Back when I started consulting I wanted to get a smartphone. Up until this point I had purposely chosen a feature phone, aka a dumb phone. I wanted something cheap that I could toss into my backpack while riding, and not worry too much if I fell. I felt that a consultant needed to be more connected, and face it, I love gadgets so it was time to step up and get something new.
Google had come out with the Google Nexus One phone. It had the latest Android OS without any manufacturer customizations. The goal of the Nexus line of phones is to have the pure Android experience and to always get the latest updates as soon as they are released. No extra apps, no extra UI junk. Noble.
I got the Nexus One, and used it for about a year and half. I love the Android OS. I like the features and functionality in the OS, and for a phone, the apps that are available are great. The customization that can be accomplished on Android are excellent too. I like that I can swap out core functionality on the phone.
A few months ago I bought an iPhone 4. There are lots of articles about how beautiful iOS is, and how much better than Android iOS is. I wanted to try the other big smartphone OS and see how it compared to Android.
This post is about which OS I prefer and why. It shouldn't have to be stated, but these are my opinions based on my usage of both phones. I an not an average computer/phone consumer, so my opinions may not be applicable to you or anyone else for that matter. A little background info on me. I use Windows, and had started using Google services long before I had my Nexus One. I am a developer, like to customize my computer environment, and I like to tinker. I also owned an iPad before I owned the iPhone.
Once I had the iPhone setup to integrate with my Google accounts I was ready to go. This setup wasn't easy though, and the iPhone never quite got my calendar synching to work smoothly. This was a royal pain as sometimes calendars wouldn't load, sometimes I couldn't add events to a calendar, and sometimes I couldn't modify an event. I never took the time to track down this issue, so I don't know what caused it. Once I got over this hurdle though, iOS was fine to use as a phone. There were lots of apps, including most of the ones I used on Android. There were loads more games for the iPhone than the Nexus, but I found that with the iPad, I used my phone less and less for consumption and entertainment.
One Android app that I really missed was My Tracks. This app was perfect for what I wanted, and I never found an iOS replacement that came close to its functionality.
In iOS there seemed to be two places that apps could have their settings. In the app, or in the system settings. There was no rhyme nor reason as to which app would have its settings where. I did find it a pain to be in an app, then have to leave it to modify settings for the app.
I don't like how iOS constrains icon placement on the home screens. Every app has to be on a homescreen exactly once, and there can't be any gaps in the placement of icons. Android has a bucket where all apps can be launched from. On each home screen the user can create a shortcut to an app. Users can also arrange icons on the homescreens any way they see fit and can leave gaps. This means that I can put my favorite or most used apps along the bottom row within easy reach. Another thing about homescreens is that in Android 2.3, the version on the Nexus, double tapping the home button displayed a small version of all my homescreens. This makes navigating to a specific screen much easier than on iOS where you have to swipe to find the one you want.
Speaking of home button, it bugs me that the home button on iDevices has so many uses. Tapping the home button from a homescreen takes you to the first home screen, unless you are already on the first homescreen. In that case you are taken to the search screen. Quickly double tapping brings up the list of recent apps. Long tapping the home button on the iPhone brings up the voice control. Android has similar functionality with the home button, but for some reason, my brain doesn't have as hard a time when mapping what I want to do to making my fingers do it. On Android, pressing the home button takes you to the home screen. Double tapping shows you your homescreens. There is no long press, and on the primary home screen, pressing the home button doesn't do anything. This works better for me.
As soon as I started using the iPhone keyboard, I realized that I definitely preferred the Android keyboard layout. That may be because I started off using Android and it may just be a familiarity thing. iOS wins on simple typing though. Apple nailed the letter prediction, and Google could do better there. Autocorrect is another thing that I think Android wins on though. When the Android autocorrect kicks in, there is a box with a number of possibilities. The user can select from the list. iOS pops up a box that has an x on it, and that looks like it should be something to choose. Instead, if you tap that box, the autocorrect is cancelled. I keep making the same mistake over and over with iOS autocorrect.
In iOS 5 Apple did a major overhaul of their notifications. I got the iPhone soon after iOS 5 was released, so I was never that frustrated by the old style notifications. Coming from Android though, I feel Apple has a long way to go in this area. In iOS the notifications are hidden unless you swipe the tray open. In Android the notification icons stay visible along the top edge of the screen, meaning I can switch on my phone, see if there is new email/tweets/whatever without having to touch the screen on my phone. Android also has proper background apps. I know that this can lead to battery drain, but there are some benefits to this. Couple this with the better notification system and I have a winner. Here are two examples: imap email accounts, and twitter clients. On my android phone these can run in the background, download new data, then set a notification. When I next check my phone I can immediately see if there is something I should read. This just fits better with how I work. On the iPhone, since there aren't really any background apps other than system apps, the only way imap email is downloaded is if I run the mail app. Same for tweets, I have to start up my twitter client and wait for things to get downloaded.
Speaking of the mail app on iOS. That is a horrible app. When I delete an email I could never figure out if the next message was going to get opened, or the previous message. The mail app integration with gmail left lots to be desired. I would delete an email, and it would not end up in the trash in gmail. There was no easy way to archive an email either. I would often have to leave a bunch of email in my inbox so that I could properly file them the next time I was at a computer.
Another stellar Android feature is the ability for apps to share data. iOS 5 included twitter integration. Oooh, this meant that a few places in the system you could use content to form a tweet. In Android an app can register to receive certain kinds of data eg text, images, etc. In an app the user can choose the Share option which pops open a list of apps to receive that data. In iOS it seems like every app has to implement its own version of sharing. This means that sometimes I can't share to the service I want. Another benefit to the Android way is that each app collects my username and password. The ability to share doesn't require this. On iOS it seems that I had to enter my passwords a lot more to enable the sharing abilities.
I find text selection in iOS a pain to work with. I find that my finger obscures the text that I am trying to select, and the magnifying glass that is presented doesn't help me that much. I also dislike how the text inside the magnifying glass looks blurry. Once a word is selected, I find the controls to expand and contract the selection to be too small to accurately grab and manipulate. Android has bigger controls that hang down below the text more. I find these controls far easier to work with. However, all is not perfect in Android land. The ability to select text in Android isn't universal, and sometimes to activate the text selection, you have to use a menu option. Clearly this sucks.
Unless you jailbreak your iPhone, iOS does not support widgets. Like I said, I am a tweaker and a tinkerer. Widgets offer some nice functionality (like system settings), and can offer a simple, easy way to get the state of something (a unread item count in google reader for example). I like widgets, and you can't have them in iOS.
I've heard so many times that it is the small details that matter. This is quite often spoken when talking about iOS. One of my bigger frustrations with iOS happened every single time I plugged in my phone to play music while the phone was connected to a Bluetooth hands free device. My truck has an input that plugs into the headphone jack, but if the phone was connected to the hands free device, the music would start playing out the hands free device, and not the headphone jack. Changing this was a pain. Suppose I remembered to do all this before I left the driveway. If I got a call the music would pause if I answered it. When I resumed the music, it would play out the hands free device. Not ideal. My Nexus One never had this problem, and the music would play out the expected device.
Another grievance with iOS is the incall controls. Supposed I call my voicemail account to delete some messages. I prefer to do this hands free, but in iOS selecting speaker phone, and getting it to show the dial pad is a multi step process. In Android, as part of the call control buttons, there is one to switch to speaker phone, and one to show the dial pad.
Stability must be mentioned. My Android phone rebooted on my a few times. When I saw this happen to the iPhone, I was shocked. I had expected it to be more stable than that. Apps on iOS crashed just as frequently as they did on Android. One iOS feature that is pretty cool is when you restart your device, when the device returns, all your apps are in the state you left them in.
Final notes. After using the iPhone for a while I decided have to sell it. To replace it, I bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. This new phone has Android 4 on it, which is a nice upgrade from 2.3. Many of the quirks and anomalies from 2.3 have been addressed. I certainly don't hate the iPhone, it was decent enough and I can see why so many of them have been sold. For me though, Android works better. I'm also glad I took the time to try both OS'es.