Today we're going to be talking about iPhone versus Android, hopefully with a fresh
Perspective usually here when you hear somebody talking about this subject you hear statements like android is more customizable than iOS apple is more privacy-focused android split-screen support is useful iPhone's continuity features are super useful android phones have USB-C a variety of devices always-on displays more customizable looks cameras with more megapixels and the ability to sideload apps.
iPhone gets updates for half a decade has better more premium support generally just works has better resale value has more accessories to choose from and generally just benefits from tighter integration of hardware and software and the list goes on but, in this blog. I want to either dig a little deeper or maybe just zoom out a little further and cover some ground that's maybe more interesting or in some ways even more important.
Now whether you're considering an Android device or an iOS device for your next phone there's always more than one reason to prefer one over the other, so one thing's for sure there's no reason to trash somebody else's treasure use what makes you happy and let other people do the same.
So let me start then by mapping out the top-level, strengths and weaknesses for each side a top-level strength and weakness on the iPhone side of things is that the iPhone isn't a solitary product it's deeply interconnected with other complementary Apple products and services I would go so far as to argue that the iPhone itself isn't the real product that Apple's trying to sell here instead it's almost like it's more of a feature of apple's actual product the famed Apple ecosystem a deep ecosystem can feel like a great feature to somebody because the more Apple devices a person buys the more powerful and useful that ecosystem becomes the flip side though is that the costs associated with building out the Apple ecosystem make switching away expensive.
Maybe for some people prohibitively so now a top-level strength and weakness on the android side of things is its reliance on Google's surveillance capitalism machine because at its heart Google is not in fact in the business of selling phones as much as it's in the business of selling ads so the more private information and experiences google has access to the more personalized targeted and effective their operating system apps services and yes ads can be now a more personalized experience can feel like a great feature to people.
Because the more Company, knows the more efficiently, it can serve the flip side though is that efficiency might come at the expense of true autonomy if your information is produced and potentially exploited on this platform. Can you ever truly be certain that the products you're buying and the information you're consuming is of your own free, so pick your poison because there is no such thing as the perfect phone or the perfect company,
So I guess at the end of the day a lot of your decision is gonna come down to which company you trust more real quick let me just say if you're liking the vibe of this Blog why not take a minute and hit follow the battery comparison tests the side, side-by-side benchmarking here on Blog I have to say that I feel like comparing model versus model and feature versus feature year after year is not quite as important as people maybe assume obviously when we're talking about phones features do matter but the really good features the ones that aren't just gimmicks are fairly likely to eventually get copied by the other side,
We saw this when widgets arrived, on the iPhone's home screen and, we saw this when swipe controls came to android devices honestly, there are countless other examples with the new iPhone, I think you generally know what to expect, the year to year probably a more iterative approach to improving,
What's already a highly polished phone that just works each year I think it's pretty clear that apple's mostly concerned with competing against itself and only itself instead of trying to outdo the latest and greatest Android devices out there even though oftentimes that is exactly what ends up happening similarly I think the majority of Android devices are fighting it out amongst themselves every year mostly just trying to get a bigger slice of the overall android pie as a result of that android manufacturers are incentivized to try to grab headlines by being not just iteratively different but radically different,
If they can and sometimes this does lead to breakthroughs like zooms, other times it also leads to gimmicks like glasses-free 3d screens in either case what you would consider the core smartphone experience rarely if ever changes year to year smart phones text games browse email calls take photos too control smart homes and a new form factor like a foldable or a more private browsing experience,
Like Apple's private relay doesn't do all that much to change the fundamental smartphone experience and like I said the truly standout features are likely to get copied by either side within a few generations now over the next decade or so a new platform is probably going to emerge that will eventually replace smartphones probably some kind of are rover platform in either case instead of just having tunnel vision and laser focus on which new phone has the coolest new feature every year it might be good to take things on balance and also consider,
What the future looks like and how happy you're likely to be in three to five years because, when you buy a new phone you're not just buying a phone, you're heading in a direction so if you buy an iPhone the direction that you're taking is heading straight into Apple's ecosystem and over the next three to five years you could spend a decent amount of money investing there, but yeah you can get an Apple Watch and a Mac and unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch, and you can start an email on your iPad and finish it on your iPhone,
You can send an intercom voice message using your air pods that broadcast to the home pod minis around your house, and you can scan items from your iPhone directly to Apple notes on your Mac, You can get Apple Care for premium support, you can use iMessage you can set reminders on Siri on your Apple Watch, that goes off when you get out of your car play-enabled c your iPhone is going to last you for more years if you wanted to because you'll get updates for longer, then you'll be able to sell it for a decent amount because Apple product, retain their value longer, you can do it all while feeling more secure and private mostly maybe yes the Apple ecosystem, is great unless or until Apple does something that you don't like what if someday Apple decided to not scan for illegal images but to scan for people who might belong to a certain religious group or any other group,
Because I would hate to see tools that were developed with a good purpose at heart turned into weapons of intolerance now if you choose to buy an android device you're buying into a future with more device options and with more opportunities for customization that's right you're going to be able to change your launcher to put app icons wherever you want you can root your phone and install custom firmware you can bypass Google's app store and sideload apps you can use a phone without a notch that has expandable storage and includes a headphone jack or you can buy a phone for even less than 400, you can split your screen to read an article and watch a twitch stream at the same time you can use one USB-C charger to charge your laptop your switch and your android phone,
You can get that always-on-the-lock screen of your dreams, you can ask more complicated questions of Google Assistant, and expect smarter answers, You can get a phone with a stylus and yes you can easily theme your devices yep, all the options and customizations are great until or unless, well let's just say I shudder to think about everything that googles does not mention,
Facebook while we're at it knows not just about android users but honestly about the entire population does google know you better than you know yourself do advertisers in the words of a retired Harvard business, school professor, surveillance capitalism is the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data these data are then computed and packaged as prediction products and sold into behavioral futures markets,
She wrote a book a while back, it caused a big stir because she goes on to say that these smart and personalized devices and experiences that so many people enjoy mighty, in some way, even be putting democracy at risk wow it's like you might think you're informed maybe you're only as informed as x yours has allowed you to be you wouldn't know the difference here's, the way I see it when you buy an iPhone you're buying a puzzle piece, it's a nice puzzle piece.
All on its own but, you're not gonna realize the full picture until you assemble the rest of the puzzle i.e. until you buy another apple products which all become so much better together likewise when you buy an android phone, you're still buying a puzzle piece, it's just the overall puzzle that these pieces fit into is just much smaller, Google's puzzle ecosystem is growing Samsung's puzzle slash ecosystem is growing but neither one comes anywhere close to matching the actual grandeur the gravity of Apple's massive puzzle slash ecosystem and smaller android manufacturers, for the most part, are just selling individual puzzle pieces mostly so decisions for me personally, I can just say I have chosen to go down the iPhone and Apple route at least for the time being it served me well.
In the past and I do feel like I produced high-quality work using apple's products some people like Linus Sebastian might think of the iPhone as incremental expensive and boring but to me, iPhone is a reliable premium, and ready-to-go right out of the box. I find that I wouldn't be spending a lot of time customizing the grid layout of my home screen or trying to over or under my phone, for gaming or battery performance if you're looking to get into the Apple ecosystem you can do so for as little as 399 with the iPhone see and, you could even install all your favorite Google apps if you really wanted to and even create a shortcut to use Google Assistant, in place of Siri.
You can essentially turn your iPhone into a kind of android in a way while still being able to take advantage of all the benefits of being in the Apple ecosystem, now if you're looking to switch over to android you really can't pull all your Apple apps over with you the only Apple app that's available over on the android side is Apple Music there are all kinds of phones at all kinds of price points with all sorts of form factors with all sorts of manufacturer takes on what the best version of android might look like you get to choose from all of those now you do have people out there saying things like android phones are categorically cheap or complicated, honesty those are just stereotypes there are plenty of expensive android devices out there made out of really nice and premium materials and I found that the Android experience can be as complicated or as straightforward as you make it alright well that's it for this blog,
I hope that you found this blog to be different than you expected and different from other blogs on the subject that you've seen both in content and tone I tried hard to make this useful so hopefully, you feel more empowered as you go to pick out your next phone now that was the paragraph I was going to say that's what I typed out, I asked writing assistant to rephrase that and instead spit out I hope this blog took a slightly different approach than most others you've seen about this subject and maybe made it even easier for you to make your final decision was a lot simpler, less complicated, I'll catch you guys in the next blog or tweet or reel or whatever wherever we connect later.
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