. Web browser, YouTube app or document. You don’t even need to be rooted.

31

That pull down menu is in my experience a standard feature of any Android phone, are you saying iPhone’s don’t offer WiFi hotspot etc as standard?

32

Yeah with an iphone you normally have to pay extra for it; or you can just jailbreak it. On the iphone you can change the default app, again only if jailbroken but I never said I like unjailbroken iphones. ;)

33

Samsung sells twice as many smartphones than Apple with a market share of 33%. They surpassed Apple.

Go for Android scaru.

34

One thing I will not even consider a phone is if it does not have a notification LED.

My Galaxy Nexus had one and when I sold it to buy the Nexus 4 I had to use an old phone. I would always miss messages and emails, if I missed a phone call I wouldn’t know for hours.

I have the LED set up to light up different colors for different notifications. Green for messages yellow for emails etc. It allows me to take a quick glance at my phone and know if I have any pending notifications.

35

I started with a JB iPT(2g?) and a dumbphone.
When I finally got a smartphone, I got an Android(HTC).
I prefer Android. :slight_smile:
Making the switch was a pain, you come to miss things like Activator, but then you find alternatives that completely blow them out of the water(Tasker).
.

After the switch, I’ve come to be more of a Google guy(them sending me a Chromebook for beta testing helped with that :slight_smile: ) :
Google Voice
Chrome
GMail
Google Docs
You name it, it all makes my life simpler.
.

Also, I’ve never really gelled with Apple:
iTunes is a pain(prefer FB2K)
Don’t like the OSFA device approach
Based on components, they way overcharge for their computers
Very closed minded with their proprietary connectors and such

I could probably discuss this for hours, but anywho…
/Ramble

36

Hmmm... Maybe I will go for android for my next one. I'm hoping to hold onto my 4s for a while as the 5 can't be jailbroken.

37

Still rocking the Galaxy S here, running cyanogenmod 7.

Always been a Linux fanboy, so there was no question really.

So many hardware and software combinations with Android, you can understand why apple want tighter control - they keep a more consistent experience and you would assume therefore more reliability. I have no idea if this stacks up in reality.

38

Ditto on the color-coded Led notification, I’ll never have another phone w/o it. It takes some work, but a nicely configured Android is a pleasure to use, love my SGS3. Not a bit of nonsense out of it for six months and the battery keeps getting stronger every cycle.

39

Apple is a bit overhyped etc. but in the end I really like using the iphone. The design just looks classier to me and I personally really like the UI. It is simple and straightforward to me.

40

Andorid for customizations and widgets and freeware etc.

iOS for people that want a simple to use phone

If I had to choose out of the 2 to buy a phone for my elderly mother it would be a iPhone.

If I had to choose out of the 2 to buy a phone for someone younger or a bit techy I would go with Android (probably a S3 or Nexus 4).

You can jailbreak and customize a a iPhone to a extent but with Android it pretty much can do anything you want right out of the box.

I see iPhone as pretty much just for Apple fans that are willing to pay a premium or people that just buy what is popular as a status symbol, the others that wan’t more still have to hack it to make it usable for their needs.

The breakdown of the iPhone 5 shows its composed of around $170 worth of parts and sells for $700+ for the lowest model (16gb) here.

Also the marketing has pushed it to the point where some older people that aren’t up to date with technology (my mother is one and my sister inlaws parents too) call any smart phone as a iPhone. They see a big screen that is operated by touch and instantly its a iPhone even if its Samsung or Motorola etc, they think its a Samsung/Motorola iPhone but just call it a iPhone and I don’t bother to correct them any more.

And you cant really compare Andoid v iPhone like the title, thats compaining a operating system to a phone. It should be Android vs iOS or iPhone x vs the phone you will compare it to.

I won’t own any Apple device myself, they are very anti competitive and they have literally invented nothing and sue everyone else for stealing their ideas (that other people already invented before Apple ever used it). They are hurting the technology sector by trying to stop others producing anything that is remotely similar and trying to get patients on competitors designs/software/hardwar if its not already paitented so that they can no longer use it and Apple can sue them if they do or else they have to pay Apple royalties for a patient they own even though someone else invented it. Even the name iPhone was stolen from someone else that tried to sue for copyright then Apple settled out it of court.

There is some good viewing here.

Anyway…

Their will be Apple fans and people who believe the hype always continue to buy them regardless of if they are good or not.

But without being bias, the iPhone is ok if you want to pay the extra and don’t care about value for money. In my opinion there is a lot better phones for cheaper and I can’t say the iPhone is a crap phone either because its not.

My girlfriend owns a iPhone 4S, she doesn’t really care what phone she has as long as it takes pictures and she can play games on it on the bus.

Also my brother who I see less than once a year works as a IBM Global manager, in the mid 90s he was leased from IBM to Apple for a few years, since the iPhone first come out he has had many iPhones and iPads and so does his wife and kids but he is always interested in my Android phones and tablets and showing them to his wife and kids saying “look at this” and “look at that” amazed by some of the features, apps and things it can do that theirs cant. He mentioned hes invested too much in to apps and accessories to switch to Android.

I usually stay out of this topic when it comes up in other places because it turns in to people arguing with each other about what phone is best when I really couldn’t care what other people use, if they use a iPhone then I couldn’t care less because it doesn’t affect me. But I though I’ll give my opinion this time around and this is a lot more civilised than other forums on this topic.