Android or iOS. What is better in 2022 | Articles | Phones

Android vs iOS is one of the eter­nal bat­tles. Admir­ers of each of the sys­tems reg­u­lar­ly face in a dis­pute over who is bet­ter. We decid­ed not to stand aside and look at sev­en impor­tant para­me­ters to find out which mobile oper­at­ing sys­tem per­forms best.

Pho­to: tomsguide.com

Design

Gen­er­al design trends always affect the appear­ance of oper­at­ing sys­tems. Fash­ion moved from three-dimen­sion­al icons to flat ones, and now visu­al­ly almost all axes are sim­i­lar to one anoth­er.

Redesigned Android sys­tem. Pho­to: lifewire.com

iOS

The oper­at­ing sys­tem from Apple has not received visu­al updates for a long time. The home screen is still divid­ed into a dock (a pan­el at the bot­tom of the screen with quick access to the main appli­ca­tions) and appli­ca­tion icons that can be tucked into fold­ers.

After the release of iOS 14, a page with wid­gets appeared in the sys­tem. Swipe to the right opens it. It dis­plays a ran­dom pho­to gallery, cal­en­dar, weath­er, map, and more in blocks. The wid­get pan­el can be cus­tomized. The sys­tem looks very neat. All appli­ca­tions are eas­i­ly acces­si­ble.

This has both a plus and a minus — iOS does not change, even if the user would like to cus­tomize it for them­selves. The max­i­mum that can be done is to set your wall­pa­per and change the loca­tion of appli­ca­tions, includ­ing the appli­ca­tion in the dock.

Of the con­ve­nient func­tions on iOS, there is a drop-down menu with a tran­si­tion to appli­ca­tions, for exam­ple, an alarm clock, a flash­light, quick access to screen bright­ness and vol­ume. The list of drop-down func­tions can be cus­tomized. The menu opens with a swipe up. Swipe left opens the app gallery and search.

Android

Pure Android is the basis on which each man­u­fac­tur­er puts its shell. But the prin­ci­ple remains the same: on the main page there are sev­er­al short­cut icons, a dock and a Google search. The rest of the apps are opened with a swipe to the right, and a swipe to the left opens wid­gets. They are on Android placed in a list of blocks — the way Apple’s noti­fi­ca­tions look.

Swipe down opens a drop-down menu with set­tings. Android has more than Apple: it has screen cast­ing, hotspot, GPS, screen­shot, etc. The remain­ing set­tings in the menu, depend­ing on the inter­face or shell, may be placed ran­dom­ly or con­fuse the user. So, on MIUI from Xiao­mi, the screen ori­en­ta­tion and lock icons are very sim­i­lar.

But the design cus­tomiza­tion options def­i­nite­ly put Android ahead of iOS in this regard. Here you can change the appli­ca­tion icons them­selves, their design, shape and ani­ma­tion.

In gen­er­al, both visu­al­ly and in terms of con­trol, the home screen of both oper­at­ing sys­tems is sim­i­lar. And as for the con­ve­nience of each of them, it is rather a mat­ter of habit.

iOS — 0

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Usability

How easy is it to nav­i­gate the sys­tem, find the set­tings you need, and what can be con­fig­ured in gen­er­al? This is where the dif­fer­ence between oper­at­ing sys­tems becomes notice­able, the prin­ci­ple of their oper­a­tion is fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent.

Pages on the iOS 14 home screen. Pho­to: wrcbtv.com

iOS

Apple’s mobile oper­at­ing sys­tem is very easy to man­age. It is intu­itive and the path to most set­tings is easy to fol­low. The most impor­tant thing is to remem­ber a few basic prin­ci­ples of man­age­ment. Swipe right for the appli­ca­tion library, left for wid­gets, down for noti­fi­ca­tions, up for the list of open appli­ca­tions.

But this sim­plic­i­ty is eas­i­ly explained: there are not many para­me­ters that can be con­fig­ured. Basi­cal­ly, the most impor­tant: wall­pa­per, login pass­words, data trans­fer to the cloud.

Apple expects users to fig­ure it out on their own — no instruc­tions are includ­ed with the devices. For an advanced user, this is real­ly easy, but a begin­ner may encounter prob­lems in man­ag­ing a smart­phone. If you are used to Android, then there will also be unusu­al moments, because the basic con­trols are very dif­fer­ent.

Android

The main dif­fer­ence between Android is the open­ness of the sys­tem. And the point is not only that it can be almost com­plete­ly reis­sued, but that the set­tings con­cern even the small­est ele­ments: noti­fi­ca­tion types, desk­top orga­ni­za­tion, updat­ing indi­vid­ual sys­tem com­po­nents.

In addi­tion, Android also has advanced set­tings, which include detailed pri­va­cy set­tings.

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Applications

List of appli­ca­tions on Android sys­tem. Pho­to: nextpit.com

iOS

Apple takes its prod­ucts and sys­tem secu­ri­ty very seri­ous­ly. You can install only those appli­ca­tions that are avail­able in the offi­cial App­Store. For any oth­er manip­u­la­tions, you need to reflash the phone, and this will auto­mat­i­cal­ly void the war­ran­ty. Because of this, the choice of appli­ca­tions is lim­it­ed.

Also, not all apps are avail­able in all coun­tries, and if you want to try a game that has­n’t been released in your home region yet, the only way is to switch the app store to a for­eign one. At the same time, all installed appli­ca­tions, even if they are present in the store of the select­ed coun­try, are no longer updat­ed.

Android

Android allows you to install appli­ca­tions from sev­er­al stores at once: Google Play, the offi­cial Android store, the user inter­face store added by the man­u­fac­tur­er, and any apk file — the appli­ca­tion’s instal­la­tion file.

To access an appli­ca­tion from a store in anoth­er coun­try, sim­ply search for the apk of an inter­est­ing appli­ca­tion in a search engine and install it. You can update it the same way.

But the cre­ators of the sys­tem, of course, can­not guar­an­tee the ide­al oper­a­tion of such appli­ca­tions.

How­ev­er, Android allows you to install var­i­ous appli­ca­tions, includ­ing those that change the sys­tem set­tings: design, addi­tion­al wid­gets, etc. And there are many more apps to choose from.

iOS — 0

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Data security

iOS secu­ri­ty set­tings. Pho­to: imore.com

iOS

In Apple’s oper­at­ing sys­tem, the rules are sim­ple: files are stored either on the device or in the cloud. iCloud accounts are rarely hacked, and after such cas­es, the sys­tem is always checked and updat­ed. User infor­ma­tion is secure­ly pro­tect­ed. By the way, gen­er­al secu­ri­ty updates are released reg­u­lar­ly.

The device is locked with a pass­word. In old­er mod­els, this is a Touch ID fin­ger­print scan­ner, and in new ones, very advanced FaceID facial recog­ni­tion. The same pro­tec­tion is pro­vid­ed by indi­vid­ual devel­op­ers in some appli­ca­tions — main­ly bank­ing. But most of the data, includ­ing pay­ment, will be avail­able to those who know the dig­i­tal pass­word — it is on all smart­phone mod­els.

The key­chain func­tion, which remem­bers pass­words, works through FaceID. But if you are already logged into your account, then there is no addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion.

Android

Android allows you to pass­word pro­tect even indi­vid­ual doc­u­ments or appli­ca­tions.

If you want to hide some data, you can even use the sec­ond space — a clean copy of the sys­tem on which oth­er appli­ca­tions and files are installed. Access to it can also be locked with a pass­word.

Anoth­er dif­fer­ence and at the same time the prob­lem of Android is its sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to virus­es and hacks. This is a con­se­quence of the open­ness of the sys­tem — you can down­load and upload almost any­thing into it. There­fore, it is impor­tant to install antivirus appli­ca­tions.

Most Android smart­phones still pro­tect data with a fin­ger­print scan­ner, since the face scan­ner is not con­sid­ered secure enough — in rare cas­es, it reads a pho­to and mis­takes it for a face.

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Ecosystem

Google Docs icon on iOS. Pho­to: itechguides.com

iOS

Since iOS is designed for users of Apple tech­nol­o­gy, it ide­al­ly inter­acts with com­pa­ny devices through a sin­gle Apple ID account. The text copied on the com­put­er can be past­ed on the phone, you can use your smart­phone as a track­pad (Apple touch­pad), infor­ma­tion in appli­ca­tions and tabs, as well as pass­words are avail­able from any device. Files are avail­able through the iCloud cloud, music is avail­able through Apple Music stream­ing, videos are avail­able through AppleTV.

Every­thing is tied to an Apple ID account. By the way, it can even be used on Win­dows, but appli­ca­tions will be reluc­tant to work — they slow down and often freeze. How­ev­er, the Apple ecosys­tem is very rich in con­ve­nient fea­tures.

Android

Android can rely on both a Google account and a man­u­fac­tur­er’s account. You can store data in the cloud and copy pass­words from Google Chrome. But Android does not have such uni­ty with com­put­ers as Apple has. For exam­ple, a pho­to can­not sim­ply be opened both there and there. To do this, you need to upload it to the cloud, go to the cloud through a brows­er or fold­er, and look for a pic­ture there. It takes more time, and is not suit­able for every­one.

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Update

The process of updat­ing the sys­tem on a smart­phone with Android. Pho­to: techadvisor.com

iOS

Apple updates the oper­at­ing sys­tem on all devices released over the past few years. This hap­pens auto­mat­i­cal­ly and you do not need to pay extra for the update. The only neg­a­tive is the accu­sa­tions against the com­pa­ny of delib­er­ate­ly slow­ing down sys­tems on out­dat­ed devices. There is no con­fir­ma­tion of this, but the old­er the device, the slow­er the axis reacts to it.

Android

Android updates vary by device man­u­fac­tur­er. For some phones, the com­pa­ny releas­es updates almost imme­di­ate­ly, and some, on the con­trary, remain unup­dat­ed. In addi­tion, you need to make sure that the ver­sion of the inter­face is updat­ed. And smart­phones from Huawei, due to the com­pa­ny’s con­flict with the Unit­ed States, were com­plete­ly left with­out Google appli­ca­tions.

Apple — 1

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Additional system functions

Pho­to review of iOS 15 fea­tures. Pho­to: apple.com

iOS

• It is more dif­fi­cult to down­load files on iOS — third-par­ty music, ring­tones, even books are always more dif­fi­cult to down­load, since it is impos­si­ble to down­load them direct­ly from the Inter­net. You can use instant mes­sen­gers, but the files will only be stored for a lim­it­ed time.
• The iOS cam­era app offers sev­er­al fil­ters, but no advanced set­tings (expo­sure, ISO).

Android

• Many dif­fer­ent func­tions, the list of which depends on the man­u­fac­tur­er.
• Some man­u­fac­tur­ers and mod­els of smart­phones, such as Google Pix­el cam­era phones, have advanced pho­to and video set­tings. They are almost like on pro­fes­sion­al cam­eras.
• You can down­load not only files, but also appli­ca­tions.

iOS — 0

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Outcome

Smart­phones Apple iPhone on iOS and Google Pix­el on Android. Pho­to: cnet.com

In our rank­ing, iOS wins by a nar­row mar­gin. It wins in terms of usabil­i­ty, data secu­ri­ty, ecosys­tem func­tion­al­i­ty, and updates. Android fared bet­ter in axis design, app diver­si­ty, and extra fea­tures.

Both oper­at­ing sys­tems dif­fer not so strong­ly. There­fore, we rec­om­mend mak­ing a choice based on the para­me­ters that are most impor­tant to you.