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iPhone or Android?

A

Appleboy3

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 6, 2011
13
0
Obviously this is an Applerumors site and I too love Apple, but, list things why you personally love Apple so much and iPhone. For me, I love the ease of use and how it looks. I do like widgets on Android and I hope widgets come in some form to iPhone someday. but really, besides that I dont like Android. Oh, and I like live wallpapers. But honestly, jailbreak isnt that hard so, whatever. I love the look of iphone, ios, pretty much everything. I have researched Android deeply to see if i might like it better than ios and apple, I have come up with the conclusion that If i had an iPhone 4s with newest iOS for a week then The best Android phone with ICS for a week (no prior experience with either or knowledge of either) I would iPhone 4s. what about you guys? and girls?

AppleRulz:apple:
 
For me ever since the 1st generation iphone came out, I was interested in Apple product. But because the first generation only supported Edge network, I decided to hold a bit. I did, however, had the ipod touch (1st generation) when it was released, so the OS back then wasn't new to me. My very first iphone started with the 3G, then 3G S, then 4, as of current the iPhone 4S.

I love everything about the iPhone. I really like the form factor of the 4 / 4S.

The only issue that I have with Apple is the built in rechargeable batteries. But of course Apple is playing smart here, knowing that regardless, people will always upgrade to the latest product out in the market.
 
I've used both on and off for a few years. I really like widgets on android and being able to use the phone as a flashdrive, but iOS looks much smoother and the apps are way better quality IMO.

iOS/iPhone Pros:
Smoother UI (The only Android interface that even comes close in my opinion is Touchwiz by Samsung)
Better battery life in most cases
Better looking/working apps
More stable OS
Better build quality of the phone itself
Music player is much better than any android counterpart
Easy sync if you use iTunes, which I do
More Accessories available

iOS/iPhone Cons:
Non-removable battery
Lack of Adobe Flash
Can't use the phone as a flashdrive
Apps tend to cost more
If you don't like iTunes, you're stuck with it
No live wallpapers
no google turn by turn nav

Android Pros:
Removable Battery
Use the phone as flashdrive
More free apps
More customizable
More styles to choose from (physical keyboard, sizes, etc.)
Widgets
Live Wallpapers
Google turn by turn navigation built in

Android Cons:
Not enough quality control with so many handsets
Not as many accessories available for a specific phone
Worse battery life on some models
Music players tend to suck
Not very stable a lot of times

Notice most of the android faults fall under the poor quality control category. They would probably do better if they would stop coming out with new phones every other week! I'll probably be sticking with iOS unless Android slows down and really works on getting their **** together with a more stable platform :)
 
Used a Galaxy SII in South Korea for four months. Had to fiddle with the settings to get it through half a day under normal usage (text messaging, light web browsing with Flash off, music). I'm not the type that enjoys having to devote precious time to making something I own work properly. The keyboard was unresponsive and difficult to type on, no matter which keyboard I downloaded. Widgets were useless to me, and the way the home screen lagged while not doing anything made my eyes bleed. Loading music onto it manually is the biggest pain in the package I have ever had. More bleeding from eyes. The 4" screen was nice until I had to either use it with one hand or put it into my pocket. The resolution could have used an increase, and I ended up not using it to browse the web. Android is just lagger and less polished than iOS, and it shows in almost everything you do.
 
I recently made the switch from Android to iOS. Before I had an HTC Desire HD, and now have a 4S. I definitely prefer the latter, but the reasons aren't as clear cut as that.

I was never a huge fan of iOS as the way in which multitasking functions is poor, to say the least. It works very much in the same way that a full desktop OS works; applications are either open or closed, controlled completely by the user. This approach doesn't usually work, and certainly didn't work with the 4, the iPod touch, etc.

The 4S, however, is fantastic to use. Only because the damn thing is so powerful, and has two cores. Once the device becomes older, unless memory management improves in iOS, we could run into some performance problems.

Android's memory management is fantastic. It just works. Closes apps in the background at a far more realistic time. However, it isn't as polished as iOS in any way, shape or form.

The UI consistency, quality of apps (even with apps available on both platforms, like Tapatalk) is significantly better.

Personally, because of this, I would go for a 4S in a heart beat, if you can afford it. If you're impatient, however, and use your device quickly but cannot afford the 4S, look carefully before deciding on the 4 or 3GS.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, battery life is probably about double that of the Desire HD. No kidding. At this point I'd be at 15% and would finish that in 20 minutes or so. Right now, lots of usage today and I'm at 52%, with the phone being on 3G for about 50% longer than the Desire HD.
 
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I've had multiple android devices and tabs, and the best features i like about Android is the customization. I really hate to see so many icons on my home screen, the Iphone looks the same since day 1. On the android it was so easy to have a minimal simplistic look. But I really can't stand how unstable and at times buggy the android OS is. I miss a lot of features on the Android like Google Nav, or External SD, I am however loving how quickly the 4S battery charges, and the 4S is such a better device hardware and software wise, that i'm liking it every day. Just waiting to see what JB does for me.
 
lamboman said:
Personally, because of this, I would go for a 4S in a heart beat, if you can afford it. If you're impatient, however, and use your device quickly but cannot afford the 4S, look carefully before deciding on the 4 or 3GS.
Click to expand...

This is true. The iPhone 4S is the first model of iPhone that I feel has completely destroyed the user experience of Android. It is just so amazingly powerful and has a much faster GPU than any other cell phone out there. The A4 did this as well, but the 800 MHz single core was not fast enough for a seamless user experience.
 
i went and got an 8gb iphone 4 this past saturday at my local verizon store told the lady why i did not like android. i can understand each manufacture having to make drivers for the os but even apps wrote for htc thunderbolt may not work on another htc phone. the sales lady said they have more issues with the android phones being messed up cause of this as there is no locks on the os from stopping people from doing this this why i went to the iphone.
 
w00t951 said:
This is true. The iPhone 4S is the first model of iPhone that I feel has completely destroyed the user experience of Android. It is just so amazingly powerful and has a much faster GPU than any other cell phone out there. The A4 did this as well, but the 800 MHz single core was not fast enough for a seamless user experience.
Click to expand...

It is the same buddy. I have the 4 and the 4s, the speed difference was not noticable unless you are a nerd and count that 1 or 2 seconds difference. It is a good phone, because the iphone 4 is a good phone. To me, it is just boring now, very boring.... I just got myself a galaxy s2 and in my opinion, i might stick with this and put my iphone on the shelf. There are just too many things i can do with Gingerbread and the s2 is a beautiful phone.

I can't stand apple's restrictions any more on everything... Including their high prices. My suggestion, if you are wondering about how good Android is, then just get one and get a sim adapter and switch it around once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I love the iphone, but there's nothing new and they are always behind in technology... look at their Macbook line up, some still have 512mb VRAM as their video card, the standard is 1g now adays... Why? because so they can milk technology and get every penny worth of what they were missing in the past... The end.
 
Depends, you can't go wrong either way. I've had iPhones since they came out. But just got an SGII and it's excellent. Screen is gorgeous especially once I tweaked it with an app, and battery life is every bit as good as my iPhone 4 which imo was tops and better then my 3GS or friends 4S.

Think the problem with Android is with all the devices, a lot of people get them not knowing the different systems and screen resolutions etc, and when you start downloading games or just using the phone in general it's kinda mehh. On my SGII though I've downloaded games that were on my iPhone (compared to the Retina 4 since the 3GS is way outclassed now lol) as well and they work 100% sweet on the SGII. I think the lower end phones is where people end up with fragmentation among other issues etc as a lot of the apps now are taking advantage of the higher resolution of the newer screens and some of the low end ones were/aren't running updated OSs.

I know a lot complain about the Android size in general, but I don't get it, unless your talking about the larger 4.5"+ or bulkier phones. My SGII is slimmer and lighter then both my iPhones and with the 4.3" is about perfect. Browsing online is night and day better on this phone. My SGII UI is smooth with no hiccups like other Android phones I've played with.

Now I jailbroke my 3GS the day I got it, and it's still to this day customized to the hilt. Didn't mess with the 4 since usually gf uses it. So it's cool with how much you can do with Android... and yet still if you root and rom you can do even more with the phone and get rid of any bloatware making the phone even faster and even getting better battery life which is already excellent (at least on this phone).

Now why didn't I get the 4S. Well for one thing, I got in on that Samsclub 96 cent deal for upgrading which was flat out insane for any phone let alone this one. But mainly b/c the 3.5" screen was feeling too small to me, and ever since iOS 5 neither phone get's almost any WiFi reception, yet downgrading to previous OS on the 3GS and WiFi works fine, but can't stay downgraded as app's I had on there worked with newer OS. Plus there's no JB for the 4S, and most likely won't be before at least Feb 12' if not longer since their having issues with it. And a lot of the tweaks I did are what made the iphone so much better to use then stock, I mean SBS settings integrating so well with notification center... would annoy the hell out of me without it. I can setup any widget or setting I want on this SGII, where I want it, and how I want it.

Oh yeh.. Swype is the bomb, after you get used to it and it starts adding words to the dictionary, it is so fast and easy to use. Way better then the regular keyboard that came with the phone that sucked imo compared to the iPhones keyboard. At least with swype you get a great keyboard to regularly type with, or use the swype motion with. So if you don't care for swyping you can at least use a keyboard thats way better then the regular pre-loaded one.

Anything with text is also a huge advantage to Android, Apple's system drove me nutz whenever you would try to correct a word or sentence and could never place the dash where you want it 95% of the time. With Android you can go to any word and any letter in that word or just go back through a sentence so much faster and easier then Apples text system.
 
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I was splitting my time between the 4S and the Galaxy S2.

Last week my Nexus arrived and both of the above sit in a drawer.

The Nexus blows away the iPhone and is better than the SG2.

The Nexus speech to text is just an example as when you do speech to text, the text appears on the screen as you are talking, no waiting on the reply from the servers. It happens as you talk. Apple will never do this.

The Nexus is from the "future" compared to the 4S.:(
 
Moonflow said:
It is the same buddy. I have the 4 and the 4s, the speed difference was not noticable unless you are a nerd and count that 1 or 2 seconds difference. It is a good phone, because the iphone 4 is a good phone. To me, it is just boring now, very boring.... I just got myself a galaxy s2 and in my opinion, i might stick with this and put my iphone on the shelf. There are just too many things i can do with Gingerbread and the s2 is a beautiful phone.

I can't stand apple's restrictions any more on everything... Including their high prices. My suggestion, if you are wondering about how good Android is, then just get one and get a sim adapter and switch it around once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I love the iphone, but there's nothing new and they are always behind in technology... look at their Macbook line up, some still have 512mb VRAM as their video card, the standard is 1g now adays... Why? because so they can milk technology and get every penny worth of what they were missing in the past... The end.
Click to expand...

I don't know what kind of user you are, but for me at least, someone who tends to multitask heavily, the 4S is way, way faster than the 4. Sure, opening apps up is only a bit quicker, but it adds up, and the 4S never freezes during more taxing use for me compared to the A4 devices, a huge issue that hindered the iOS experience for me previously.

As for hardware, I wouldn't agree that Apple is behind. The 4S came out after other dual core devices, but you have to remember that the way that Apple runs updates in its own time, merely to keep to a one year shelf life for each product. Nothing to do with being behind, it was all there and in use before. Apple should have released the 4S back in June, but they certainly aren't late to the game. And the performance of the 4S chipset is right up there with the best of the devices.

As for the rest of Apple's products, again, not behind. The parts used are the same as those used by the competition.

Don't look at the technology, focus on the experience, as that is what sets one device apart from the pack.
 
mmmtastybusch said:
Notice most of the android faults fall under the poor quality control category. They would probably do better if they would stop coming out with new phones every other week! I'll probably be sticking with iOS unless Android slows down and really works on getting their **** together with a more stable platform :)
Click to expand...

This is definitely true! I wish one company (or Google) would create one phone that was absolutely stable and better in quality. There are so many different manufacturers producing Android devices so it's hard to keep up with the technology in a sense.

I work for T-Mobile and use Android / Windows Mobile 7 all day but still prefer the iPhone due to the stability of the OS and the quality of the build. Recently, my iPhone software has been getting worse and worse. It's funny that what I'm about to write JUST happened before typing this sentence; I always have to call the person back after attempting to make a call or when I receive one. I can't hear anything on the other end and it's been going for about 2 weeks now.

It gets very old (especially at work) when I have to call the person back numerous times before actually being able to hear them. I know it's a software issue but there isn't much I can do since I am on 4.3.5 and using Gevey SIM to unlock the phone.

I just ordered myself the HTC Amaze since I need to be on the phone at work most of the time and can't keep doing what I'm doing with the iPhone.

All in all, I love the iPhone since it pairs so well with my iMac and Apple TV but with the issue I'm having, it makes me want to throw the phone out the window. :(
 
Moonflow said:
It is the same buddy. I have the 4 and the 4s, the speed difference was not noticable unless you are a nerd and count that 1 or 2 seconds difference. It is a good phone, because the iphone 4 is a good phone. To me, it is just boring now, very boring.... I just got myself a galaxy s2 and in my opinion, i might stick with this and put my iphone on the shelf. There are just too many things i can do with Gingerbread and the s2 is a beautiful phone.

I can't stand apple's restrictions any more on everything... Including their high prices. My suggestion, if you are wondering about how good Android is, then just get one and get a sim adapter and switch it around once in a while. Don't get me wrong, I love the iphone, but there's nothing new and they are always behind in technology... look at their Macbook line up, some still have 512mb VRAM as their video card, the standard is 1g now adays... Why? because so they can milk technology and get every penny worth of what they were missing in the past... The end.
Click to expand...

1) Congratulations. Your phone is outdated, and was outdated a couple weeks after it came out.
2) You should probably have read my other post up there.
3) Somehow, these "behind" Apple products function far better than other products.
4) Most people can notice a significant difference between the A4 and the A5. Maybe you're just used to your GSII's performance, but I find the 4S to be far faster in most tasks than the A4.
 
iPhone for all-around including apps and batt life. But the interface I like more than iOS and Android is Windows Phone.
 
I've used several Android handsets and tablets, and have found the system to lack the polish of iOS, and to a degree of Windows Phone 7. Android for me is confusing to use, and a bit disappointing in it's execution (which I realize varies wildly depending on the handset maker you choose).

Plus I like that iOS gives me a choice of which search engine to use; Android forces the user to use Google, of course. Who if they were Microsoft would be sued for violating monopolization laws...

So, iPhone. It just works; no confusion, no questions.
 
I used the gs2, as well as the skyrocket, droid razr, and rezound. I decided on the 4s because a) I did not want to wait for the (Still not announced) nexus on verizon. Aside from the battery issue, it is a great phone. Never crashes, opens up and switches without a stutter. I do not like the control over various aspects, can't choose camera mp natively, change tones/vibrate patterns, etc. But when it comes down to it, It just WORKS. I did not feel like dealing with android malware, and Carriers being able to take their sweet time rolling out android updates (if they ever did).

What ios just has solid apps, integration with mac and itunes just works, and will be supported for more than 3 months. (Even the "flagship" gs2, that is 2 months old for us carriers is barely going to get ics.)

oh and if you like to play any games, it should be a no brainer. The a5 gpu blows any android gpu out of the water especially the crummy nexus VR 540. The only one even close is samsung's own exynos.
 
I laugh every time someone brings up Apples restrictions. They have restrictions to curb the malicious apps that can really screw you like the ones in the Android Market. Oh and the Android Market has started to get stricter and stricter on what apps get through while Apple has become more lenient on their restrictions.

Now to answer the OPs questions. iOS all day for me. I'm a simple person. I hate things that aren't needed and I hate clutter. I hate any bit of lag on any of my computers and mobile devices. I used to get a new phone every month or so for about 5 years before the iPhone because I could never find something that satisfied me. I've had the first Bluetooth enabled phone, the first phone to receive text messages, the first color screen phone and the first camera phone. I've had almost every smartphone and Blackberry imaginable, I had a black Razr imported from overseas before it was available in the states. I even had the first true iPhone, the Moto ROKR E1. I had the first Bluetooth headset and when I walked around with it, people thought it was my actual phone. Since the Nokia I had at the time had old school voice dialing, I would call people with it and it would blow their mind. Even before smartphones were a twinkle, I was a PDA nerd having many the first generation of Palms (RIP), and Sony Cliés (even the high end ones with a rotating camera).

With all that said, Ive gotten every iPhone on release day and haven't looked back. I opened a 3rd line on my account so I could play around with the various Android phones (G1, Atrix, Nexus S) and IMO iOS knocks them all down. The simplicity, the elegance, the snappiness combined with the impeccable hardware is what keeps my getting an iPhone every year. Android copied iOS and slapped some widgets and pretty moving backgrounds and called it a day. To me a lot of Androids features are just for show and unecessary. They're just to show that "Android has this and iPhone doesn't so buy this phone." I'm not the type to want to tweak every little thing. I had to do that with Windows Mobile phones ans I hated it. My iPhone 4S has been perfect and ever given me a problem. I unlock it, click an app and im in it. iOS just works perfectly for my needs and tastes. I'll never go to another platform. If someone had a a gun to my head and told me I had to choose a different OS, I'd go with Windows over Android. The Windows tile interface is pretty damn sexy IMO.
 
I really don't understand why people insist on comparing the iphone to android. Android is not a phone, it's an OS that many phones run on. If you're considering an android phone then you need to compare the iphone to one particular phone. Every phone with android installed on it is not the same, so to just say iphone compared to android makes no sense. Figure out what phone you're trying to compare to and go from there. You wouldn't ask someone which is better, Honda Accord or Toyota? Because that question wouldn't make sense. It's the same concept in this case.
 
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