Android vs iPhone which is better? The smart phones have become extremely popular since a year and the two top competitors for the smart phones platform are Android and iPhone. Here we will discuss about android vs iphone which is better. At various forums, the users of smart phones compare the best experience delivered by both Android and iPhone and we have compared both of them in seven categories. These categories are operating system, multitasking and media playback, resolution display, video and still image capture, storage, and cost of ownership and connection speeds.

The majority of the battle android vs iphone which is better was won by the iPhone. Both iPhone and Android are very fast. They both have superb displays and they are released with excellent multimedia features. The tests such as media playback and operating system came down to personal preference. While other tests such as of still camera, display and the camcorder proved the iPhone as a stronger one. The quality tests of date speed and voice were won by the iPhone 4.

One should know that the results of such tests are different in all the countries. Let’s have a quick refresher about Motorola Droid X versus iPhone 4. The stand out features of the Droid X includes an 8 mega pixel camera, 4.3 inch display, DLNS and HDMI connectivity and also TI OMAP processor of one GHz. On the other hand the headlining features of the iPhone 4 are retina display, five megapixel camera, front facing video option for all video calls and also HD video capture.

When it comes to voice quality and data speed, one can find many points of discussion. The Droid X an act as mobile hotspot while the iPhone 4 cannot. Both iPhone 4 and Droid X come with GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. One can connect up to five compatible devices through Wi-Fi such as iPad, laptop and some other gadgets. These are connected to the Verizon’s network. The noise cancellation technology is boasted by both of them and the call quality is improved when the sounds around the user are blocked. The upload speeds were almost same, as posted by both the devices. The basic file sharing has become very easy through these smart phones.

The fat pipe applications such as video conferencing and multiplayer gaming require more speed therefore these are not done properly. The data speed winner was the iPhone 4 as it has a down load speed of 1958 kbps. The voice quality winner was again the iPhone 4. On the iPhone 4, the calls sounded better and there were no dropped calls during the voice quality test. These tests were done in one city only and therefore these tests are not hundred percent true. It is possible that in some other cities, various results can be achieved.

Droid X is currently available at a price of 360 dollars and it provides unlimited data as compared to the two hundred megabyte capacity provided by the iPhone 4.

Android vs iPhone hardware - Smart phones at times were considered as the simple gadgets for official use only but with the passage of time trend changed and everyone started getting familiar with the technology updates. This actually increased the burden on vender companies and it resulted into severe competition between companies to give best to the market to gain customer appreciation. Such a fierce competition exist between and iPhone and Android phones. Here we will discuss only the hardware perspectives of both the gadget categories or simply the android vs iPhone hardware will be discussed. With the release of iPhone 4, Apple has pursued its conventional innovative way of amazing its customer base with something new and best, but if we go a year back the launch of 3GS was rutted against Palm Pre as a result of which Palm Pre’s sales figures dropped and its hype which was created in the market collapsed, we will get to know that at that time the only major market share holder in the market was Apple but now when Apple’s iPhone 4 has been launched, circumstances are a bit different. Talking about this version Apple has done a fine job not only in the software and applications perspective but in the hardware perspective too. This hardware has faced an updated design having a 9.3 millimeter profile and the shell made up of stainless steel, which is a commendable effort if it is compared with Apple’s last offers.

Direct comparison android vs iPhone hardware becomes difficult because androids are available in the market with different specs and of different brands and companies for instance Motorola Droid, HTC/Google Nexus One, HTC Droid incredible and HTC EVO 4G. Therefore a general comparison of the hardware and specs will be made.

Besides a better camera for the pleasure of multimedia users, with more megapixels than the iPhone 4, Android possesses some other features which make significant difference terming androids unique and competitive. The first improvement actually in the latest androids is the installation of processor which has a speed of 1 GHz. In case of iPhone 4 but, this has not made sure that what originally the speed of the processor is. Thanks to A4 chip which has added significant improvement to this version. The other improvement is the Android’s limitless video chatting ability which is unique in its own sense because Apple’s iPhone video chatting, which was not available in the previous cells is now available only in iPhone 4 which requires Wi-Fi or any internet source to be connected with the gadget. With iPhone, it is another issue that one cannot get noteworthy customization options apart from some fundamental offerings while when we talk about Androids one can alter now every feature of the Android interface the way it pleases.

Android phones also offer some additional hardware possibilities which even include the ability to swap the battery when needed. Mobile hot spot functionality, over-the-air music syncing and high quality navigation software are some plus points to the Android operating system.

Android vs iPhone touch screen - At consumer level, the touch screens are becoming increasingly common. In some phones touch screens work smoothly as compared to the screens in some other phones. Touch screens give a sophisticated look to every phone. Initially it was difficult for the phone users to get themselves comfortable with the touch screen menu but slowly it became popular. Here we will discuss android vs iPhone touch screen.

Android has improved its operating system in the past eighteen months and the only competitor it has is Apple. The iPhones launched by Apple have the best touch screens, according to the touch screen analysis done by MOTO. Some work regarding the capacitive touch in various devices has been done by MOTO and recently an analysis of the touch screens has been done on some smart phones. For the android vs iPhone touch screen, the best screen integration is found in Apple iPhones. Not all the models of iPhones have excellent touch screen, but a bunch of them do have.

MOTO found out that a seamless integration is required between UI, software and hardware, for a good touch screen in smart phones. If the manufacturer of any smart phone, iPhone or Android, decides to cut the corners in the seamless integration process, the user suffers that ultimately. Therefore in all the models of the smart phones, a great care is taken regarding a perfect integration between the software, hardware and UI.

For this purpose, a line test was performed by the MOTO. It wanted to see whether each and every element of a smart phone has been finely integrated or not. MOTO selected a bunch of smart phone models of both iPhone and Android, and performed the line test. The smart phone users should know that whenever they use a smart phone, they touch the screen with their finger and this draws some lines. It is impossible to get straight and smooth lines every time, especially it is impossible in inferior touch screens.

According to MOTO, the lines look zigzag and jagged, no matter how slowly the screen is touched. This is because the there is a very big size sensor present in the smart phone and the touch sampling rate is very low. The gestures are converted in images by algorithms and these algorithms are very non-linear for the representation of user inputs.

The Android didn’t do much well in this test but the iPhone proved much better. The Android phones selected for the test were Motorola Droid, HTC Android Eris and Google Nexus One. In the first case they were tested with a light and moderate touch and varying degrees of waviness were showed by all the Android phones. On the other hand, some sensitivity problems were shown by iPhone especially at the edges of the screen, on the bottom particularly. On the edge performance, the Nexus one was the clear winner.

According to MOTO, the accurate performance of the touch screen keyboard is determined by this touch screen performance.

Android vs iPhone security - With so little to choose between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android smartphones, for some users it comes down to determining which provides a better security. An Android vs iPhone security comparison shows that the picture is pretty grim on both sides. The main plus point about iPhone apps are that every app is thoroughly vetted by Apple before being made available on its App Store. While sometimes Apple does go overboard when wielding this power, but at least it is some form of check and balance. So the only apps you can run on your iPhone are the ones you download from Apple’s App store; that is, unless you are an overzealous customer who decides to jailbreak the phone.

Android is an open-source system; which is a good thing most of the time. But this also means that Android apps are not required to get approval from either Google or from any other authority before being allowed to be used on the Smartphones.

But after apps are installed on the devices themselves, Android users in general have more control over what information they want to share with 3^rd party apps. The Android user will be informed about how much data and resources the app requires access to before it is installed. The app will only be installed after the permission of the user. Usually, Android apps generally require less personal data then iPhones.

Now all iPhone apps are given the same amount of default data and resource access without any exception. You will only be asked if you want to share location based information with the app or not, all other options are shared by default.

So while Apple’s gate keeping strategy may work well in most cases, Android is still better since it provides very little personal information from the start. If a malicious app sneaks past Apple’s security check by mistake, it will cause a big havoc as Apple provides much more data and resources access than Android.

On an unrelated note from Android vs iPhone security, Microsoft seems to have modeled it strategy by optimizing both Apple’s and Google’s security checks. Microsoft does an initial vetting of all apps before approval, but does not stop there. It also limits the amount of data that apps can access by using the sandbox technology.

Now let’s talk about their application architecture to compare Android vs iPhone security more closely. Since the iPhone apps all run on a single UNIX kernel with root (administrative) privileges; the entire system can crash if one app fails. On the other hand, Android app architecture looks to be more clearly thought out and designed. If you read their architectural documents you will find that every app (package or .apk file) that is installed on the device is given a unique Linux user ID. This effectively serves to create a sandbox for each app so they cannot interact with diff apps on your Android phone. An XML configuration document is also available for each app that pre-defines the permissions and authorizations for each app. This provides a powerful policy jail for apps running on your Android platform.

Android vs iPhone pros and cons -The two major software platforms for mobiles are Android and iPhone. Currently there are sixty Android modelsavailable for Android smart phones and collectively hundred thousand units are sold every day. Fewer than fifty nine wireless carriers, in forty eight countries, the Android smart phones are easily available from 21 OEMs. The Android vs iPhone pros and cons are greatly discussed online and hundred thousands of people are buying them every day.

The Android platform has evolved faster than its competitors in the last eighteen months. Therefore here you can find some facts about android vs iPhone pros and cons.In the Android Operating System (OS), there is a wider choice available for smart phone models. This platform has introduced smart phones from low to high-end. There are wider distribution channels available for applications, such as carrier and Google and OEM. The incompatibility of applications, in Android,depends on the availability of the devices, per operating system. The devices of Android have less UI consistency due to customization.

On the other hand, just one high-end device is involved in the iPhone operating system. The iPhones have consistent UI. For every iPhone user, there is a push for the upgrading of OTA operating system. According to several users, the consistency of UI can be different among various devices. The application compatibility can vary among devices. Also the availability of the applications can vary in every version of the operating systems.

When the point of discussion comes to the application development by the third party, the features of the operating system evolve too rapidly in Android and also these features are heavily customized. In Android smart phones, the APIs of the third party can be tweaked. Due to missing API components in Android, the issues arise regarding applications compatibility. On the other hand, the APIs of third part are banned in iPhone. The Flash API also lacks but the applications are upward compatible. The UI is consistent in iPhones. Also the architecture of the smart phones is consistent. The smart phone users should know that the application update processes are ensured by the upward compatibility.

The users can enjoy a freedom of software customization for middleware and UI layer, in Android. There is an upgrade version of the complex operating systems in preloaded applications of the Android and direct vendor id required by the frequent operating system upgrades. This is useful in network testing and optimization. In the iPhone case, the uniform OTA operating system upgrades are automatically pushed. This upgradability lessens the efforts of the device OEMs.

With the passage of time, the operating system of the Android has matured. It will provide a platform for the third party application developers and also for the device manufacturers, to work in a better way. It is expected that in the meantime, the iPhones manufactured by Applewill compete with the Android smart phones. Both the manufacturers are competing with each other and satisfying their users in every way.

Android vs iPhone market share 2011 - Apple and Google Android are the greatest superpowers, arch rivals and major competitors of 2011’s Tech universe. Both of them always scuffle on the tablets, software, smart phones and market share. While there are a number of aspects for contemplating the leader in today’s market, one aspect still stands out i.e. how much do the customers prefer and use different platforms. Many people argue about the Android vs iPhone market share 2011 but as Android is a middleware and software manufacturer, so it does not invalidate the comparisons of different corporate shares with the premium and singular company product. If the Apple Company is compared with the other OEM individual companies like Samsung, Motorola and HTC, then it beats all the lot flat. The Android products on whole are related with the open-sourced ecosystem along with the international usage and concentration which is far greater than the Apple.

Google works with a different strategy with their Android. It provides the software for Android completely free and it makes the Google Voice, Contacts, Google search, Gmail, Places, Maps and other valuable services also work seamlessly with the Android. Advertising and Mobile search are Google’s actual revenue streams. Although the revenues generated from advertising are lower as compared to the selling hardware but profit margins for Google are very good.

On the other side, Apple has adopted a completely new and different strategy which is similar to the iPod, iPad and Mac strategies. Apple controls and develops the software and hardware on all of their devices. Mac has never covered more than 10% of the market share but it has been really profitable for the Apple. It goes for high end in the market where it can charge higher prices and also enjoy the great profit margins. The Apple Company has been successful till now with their strategy many times and they will do the same thing again with iPhone.

By looking at the Android vs iPhone market share 2011, an increase has been noted in Android with a strong 44% of all the United States’ smart phone shipments during the third quarter in the year 2011 with double the share of Apple’s 26%. According to ComScore, the market share of Android has grown from 21.4% with the rise of 7 points whereas Apple has hovered at 24.3%. The main reason behind the rise of Android in 2011 is that Android is an open source with the SDK, international compatibility and app stores access and it is also retailed over the four main U.S. carriers. The features are really attractive moreover like the buy one get one free package and it also has a score of completely featured smart phones with different prices depending upon the needs of the customer.

Android has learned from all the mistake of Apple and has made their OS very customizable for each user. This has given a huge success to Android and the Android vs iPhone market share 2011 war has really tensed and warmed up.

Android vs iPhone keyboard - When you type on the physical keyboard, focus of the user stays on the text which appears on screen rather than staying on the keyboard as there is not much need to look at your keyboard. The keys are not going to move after all, plus usually the physical feature of keyboard ensures that your hands stay right in place as well. But all this is not very true with the virtual keyboards. The slightest minuscule shift in your fingers can lead in missing the keys. In most of the cases, the users of the virtual keyboards focus on keyboard only and not on text which appears on their screens. This means the mistyped characters should be obvious and clear even when your are just looking at your keyboard, ignoring the text which you have typed appearing elsewhere on the screen of your device.

If we compare Android vs iPhone keyboard, the key’s letter is shown immediately at iPhone when your finger touches screen of the phone whereas there is a short delay when you are using an Android phone. This makes the popup characters useless and actually forces you to switch the focus constantly between keyboard and text. This in turn also slows down the typing speed of the user and causes to either miss typos or miss the keys or both.

Speed

The keyboard of iPhone has been performing well and especially with the 3GS, no delay has been noted between hitting the keyboard’s key and the characters which appear on the screen. When we see a comparison with Android vs iPhone keyboard, the characters can be seen as quickly as typed with the iPhone where as this is not exactly the case when we talk about the Android device. This causes a bit of an irritation to the person using the device.

Auto-Correction

Android beats iPhone when it comes to the auto-correction feature. The iPhone suggests one correction at most for every word that the user types. While Android suggests a variety of words for the convenience of the user and keeps suggesting words even when the person is still typing. Longer words are typed when the user starts to type them, also the best word can be used from the list which is provided by the Android phones.

The iPhone manages to learn the new words sometimes if the user uses them more frequently, while the Android phones have user-editable list containing custom words. It is also possible to add more words manually in the user dictionary. Users can do so by just holding and touching a word which would open a menu which lets the user to add the new word. Similar to iPhone, Android also has the tendency for ducking around the words that user types.

Language Support

The language on the iPhone can be switched very easily from the on-screen keyboard. It also switches dictionary to the user’s corresponding language.  With the comparison of Android vs iPhone keyboard, the Android phone does not offer the flexibility of switching the language from the keyboard. In fact, the layout of the keyboard does not change even if the user changes the locale.

Android vs iPhone jailbreak - Hacking, Jailbreak, rooting are some the terms commonly used to show rebellion of a cellphone owner against the software providers. It has become really popular recently on smartphones as well as on game consoles. When we talk about Android vs iPhone jailbreak, there are few basic things that you must know. For Android phones the term rooting is commonly used to represent Android hacking and for iPhones the term jailbreak is used. It means to break the metaphorical walls of the device for gaining increased access to the device and its OS to gain better end user control of its functions. Now, let us have a look at Android vs iPhone jailbreak comparison

Home screen Customizability

Among the major attractions of iPhone jailbreaking is to have the ability of using customized home screen. Winterboard is a widely used jailbreak app that lets you modify iOS’s SpringBoard.

Fortunately, this isn’t required for Android phones as there are already home screen editing options. Nevertheless, there are more tools for more customization, but the draw for iPhone owners is not as big for Android users.

Carrier Unlocks

iPhone was mostly locked on AT&T’s network in U.S. and just recently Verizon acquired iPhone. Unlocking iPhone to work with unsupported networks was a big problem. While the international markets have unlocked iPhone 4, the phones bought under AT&T are still locked.

Most of the Android phones are either unlocked or carriers like T-Mobile give unlock codes.

Custom ROMs

Rooting or jailbreaking let you install customized ROMs in your device. Such versions of Android or iOS are not officially supported by your phone such as the unreleased versions of skins and firmware, like Motoblur on Nexus S. Custom ROMs let you have future updates on devices that do not yet support those features.

This way of changing the complete feel and look of a device is a big plus for both Android and iPhone users.

Performance

Once you have rooted your device, you can change features like CPU speed and maximum temperature with the help of apps like SetCPU. On iOS, you may also over clock or under clock your device via PC side apps.

First-Party Support

A big difference is that Apple does not want you to jailbreak so if your iPhone breaks, do not ever take to an Apple Store.

Conversely, Google really does not care if your device is rooted or not. This can be seen from Android Market as it has some root-only apps available while Apple never allows such things.

So, when it comes to Android vs iPhone jailbreak regarding first party support then Android users is at advantage.

Recoverability

You can easily un-jailbreak your iPhone by putting the device in DFU mode by pressing power button and home buttons for just 10 seconds. Then, you just have to connect to iTunes for restoring.

Android un-rooting isn’t that easy. The process varies from phone to phone and if you don’t do it accurately you may end up having a non-responsive phone. Also, you will find very few online guides for doing this.So, the recoverability option of Android vs iPhone jailbreak is won by iPhone.

To concludethe Android vs iPhone jailbreak debate, both kind of devices offer additional advantages after jailbreaking or rooting but there are certain risks associated with thismethod too.

Android vs iPhone growth - The concept of growth today has surpassed every aim as far the organizational goal in this context is referred. Every organization is striving to do its best to compete in this highly competitive growing market. But if we will consider the market of information technology we will get to know that the competition here is fierce as compared to other industries. Mostly it can be said the reason may be the versioning strategy which helps organizations to produce versions of a single product with slight improvements. Such a strategy is adopted by many of the telecom companies.

In present times, the most well-known of all the competitions is the one of android vs iPhone growth. It is believed in almost all the parts of the world that iPhone has potentially a larger customer base which is loyal to Apple and thus the growth of Apple is increasing day by day but if this hypothesis is verified one will get to know that Apple is slightly over rated in terms of growth because research which is backed by the stats has shown slightly different results. Region wise these results may vary but if we consider the overall perspective, we will get to know that the market of androids is increasing day by day. In fact android is growing faster than ever.

As per the latest research figures which have shown that the figure of android activation which was 20 k per day last year has now increased to 340 k per day. More over a comparison of android vs iPhone growth charts have shown that the rate of android growth is three times faster than that of iPhone. It might be the reason that iPhone is backed only by Apple and the androids are available by a lot of companies which are producing in bulk. Such type of variety, diversity and supply leads to the win-win situation for android.

The only reason predicted by the analysts behind this changing competition links to the limited portfolio of products offered by Apple.

 It can be said that the customer interest is diverting towards the android phones. Different researches have shown that within last year android customer base has tripled. This might be of the reason that having and managing an iPhone is a lot more than expensive for a white collared person. In fact stats show that 40 % of the iPhone market earns above $ 100 k. Most of the critics are of the view that Apple can never take hold of the consumer market with their one phone having some versions because when we talk about android vs iPhone growth, we actually talk about Apple vs. all other companies dealing with androids having such advanced and latest features and improved specs.

Hence we can claim now that whatever the competition may take place within next few years, iPhone would have to strive hard to give its customers some new innovative versions to keep it growing at such an exponential rate.

Android vs iPhone differences - People who are looking to buy a new Smartphone are often confused whether to buy an Android phone, or to go to Apple store to add an iPhone to their collection of iPod and iPad. For such times, Android vs iPhone differences can come in handy to help you make a decision.

But a few words of caution before we proceed to list down the difference between the two phones. The warning is that there is no single official “Android” phone. We might make it simpler if we quote a more household example. Most of you must have used Microsoft Windows as your operating system all your life. But all of you would have used different machines to run the software. Some of you may have IBM personal computers while others may have used Dell machines. Similarly, Android is the name given to the mobile operating system of Google. The Android OS is used on smartphones by many different companies like Samsung, Motorola, HTC etc.

On the other hand just like Apple manufactures both the Linux OS and the computers that operate the OS; Apple makes both the iPhone device and the iOS that runs on the device. So while the open-source Android platform gives more freedom to its users; using the iPhone is strictly regulated by Apple’s rules and regulations. So a comparison of Android vs iPhone differences is not as straight a comparison as people like to think it is.

But anyway, since the war is already on, we would also like to add our opinion to this never ending debate:

1. The first point of comparison is storage. For most iPhone users this is a very nervy topic since there is no way that the storage memory of iPhone can be extended. Android users on the other hand can just swap the micro SD card with one with a higher memory capacity when they need to store more multimedia on their Smartphone.
2. iPhone users cannot remove and replace their phone battery at home if their old battery is completely drained out. They need to send their phone back to Apple’s factory to get the replacement. Android users on the other hand can replace the battery within a few minutes and continue using their Smartphone.
3. Apple has a much larger app store than Android apps. Also iTunes has made its own reputation over the last few years. But downloading and installing apps is much easier on Android phones than the cumbersome process in Apple’s iPhone.
4. The biggest drawback of the iPhone is that it offers little or no Flash support. Apple CEO and founder, Steve Jobs, thinks that Adobe’s Flash is way too buggy to be supported by the iPhone. Android users on the other hand have no problems while browsing flash based websites due to its wonderful flash support.
5. The last difference is the amount of personalization allowed by the users. The customization of options is very limited in the iPhone, in fact you cannot even change the black home screen. Android phones on the other hand are very flexible in this regard.