My journey from iOS to android on a Tablet; the Pro's and Con's

[icyrock1]

Hi, basically this is going to be a thread about the things I like in android, I liked in iOS, and wish were in android/iOS.

To give a little background, around a year ago I got Nexus 7 (16GB); and gave my old iPad to my brother (it was an iPad 2, lol he loves it and I had to fight him to get it for a little bit to take screen shots). I saved up for a long time for some kind of tablet, and decided to take the plunge on the Nexus 7.

Things Android does better;

Multitasking

This

Vs

This

Isn't even a comparison. It's out right slaughter in Android's favor (my Gmail is blurred for obvious reasons).

I can make it mine

This is big to me. I can personalize my tablet a hell of a lot more than I could on my iPad. Sometimes I go a little over board with widget's galore (and live wallpaper's), and my battery pays the price for that, but at least I made it mine.

Things I personally feel iOS does better;

App quality/stability

Sadly, I get this a lot when reading my RSS feeds via feedly;

I never faced this problem when using my iPad, though thankfully it's not many apps that force close at random times (it's mainly Feedly, Skydrive, Pocket, and Flipboard).

Minor quarks with android that annoy me;

Stupid dots

Whenever I try to curl up and read (I'm an avid reader) these annoying dots replace the onscreen buttons. It's minor, but it's very annoying to me. I guess that's an advantage for hardware buttons? IDK. They also show up when certain other things, like viewing the gallery or reading from Pocket.

It's not has "pretty"

Some of the stock android apps are, fairly ugly compared to there iOS counter parts (IMO).

This

(this image isn't from my brother's iPad for privacy reasons).

Vs

This

This

Vs

This

etc, it just feels extremely basic/doesn't look has nice to me.

Google treats some of there iOS apps better than there Android counter parts

I'm mainly talking about Google Play Books. In the iOS version, I can hide books with out removing them from my list of books using the archive feature in the iOS version(something I can't do in the android version. If I do that in the android version, it erases it from my library on the device. :/). While small, it's noticeable to me. Especially since I have a ton of books. I like the form factor the Nexus 7 a lot more for reading though, just wish they'd bring this feature over to the android side of things.

Notifications are easier to turn off/change in iOS

This,

Is a hell of a lot easier than going to Settings > Apps > All and having to click every. Single. App. Just to access it's notifications. And even then you just get a check box (why can't it be a little more like iOS? i.e. have all of this in one place and be able to allow certain types of notifications while not allowing others).

Small things I miss from iOS

Webpage scrolling

I'll be honest, I still sometimes tap the black bar where time and notifications appear out of habit, because in iOS doing that takes you back to the top of a web page/pdf/whatever you're reading. It's a feature that's seems small, but has a big impact on the experience, IMO. Also, Safari scales images better than Chrome on Android in my experience. On chrome, I have to pinch to zoom while safari does that for me and zooms in so I just have to move down to see the rest (it's kind of hard to explain, those who have used both know what I'm talking about though).

You have better control over what apps can and can't access

(This image is not from my bother's iPad for privacy reasons, again he doesn't like it when people know what apps he uses).

This is a feature I miss a lot from iOS. I can deny apps what they can and can't access, and they still work just fine (tbh, it's a lot like the CyanogenMod feature "Incognito" mode that's currently being tested in the nightly build). The ability to deny apps access to certain things in the name of privacy just feels more reassuring. I'd love to see Google incorporate something like it in Stock Android.

I miss you, iCloud

I really, really, really miss iCloud back up. Mess something up? Simply restore it from the back up. Simple, yet elegant. Even with all the stuff I disliked about it (limited storage, photo sync, sometimes unreliable) it's a product that was good at what it did (i.e. letting you restore your device from a back up in a user friendly way). I know there are ways to do this on android (but they require you to root, I use Helium now, but it's simply not has convenient has iCloud was).

I miss the battery percentage stat in the top left corner

Very small details like that are the ones I miss. I also kinda prefer how the battery is on it's side instead of standing up like it is in android (I donno, It just looks aesthetically better to me. And it give the preception that you have more battery than you really do. XD).

Overall

I think I'm going to stick with Android when it comes to my tablet; though I'm going to try windows RT after it grows up a little more and gets some more apps (I might give iOS 7 a second chance, too).

 

[xex13b]

I don't have the benefit of using an Android tablet but I can compare my Nexus 4 to the ipad and iTouch they force me to use at work.

I love the capacitive buttons on the Nexus 4 compared to the ipad or itouch. Since the Apple products are shared between employees you sometimes get ones where someone has man handled the button and it takes a very hard press for it to do anything. Kind of a small thing since if I had an ipad I wouldn't treat it badly but it just shows me what can happen to the mechanical buttons in the wrong hands.

I have seen other employees get mad and toss the ipads on the counter and they have taken some pretty good hits and are still going strong. Some have bent in corners but I have not seen any of the ipads break yet. I have seen some cracked screens yet they still function, and also a really weird small grey area of a screen where it shows no image at all but it still worked. So they seem pretty sturdy so far but I doubt that is an issue for most people here as they would probably baby their phone/pad.

The battery indicator is a nice thing to have but all I need is some image to show me where its at so I know when it is getting around half way down. So far the Android one has been able to show me enough info to decide if I need to start conserving or not but I do agree that it is much better looking in iOS and would prefer the icon to be sideways instead.

As far as battery life is concerned the Apples actually hold up pretty well considering I keep the brightness at almost full and am always messing with it over the 6-8 hour work day. No graphics intensive stuff but using it for a decent amount of time in a normal app. I have taken one from 100% down to almost dead a few times though. With my Nexus 4 I have the brightness at maybe 1/4 and by the time I get home I have gone from 100$ to about 80-85% from checking email and some very light game playing.

The keyboard on the ipad is much better than I expected it to be you can type pretty fast on it without worrying about it getting something wrong. The one major gripe I have with both the itouch and the ipad is the touch screen has trouble figuring out what you are trying to touch sometimes. I have to tap a spot 3-4 times for it to figure out whats going on and it gets pretty annoying. Maybe it is another case of an abused device or perhaps the apps my work uses are coded terribly, it is hard to say.

Overall the ipad isn't too bad but I don't think I would ever buy one for personal use based on price and having 'test drove' it at work for about 4 months now. At work they value their 16gb ipads at about $450 each, which is nuts when you look at the nexus 7 16gb that is $200. I'm not sure which version of the ipad they have though.

 

[snookasnoo]

What's an "iTouch". Apple doesn't make a product with that name. Are you talking about an iPod Touch? Why would your job issue you one of those?
OP that was a really good review. You will find lots of improvements in iOS 7. I like both iOS and Android for different reasons, have always had both, and don't see that changing anytime soon.

I don't have the benefit of using an Android tablet but I can compare my Nexus 4 to the ipad and iTouch they force me to use at work.

I love the capacitive buttons on the Nexus 4 compared to the ipad or itouch. Since the Apple products are shared between employees you sometimes get ones where someone has man handled the button and it takes a very hard press for it to do anything. Kind of a small thing since if I had an ipad I wouldn't treat it badly but it just shows me what can happen to the mechanical buttons in the wrong hands.

I have seen other employees get mad and toss the ipads on the counter and they have taken some pretty good hits and are still going strong. Some have bent in corners but I have not seen any of the ipads break yet. I have seen some cracked screens yet they still function, and also a really weird small grey area of a screen where it shows no image at all but it still worked. So they seem pretty sturdy so far but I doubt that is an issue for most people here as they would probably baby their phone/pad.

The battery indicator is a nice thing to have but all I need is some image to show me where its at so I know when it is getting around half way down. So far the Android one has been able to show me enough info to decide if I need to start conserving or not but I do agree that it is much better looking in iOS and would prefer the icon to be sideways instead.

As far as battery life is concerned the Apples actually hold up pretty well considering I keep the brightness at almost full and am always messing with it over the 6-8 hour work day. No graphics intensive stuff but using it for a decent amount of time in a normal app. I have taken one from 100% down to almost dead a few times though. With my Nexus 4 I have the brightness at maybe 1/4 and by the time I get home I have gone from 100$ to about 80-85% from checking email and some very light game playing.

The keyboard on the ipad is much better than I expected it to be you can type pretty fast on it without worrying about it getting something wrong. The one major gripe I have with both the itouch and the ipad is the touch screen has trouble figuring out what you are trying to touch sometimes. I have to tap a spot 3-4 times for it to figure out whats going on and it gets pretty annoying. Maybe it is another case of an abused device or perhaps the apps my work uses are coded terribly, it is hard to say.

Overall the ipad isn't too bad but I don't think I would ever buy one for personal use based on price and having 'test drove' it at work for about 4 months now. At work they value their 16gb ipads at about $450 each, which is nuts when you look at the nexus 7 16gb that is $200. I'm not sure which version of the ipad they have though.