Android VS iPhone Which One is Better Detailed Comparison

Android vs iPhone, android is a better operating system, or wait no, the iPhone’s better right? It’s the age-old question: Which phone operating system is actually better? And now that Apple and Google have wrapped up their developer conferences for the year and shown to the world what’s coming to iOS and Android later this year, I think it’s time to re-evaluate which one of these platforms is actually better in 2022 and for whom.

So, if you were starting out from scratch today and needed to get a smartphone Android vs iPhone, what should you consider? Well, the first thing you’d probably consider is cost, especially if you’re price conscious or you’re in the lower price tier of the smartphone market. And you’d probably pick an Android device historically because there are just many more cheaper Android phones out there. But in recent years, Apple has actually been making iPhones available and all different types of price tiers in the smartphone market.

So, I don’t think that advantage goes to Android as much as it has historically. And when a lot of people have done this in the past, they’ve gone with an Android device because it has an OLED screen or more RAM or expandable storage or some other hardware specs. But in 2022, I don’t think that’s the right way to go about choosing a phone operating system.

Now, if you’re still hellbent on just considering specs alone in Android vs iPhone comparison, Apple actually has a huge advantage here with one particular spec and that’s their A-Series custom ARM SOCs, which stands for system-on-a-chip, and these typically will outperform the competition from Android manufactures, especially at the lower and mid-tier parts of the smartphone market. Plus, Apple will also give you 5 years of software updates with their phones, which most Android manufactures can’t match.

But if you go with iOS you are stuck with Apple as the only manufacturer of your phone whereas with Android, you can easily switch between manufactures, which means there is a greater variety of phones to choose from in different form factors. And Android is also a more open OS, which will matter to some out there who want the ability to be able to download apps outside of Google’s app store, which you can’t do on iOS, you’re locked into downloading everything through Apple’s App store.

So those are some of the things I think people historically would consider when choosing between Android and iOS. The biggest difference to me between these two phones OS’s, it’s actually, their ecosystems, meaning how well your phone, smartwatch, tablet, computer, smart speakers, wireless earbuds, and other devices all work together.

Apple isn’t the only company talking about ecosystems anymore. Google is too. Google now has an entire website dedicated to the new features they announced for their budding Android Ecosystem, and the company announced a slew of new Pixel devices for Google’s own Pixel hardware ecosystem.  So why are both companies now talking about Ecosystems instead of just their phone operating systems in 2022? My theory for this is it’s because Android and iOS, they’re just not that different from each other anymore.

Android and iPhone OS Navigation

Another aspect in Android vs iPhone comparison is OS navigation. Both iOS and Android have almost the exact same way to navigate around the OS, both home screens have widgets that are customizable, both have an app drawer or app library to view all of your apps, and both have notification systems that work in similar ways, and even a lot of the apps nowadays that you can download for each device, especially the major ones, work in exactly the same way.

Now there are of course still differences between iOS and Android, but I don’t think they’re going to change the fundamentals of how you navigate around a phone, open apps, check notifications, etc in 2022. I think it’s much more likely that you’re going to choose an iPhone for example, because you can get Air Pods and an Apple Watch to go with it or because it’ll make using your iPad or your Mac even better. And that’s the power that these ecosystems can have your purchasing decision and why Google now sees it as a necessity to catch up to Apple, and Samsung, in this space.

But specifically what features do you actually get when you have more devices that can work really well with your phone? Well first, let’s look at Apple. With the Apple Ecosystem, your iPhone can work with an iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Mac, Air Pods,Air Tags, and Home Pod Mini. The ecosystem features you can get include having messages automatically appear on your other Apple devices. This makes syncing and being able to access my text messages and iMessages on all of my Apple devices incredibly easy because the messages app is installed by default on all of Apple’s main products.

Continuity, which makes it easy to pick up where you left off in an app or a web page on your iPhone and bring it over to your iPad or Mac. And Apple announced another new feature under the continuity umbrella called ContinuityCamera. This will allow you to use your iPhone as an external wireless webcam for your Mac. Another great ecosystem feature is being able to make a phone call for my iPad, Apple Watch or Home Pod Mini as well as having the ability to hand off a call from one device to another.

New this year, Apple announced that you’ll be able to do this with FaceTime calls as well later this year. And this is actually a perfect illustration of something Apple’s been doing a lot more of recently which is instead of just developing for specific software platforms like iOS or iPad OS, they’re actually developing features for the entire Apple Ecosystem which gives them a pretty big advantage over a lot of players. And that level of integration gets you one of the most useful features on Apple’s products to me which is focus modes.

This feature allows you to turn on Do Not Disturb on one Apple device and have that applied to all of your Apple devices simultaneously. You can also create and schedule various focus modes to align to your work schedule. Hide My Email is another example of a beneficial feature not just to the iPhone, but to all of Apple’s main products When a company asks you for an email address.

Your Apple device will generate a randomized email address that you can give a company or service and Apple will forward any emails the company sends to the randomized address to your actual email address That way, if there’s ever a data leak, your actual email address won’t be involved in that data leak. And if you just don’t want to have to give a company or organization your email address, with Hide My Email, you no longer have to. 

While talking about Android vs iPhone another area I’ve enjoyed with my iPhone and the Apple Ecosystem is the ability to send and read messages through a Home Pod Mini. This is oddly an area where Google hasn’t been able to figure out how to a similar feature, even though like Apple, they make both phones and smart speakers. And you can also Airplay content from your iPhone to a Mac, Apple TV, or a smart TV that supports Airplay. Plus, Airplay 2 seems to be supported on more devices like Sonos and other third-party speakers which makes grouping speakers together on the fly and controlling their volume through Apple’s Airplay, controls on iOS, extremely simple.

And if you use Air Pods, you can automatically switch your earbuds or headphones between Apple devices as you use them. The last benefit I found with the Apple ecosystem and the iPhone is actually Apple’s weather app. It’s just better than anything I’ve seen on Android and iOS 16’s weather app ups the game.

This year Apple has actually launched their own weather service which was built in part with the acquisition of the Dark Sky weather app and service in early 2020. Apple’s weather app is beautifully designed and can now give you up-to-the-minute precipitation forecasts, and Apple makes this information available in more places throughout their ecosystem compared to Google, like as a complication on the Apple Watch or a widget on the new iOS 16 lock screen. And for the first time ever this year, Apple is bringing their weather app to the iPad and the Mac as well.

Now Google on the other hand is in a type of situation. They develop Android and let many other manufacturers use Android as the operating system on their devices. But historically Google has not been focused on making Android devices all work better together in a similar way to what Apple has done. Samsung is pretty much the only game in town for Android users who want a similar ecosystem to Apple’s currently, and they’ve developed many of the same features I just mentioned when talking about Apple’s Ecosystem for Samsung devices, which include computers, tablets, earbuds, smartwatches, TVs, and more.

But by the end of this year and in early 2023, this is going to start to change as what Google announced at their developer’s conference actually starts to come out, which in some respects is really just Google catching up to where Apple and Samsung currently are. Google announced a new Google Wallet which will act as a digital wallet for Android, allowing you to keep things like vaccine cards, student IDs, State IDs, and keys to your car, all within your Google Wallet, just like Apple has had with their Wallet app for the past few years. Google also made a big deal about upgrading the Android tablet experience so its basic navigation & app experience will be more on par to what Apple’s been doing with iPad OS for years.

For the Android Ecosystem, there’s a lot of catch up to Apple here as well. You’ll be able to use your Android phone to control Google’s TV software, control media from an Android Smart Watch, more devices will be getting Google Cast support, new turn-by-turn navigation directions on Wear OS, Smart Lock, so you can use your Android phone to unlock your Chromebook, Phone Hub, which allows you to manage your Android phone from a built-in control center in your Chromebook, and you’ll be able to respond to text messages on a Chromebook as well.

Wi-Fi sync, which will automatically connect your Chromebook to trusted Wi-Fi networks you’ve used already on your phone. Copy something on your phone and paste it on your tablet with a universal clipboard-like feature. Google also announced updates to their fast-paring feature for easy setup and that they’ll be supporting the new Matter smart home standard, just like Apple is, which rolls out later this year.

Now have a look on glance able screen widgets comparing Android vs iPhone. Google announced new hardware coming to their own Pixel Ecosystem of devices including the new Pixel Watch, Pixel Buds Pro, Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, and the Pixel Tablet which comes out in early 2023. So that’s what Google announced.

But what about Apple? Well, this year, Apple is deepening the relationship between its platforms and devices. including lock screen personalization with widgets, which while not an ecosystem features specifically, its actually a fundamental re-think on how you’ll interact with an iPhone going forward with Apple’s new lock screen widgets & live activity notifications, which will lessen the need for you to open the phone just for glance able information like sports scores, weather report or flight status.

iMessage will also be getting some key new features across Apple devices including the ability to edit messages, undo sends, and mark iMessage threads as unread. The company also announced expansions to Share Play, which allows you to watch and listen to content with friends and family remotely in sync.

New family sharing controls, so, if you impose screen time on your kids’ devices and they want to request more screen time, it’s easy to accept or deny that request from within messages, and they announced a new feature for photos which will automatically share photos to family and friends that you take when your iPhone detects you took a photo of other people and their iPhones were in proximity of your own.

Android VS iPhone Conclusion

So, taking a look back at everything coming this year, I think you can sum it up like this:

Google is playing catch up with Android in certain respects to where Apple’s ecosystem of devices has been for years, in mid-2022 if you want to go with Android but have a similar ecosystem experience to Apple’s, you’re better off going with Samsung, but towards the end of the year and early 2023, Google looks like they might just catch up to Samsung with their own Pixel Device Ecosystem of products & ecosystem features for Android as a whole.