iPhone vs. Android: Getting Over the Hype
I’m a long-time fan of Apple products. I’ve owned Macs for 20 years and an iPhone for the last 2. I also own a Motorola Droid, and a Google Nexus One phone.
Over the years I’ve seen a lot of people convert to Mac, and even more convert to the iPhone.
I’ve also watched as bloggers and the tech media drank concentrated Apple Kool Aid by the gallon in the last 2 years.
These guys, along with the legions of Apple “fans”, seem to have lost most measures of objectivity about the the iPhone and the iPad.
So I thought I’d give business owners and managers trying to decide whether to buy iPhones or Android phones some of the major reasons to go with each of the platforms.
Android 2.2 courtesy of Gizmodo
Reasons to love Android:
- Choice of telecom providers: Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint. Some are fast and have high coverage, some are cheap, some are superfast within urban areas.
- Choice of devices: you have high end phones (HTC Incredible, DROID X, Nexus 1) and cheap phones, phones with keyboard, and flip-phones.
- When you combine different providers and different devices, you get an overall lower bill.
- The Gmail app is an awesome email client (search, labels, drafts, push email)… especially if you run on Google Apps.
- When you’re trying to go somewhere in the car, the Google Maps Navigation does a fantastic job of getting you there while keeping your eyes on the road.
- It has lovely speech recognition that actually works! (“Directions to Orlando Airport”, “Call Olga Mobile”…)
- The battery lasts throughout the day. If you need more power, you can actually carry a spare battery and swap it.
- For many devices, the speakerphone is loud and clear.
- You don’t ever need to plug it into a computer to get podcasts, update your applications or sync (pictures and videos are the exception).
Reasons to love iPhone:
- It has some great applications. I can’t live without OmniFocus. Other friends I know swear by WhatsApp and LinkedIn for iPhone.
- It has a better video and still photo camera, and the quality of the pictures is superior.
- It has a superior web browser experience (but with the combined search/URL field of Android it is starting to feel outdated).
- If you are a Mac user, it’s easier to manage your photos and music as long as you’ve bought it at Apple.
- If you travel internationally, at least you will get a signal (but you will pay through the nose unless you unlock your phone and get a 3rd party SIM).
- When it comes to having some fun, the iPhone offers more gaming choices.
- The operating system is more mature .. this means less reboots, and less applications crashing or slowing down your phone.
I hope I was able to stay away from the hype and focus on things that make a real difference. By all means, I’d love to hear how other business owners or managers made the choice between the two. Please comment below.
19 Responses to “iPhone vs. Android: Getting Over the Hype”
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The camera comparison is a difficult one. I have a Sony Xperia X10, and I assure you that it’s 8.1 mp camera takes better pictures than the Iphone 4, the camera on that phone is excellent.
HTC hasn’t quite got the camera right yet.
Not only HTC… Motorla still has its work cut out, check out this Droid X vs iPhone video review
If Verizon would actually send me my Incredible (waiting patiently for two weeks), I might be able to speak intelligently on this topic.
Sam – here’s a hypothetical, and you’re not allowed to say “it depends”. If you had a small sales team, all of whom you wanted to be as efficient (and effective) as possible on the road and off the road, would you outfit them with iPhones or Android phones?
The #1 feature for sales people is phone call quality. Of all people, sales people hate dropped, jittery or low volume calls the most, so I would go with a top carrier like Verizon and a phone like the HTC Incredible or the Droid X, which have great speakerphones.
Even though I stopped using one you might have to give them all Blackberrys depending on what you sell. (For security reasons)
I agree. At the moment Blackberries have the best security. But with applications like WaveSecure, Android is catching up. The iPhone already has this functionality through a Mobile Device Management server (PDF)
Good and balanced article. In my opinion, the business user is still better off with a Blackberry with a BES plan, not only for security reasons. The BB has a very good battery life, the voice quality is always good, it NEVER crashes, and the keyboard is superior to most Android phones. It’s a super boring phone, and I certainly wish my employer would drop it for either the Android or the iphone, but it’s not going to happen until they can offer the same robustness, security, quality and seamless sync with our exchange server.
Addendum to previous post: since you’re attempting to advise business owners and managers on what to get for their companies, it might be worthy to note that the Blackberry on a BES service allows the IT guy in the company to control what the employees can and cannot put on their phones. Such IT policies are not always that popular with the employees, but I reckon that they are quite useful to the business owners sometimes… Seems to be a more relevant piece of info for a manager than the gaming choices on the iPhone…
… and no, I don’t work for RIM
I hate my boring Blackberry with a passion…
[...] would say I’ve been waxing lyrical about Android in the last few weeks as I compared iphone vs android, I am a fan, no doubt, but –lest you think that I’ve lost my sense of [...]
[...] would say I’ve been waxing lyrical about Android in the last few weeks as I compared iphone vs android. I am a fan, no doubt, but –lest you think that I’ve lost my sense of [...]
To start with, why should anybody need to jailbreak their iPhone to get desired functionality? It’s ridiculous that until very recently you had to jailbreak to customize the wallpaper. And it’s ridiculous that you have to jailbreak now to use widgets. Sure there are some who do root their phones on Android. But nobody needs to root their phones to gain basic functionality that even dumbphones have.
And this customization thing is not some minor issue. It’s the entire reason why people like me are going Android. It’s 2010. I shouldn’t have to open half a dozen apps to check news and my social networks. There should be desktop widgets that do that. I can’t believe the company that helped popularize widgets on the desktop hasn’t yet found a way to put it on their premier mobile platform.
Nor should I have to pay for Navigation when the internet has maps, and my phone has a GPS and can access the internet. Can the geniuses at Apple not put 2 and 2 together? Or is it that they just aren’t willing to give up their cut of TomTom app sales?
And I won’t even go into other app issues, like the Google Voice fiasco.
Next: notifications. Those pop-ups are annoying as hell on the iPhone. The window blind notifications system is so much more efficient and effective.
Then there’s iTunes. I don’t want a device that I need a computer to manage. Plugging into iTunes for updates is annoying. It’s 2010. There’s the internet. Over the air synch should be the norm not the exception.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Apple products. I have a Mac at home and I love it. But after seeing the capabilities of iOS4, I am starting to think that Apple’s ideas for the mobile space have plateaued.
It seems to me that Apple’s geeks just don’t understand the power of the internet at a fundamental level. And Google’s geeks do. Just look at features like Cloud2Device integration. One click and send a webpage to your phone’s browser. One click and send an address from Google Maps on the desktop to Google Navigation on your phone. Apple’s talent pool missed out features like that, despite having a browser (Safari) and a mobile platform (iOS), well before Google had the same combination.
Apple hardware is terrific. They make quality gear. And their software can be good in certain situations. For example, I’m considering getting an iPad because the apps are great (though Android Market is catching up…and you can see it every week) and I absolutely love the form factor (amazing for reading and maps) and there’s no Android equivalent yet. But I would never get an iPhone. Why? Because when you truly want a mobile device that does it all (wifi hotspot to connect my laptop or an iPad soon, navigation, etc.), the iPhone is either an expensive proposition (there’s an app for that….which you have to pay for) or a risky one (you have to jailbreak) and full of limitations that severely hinder productivity and ease of use on the go (annoying pop-up notifications, no widgets = must open several apps).
Ultimately, I look at it as a simple question. If you use a lot of Google’s services and tools why would you want a sub-optimized platform that’s not fully integrated with those services? Use Google a lot? Android is for you. Similarly, I am sure Microsoft is going to do a great job with Windows Phone 7 and Bing. As for Apple, they’ve completely missed the cloud boat. They still insist on charging for MobileMe, which is just ridiculous in my opinion.
But to each their own. This is my opinion of the iPhone vs. Android. If somebody feels the other way, they have the choice to stick with their iPhone. And if it’s the device for them, then they should be happy with their choice. But blind fanboyism is just ignorant. Ultimately by committing to one company you are tying your productivity and technological advancement to them. I’d rather bet on more than one horse. The smart thing to do is to use the platform that’s best for you.
Keith: great insights! I especially love your conclusion: “blind fanboyism is just ignorant. [...]The smart thing to do is to use the platform that’s best for you.”
At the same time as I love a physical keyboard, after handling the Samsung Captivate for roughly quarter-hour, it’s exhausting to go back. At the moment I’m debating whether to go to Verizon for the Droid X, go to Sprint for the EVO, or stay with AT&T for the Captivate…selections, decisions.
If you were a very small company who wanted to develop an app targeted to parents (mostly moms) with young kids, and you could afford to develop right now only for iphone or android, which would you choose?
Hi Jean, given how the Android devices attract a disproportionate amount of men (3/4 of users), all else being equal, I would choose the iphone. The more interesting question, though, is if you’re going to have to make that choice as there are several, ever more competent frameworks such as Appcelerator that will allow you to develop for both OSes from a single code base.
Really? Tell me more. I’m not a developer, but have been talking to one about writing the app. Are you saying that it’s possible to write an app today that will function on both OSes? Also, if an app is written for iphone, does that mean it will also work on itouch and ipad? Thank you so much!
If you’re not a developer I’d recommend that you try some Appcelerator apps for yourself to see what they feel like, then it’ll be easier for you to decide if you’re ready for a cross-platform app.
And yes, iphone apps run on the ipad and an iphone developer can easily design an app that takes advantage of the ipad’s bigger screen.
I think that one aspect that has been missed by the article and by the posters here is the lack of consistency with Android. In my role I manage technical support for all of the Americas for publicly held and global company. Truly the only consistent device would be a blackberry device however their offerings in technology lag behind that of iPhone and Android… It is the 21st century after all time to start thinking ahead Blackberrry… As for Android there are just to many devices with to many variants of the OS to offer a consistent experience. There is also an inconsistent device offering from manufacturers. A device that can purchased in the US may not be (very unlikely) offer in LAM, Europe or Asia. This hold true for devices in Asia and Europe where devices may have a large market, but is not available in the US. However, when you consider the iPhone it is available in NAM, LAM, Europe there is still a gap in Asia and the Middle East iPhone saturation is lacking.
However, When it comes to consistency. Wherever the iPhone is offered it remains constant. (unless you jail break it) What the iPhone comes within it’s basic format can get your business person working in less than 15 minutes. They will have easy access to corporate email and calendar, visual voice mail, consistent call quality. This would ring true if you chose Blackberry as well, but there is a price to pay for the openess of Android. Each manufacturer has their own unique spin. There are no consistent menu’s or layouts or features. When you consider that a support team who must support mobile, notebook and desktop computing devices being standard and consistent is a must.