Android or iPhone? My 2015 breakdown

[syspry]

I typed this as a response to another brand specific thread but I think it deserves its own discussion. Without further ado,

These are definitely interesting times we live in right now ever since Apple put a push out to make bigger phones and open up more features. It makes the choice for consumers a much closer thing than ever before. I decided to break it down a bit in terms of Android devices vs iPhone.

Hardware
IMO this is a =/= thing. Numerous Android OEM's are making phones now that are just as well made as an iPhone not just in terms of aesthetics but quality as well. No advantage for either here. Although that of course means you have to actually be savvy enough to buy one of the better made brands.

Software
This has to be broken down into subcategories simply because there are facets to this argument.

• Features and capabilities: I hand this one to Android with the caveat that if you aren't a power user that cares about things like more advanced app interoperability, file management, user customization of how you operate your phone, apps with deeper API controls, and a few more things I failed to remember right now.
• Performance: Year after year iOS on the iPhone has been smoother than Android and that still applies. I have used both side by side continuously for the last 4+ years and I won't make any bones about it. The iPhone is a smoother experience still. Of course that comes with the trade-off of my previous point. The main thing to remember though is now the difference is not really stark enough to care about unless you're extremely nit-picky about an occasional stutter.
• Google Now vs Siri: Sorry, even still this isn't a contest. I actually fully expected Apple to throw Google a curve ball this year and surprise us all with a complete catch-up maneuver and announce a bunch of amazing changes to Siri in iOS 9 bringing it up to par with Google Now but that didn't happen. There have been some marked improvements though. However if Google rests on it's laurels and allows Google Now to just peter off, then at this rate next year's Siri does stand a very good chance of equalizing this playing field. This is one area Google better stay on their toes.
• Updates: this is a mixed bag. On one hand Apple has instant updates and almost no bloatware. On the other hand a 6 month delayed Android update is capable of doing more than a current version of iOS. I may have to wait until Feb/March for marshmellow but from a power user's perspective Lollipop is already more capable than iOS 9.

App quality
I'm going to give this its own category since it gets mentioned so often. iPhone users commonly tout this as an advantage but there's one problem I have with that. It mostly only applies if you aren't a good Android app shopper.

Camera: I'd honestly have to wait for the 6S Plus to come out to call this one. My prediction is another =/=

User Experience
If you're a pretty tech savvy user who wants what is basically a highly functional small PC you can carry in your pocket then there's no question Android owns this segment of the mobile market. For a more casual user who just wants to launch apps and take a more or less completely hands off approach, that's the iPhone's arena. You won't be managing your own files, performing more complex interactions between various apps, setting up the internal tasks your phone performs to suit specific scenarios etc. But you will have a very finely tuned app launcher that still to this day lives very much up tho the "just works" motto, extremely well which is an advantage of controlling all aspects of both HW and SW. I almost hate to say this but I actually feel I'd be better off steering a person who isn't a techie towards an iPhone because I seriously think you're cheating yourself buying an Android phone without knowing all of the numerous and wonderful things you can do with one.

The vast majority of casual users won't come here, or especially a treasure trove of tech know-how like XDA to learn the ins and outs of their smartphone. For those types of users who choose Android, they'll just look at a price tag and go "nah, this phone costs $200 less, I'll buy this one, I don't need the fruit logo". In fact I'll even go so far as to say they'll walk into a store and see one of the 2014's and say "sweet! this phone is $0 on contract!" and just go that route. Which brings me to:

Price
This depends on where you live. In many countries outside of the US that still use carrier contracts, there's a pretty big gap of about $100+ between a phone like the Note 5 and the 6S Plus on contract and that's just the 16GB version. In today's age 16GB without an SD card isn't quite cutting it anymore. So while one or two hundred bucks over two years may not seem like anything to care about, it adds up to several thousands better spent on other things over the course of a lifetime. One big value an Android buyer enjoys though is that if you allow the initial first few months of a brand new phone to go by and then go shopping, the carriers seem to cut prices quite a bit because some other Android OEM has launched a new flagship. iPhones on the other hand appear to stay high in price all through the year until the next model comes out and even then only drop about $100

Community
No contest at all here. Go to a popular Apple forum for a while. I don't think anything more needs to be added here. AC, XDA, Phandroid, Android Authority blow iMore and MacRumors away in terms of staff, blog writers, and usefulness of members.

Privacy
Apple talks a big game on this one and I'll concede to them a little. To me it's a trust issue. I casually hang out in a couple of hacker communities purely for security news, not because I'm a wannabe script kiddie. One common thing I've noticed is that a lot of tech companies - to be blunt - either flat out lie about their privacy policies or aren't behaving quite as altruistically as they claim they are. That being said, regardless of what any of them claim they're doing or not doing, no men in black suits have ever come to my door and said "aha! In October 2012 we saw you surfing a nudie site! Busted!" I've also never had anyone email me or text me or snail me anything whatsoever in my entire mobile tech life what constitutes as unsolicited advertising because of my internet activities. I'm sure Google is collecting my habits to profit from it by selling metadata. But has one single company ever communicated to me directly because of that? Nope not even once. If anything, the only annoying thing I have to deal with are plain old fashioned flyers in my mailbox that I need to throw in the recycle bin.

Final thoughts

I'm sure I could've added more to this and missed some points but I think it's pretty decent for a quick summary of my thoughts on the subject. I think the important thing to keep in mind when deciding is what kinds of things you care about the most on this list and what kind of user described above you are.

Where do I stand personally? To me it really does come down to price. I love what both companies are offering this year. The iPhones I mentioned I always have alongside my Android belong to family members although i use them frequently because dad is the house techie. But yeah... Every time I see my carrier offering an iPhone for $500 on contract or an Android for $200-$300 and knowing that I have the know-how to fine-tune that phone with minimal time and effort, it's purely price for me. It's not a budget issue. I make 6 figures/year and so does my wife. he issue with me is that if I said "it's only $200" for every other thing I buy every couple of years, that amounts to $2000 every couple of years and TENS of thousands over a lifetime. Exactly why I quit smoking There are certain products I will not compromise quality on just for the sake for price. A car. A power tool. A home improvement item. But the overall quality of an iPhone vs a good flagship Android phone is negligible in my books and certainly not a $200 difference and not a compromise at all.

 

[B. Diddy]

Great analysis! Also an enjoyable read.

 

[CaffeineBomb]

Great breakdown! Pretty much where I think I am, price is the only real difference where it matters. Would I like a shiny 6s? Absolutely! Am I going to get one for any reason other than as a work requirement? Probably not.

 

[Joshua Luther2]

One thing that could have been mentioned is the battery life on iphones are far superior to any android phone, period. If battery life is an important thing to you.

 

[syspry]

One thing that could have been mentioned is the battery life on iphones are far superior to any android phone, period. If battery life is an important thing to you.

That's not entirely wrong but I disagree with the the part I put in bold in the quote above because I think it;s taking that assessment to an extreme. There are a small number of Android devices that do tout excellent battery life. It should also be noted that if you look at many of the iPhone vs Android battery life threads a good number of people have reported that their iPhone does indeed have a much better stand-by time when not in use, but notice their iPhone will drop battery faster than certain Android phones while in use.
I did consider adding battery to my OP but it's such a mixed bag with everyone's usage styles differing so widely and so many different sites using different testing methods that it's too hard to get a definitive consensus that I feel the battery subject is better left to the realm of YMMV. Personally if I can use a phone moderately all day and still wake up the next morning with 25% or better leaving me enough time to go to work and plug it in, I'm happy.

 

[Joshua Luther2]

I guess I should've rephrased my comment to apply to my experience on both OS's. I personally prefer the better standby time of ios. I fully expect the battery to drain when the screen is on. That's when it becomes subjective based upon each person's usage and what apps they use among other things.

 

[xocomaox]

I guess I should've rephrased my comment to apply to my experience on both OS's. I personally prefer the better standby time of ios. I fully expect the battery to drain when the screen is on. That's when it becomes subjective based upon each person's usage and what apps they use among other things.

I disagree with this as well. Standby time, one a well configured phone, will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer but it can easily keep up to pace with iPhones.

 

[Aquila]

Privacy
Apple talks a big game on this one and I'll concede to them a little. To me it's a trust issue. I casually hang out in a couple of hacker communities purely for security news, not because I'm a wannabe script kiddie. One common thing I've noticed is that a lot of tech companies - to be blunt - either flat out lie about their privacy policies or aren't behaving quite as altruistically as they claim they are. That being said, regardless of what any of them claim they're doing or not doing, no men in black suits have ever come to my door and said "aha! In October 2012 we saw you surfing a nudie site! Busted!" I've also never had anyone email me or text me or snail me anything whatsoever in my entire mobile tech life what constitutes as unsolicited advertising because of my internet activities. I'm sure Google is collecting my habits to profit from it by selling metadata. But has one single company ever communicated to me directly because of that? Nope not even once. If anything, the only annoying thing I have to deal with are plain old fashioned flyers in my mailbox that I need to throw in the recycle bin.

This is my point of contention. Google does collect data and they do profit off of it by using that data to select ads to show to users. The third party never receives the user's information. Google is resolute on this, they do not give user data to third parties except when required to do so by law or when you explicitly give them permission to share data with a specific third party, such as with app permissions. Apple on the other hand gives themselves permission to share your data with their business partners and has been successfully sued for selling data to third parties. Microsoft has as well. And both were acknowledged as data sharing partners with AOL and Yahoo. This is one area where, despite the contrary misconception, Google and Android are leading by a lot. With Google, data is collected and remains in house. With Apple & Microsoft, your data becomes their property and is a potential commodity.

Tim Cook went on stage recently and was saying almost the opposite, which is annoying - but this is why people believe the lie: The media and the public don't question it, or apparently read the privacy policies. Google is well known as the company behind AdSense and and their advertising revenue is enormous. People believe that selling ads means the same thing as selling data and get bent out of shape because they don't want their data to get out there... so in response to that fear they go give their data to someone who gives themselves permission to turn around and sell it.

So in response to the above, Apple talks a big game - but it is false. And Google is not collecting your metadata and selling it.

 

[syspry]

This is my point of contention. Google does collect data and they do profit off of it by using that data to select ads to show to users. The third party never receives the user's information. Google is resolute on this, they do not give user data to third parties except when required to do so by law or when you explicitly give them permission to share data with a specific third party, such as with app permissions. Apple on the other hand gives themselves permission to share your data with their business partners and has been successfully sued for selling data to third parties. Microsoft has as well. And both were acknowledged as data sharing partners with AOL and Yahoo. This is one area where, despite the contrary misconception, Google and Android are leading by a lot. With Google, data is collected and remains in house. With Apple & Microsoft, your data becomes their property and is a potential commodity.

Tim Cook went on stage recently and was saying almost the opposite, which is annoying - but this is why people believe the lie: The media and the public don't question it, or apparently read the privacy policies. Google is well known as the company behind AdSense and and their advertising revenue is enormous. People believe that selling ads means the same thing as selling data and get bent out of shape because they don't want their data to get out there... so in response to that fear they go give their data to someone who gives themselves permission to turn around and sell it.

So in response to the above, Apple talks a big game - but it is false. And Google is not collecting your metadata and selling it.

Bang on. They get away with it a lot too until some hacker with an axe to grind gets into their servers and shows what's actually happening.

 

[RyanMXA]

I enjoyed that. Thanks.
In response to battery, my HTC one was solid for the 2.5yrs I had it, meanwhile my girlfriends IPhone 5 battery tapered off big time.

Now I use a Turbo 2, that battery is serious. There are probably more devices with poor batteries than good, but that is just my experience.

I do like the "just works" approach of Apple plus the high quality hardware. Nexus devices are on the rise. I foresee more and more pure Android devices on the future. The 6P is a good example of a true IPhone fighter.