Crazy how far ahead the iPhone is over every single Android phone. I moved over years ago because of the horrible hardware, lower-quality apps, and lack of support. Seems like this trend will continue.
The processor is one of the only thing Apple has a clear lead in over Android flagships. (Others being customer support and longevity)
Android hardware and software are fully stable now. Android phones have better cameras and match apple in most other hardware metrics (display, speakers, antennas, build, touch response)
Software wise, it comes down to preferences. Both have a few things they do well, and others they stumble on. iOS12 is from what I have heard, smoother as butter. However, top flagships from Samsung, Google, OnePlus all run Android without any stutter at stable 60fps too.
All of my daily apps/usecases are at parity with their iOS. I don't know if the app ecosystem complaints are valid in 2018. (Apart from snap chat, because they have some wierd hate for Android)
I can respect your choice of wanting an Apple device. Especially if you are invested in their hardware and software ecosystem. But to someone who isn't, the iPhone does offer enough to switch from Android.
This is true. The problem is that the FPS don't matter so much as latency touch-to-update does. And Apple keeps this latency about 1/2 of what Android can do.
Even the $320 Pocophone F1 can perform at and above the iPhone XS Max performance in everyday tasks [1].
I’d be interested to see if there are more recent tests.
Here’s Dan Luu’s tests on scrolling latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/
I was actually quite shocked at just how impressed I was on iOS 10 after Android phones that had cost me twice as much and many decades learning every UI and UX experience will disappoint.
This is the first time I've heard this.
Most of the time it is complaints about Android being laggy.
https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23939
> In addition to the models listed above, you can stream Netflix in HD on devices powered by the following chipsets. Check with the manufacturer of your device to confirm hardware specifications:
[...]
Qualcomm Snapdragon 845
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_pocophone_f1-9293.php
> Chipset Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon 845 (10 nm)
https://m.gsmarena.com/the_pocophone_f1_cant_stream_hd_video...
The annoyances come when the responsiveness is below the standard for either device (eg, 1/4second to 1/2 second delays). I see some of those on both devices, tbh.
This is the only thing I do not give a shit about. A much slower CPU would be just fine. The true advantage is the UX. Just try to disable automatic grammar correction on both iOS and Android and count the number of items you had to go through. It is insane how much crap Android has for every single thing. Designed by engineers for engineers mentality is the root cause here. Apple puts the user in charge how an mobile OS should look like or should behave and this is the biggest differentiating factor between iOS vs other platforms.
/s
At other companies you get jobs. At Apple, Jobs gets you!
Brilliant!
So it's pretty easy.
I know ios can do this with content blockers, but they only work in safari and are too easy to circumvent.
The user in charge? Interesting. I have both an iPhone and an Android handset. It has been this way for years (work is the reason). I believe I will never be able to fully accept the iPhone.
It seems like it wants to make a lot of (often stupid) decisions for me. When I want to connect my phone via cable to transfer some files it is always a hassle. I can't sideload apps that somehow goes against Apple's will. As an example, NewPipe is a blessing on Android if you enjoy YouTube (not available via Google Play). The fact that full phone backups are done via an video/audio player (iTunes) makes zero sense.
I feel trapped and irritated when I use the iPhone. When I use the Android phone I feel like the OS trusts me to make my own decisions.
I should perhaps mention that I chose to run Android without a Google account or Gapps. I've gone from Cyanogen via Copperhead to Lineage. Ironically, Android without Google is the best phone experience I've ever had.
Titanium Backup on Android allows for pretty much seamless updates across ROMs (if you know what you're doing). Try doing the same on iOS... oh, sorry. There's no choice in OS vendors there.
That is the key difference. What if I don’t want to be the sysadmin for my phone? What if I don’t want to root my phone? What if I prefer things to just work out of box?
https://youtu.be/0eEG5LVXdKo (start at 2:37)
Do they? Is there a one touch full device backup solution for Android that doesn’t involve rooting the phone or flashing custom ROM? Is there a way to easily sync my sessages to other devices[1]?
The two billion people do no flash custom ROMs or root their devices. They do not even get sucurity patches on time. But they try to use their device just the way one would use an iPhone — with almost zero customisation. So they end up with a phone which doesn’t do everything it should straight out of the box and is vulnerable for most of its lifetime, for the sake of choices/cusomizability they would never use.
I you are talking about the choice of OEMs, I agree. It is not ideal that Apple is the only iOS vendor[2]. But the benefits, IMO, outweigh the problems.
[1] Messages for web is a recent advancement.
[2] While we are on the subject of multiple OEMs, I’d prefer if OEMs followed the Windows model where they can install a few apps and tweak things a bit, but can’t (do not?) make drastic changes to the OS. I’d prefer to live in a world where I don’t have to worry about whether the Android Phone I am looking at is more vulnerable than the others.
As always, replace "cloud" with "someone else's computer" to see why I don't consider this an option.
This is what bothers me too. On an iOS device, you have to do everything in an app, and if the app doesn't support what you want to do, it's just not possible. Want to take an mp3 file from the web and play it with iTunes. Not easy. Got some audio books that you want to load in and play in your podcast player? Not easy. Everything has to go through each app, and there's no way to move data from one app to another, unless the apps have specifically setup that hand-off.
iOS now has what's essentially a file-picker since iOS 11, to support storage of files on your device and iCloud.
High-end android phones. But the run of the mill android phones that most people I know have... not so much.
One more plus for Apple: in-person support is fantastic. My battery was going, so I made an appointment at the local store. They noticed my screen had a tiny crack at the lower left corner, so while they did the battery, they replaced the screen.
Cost: $0. For sure I bought this phone 2+ years ago...
I'm guessing that you met a really nice Genius, because I'd imagine that screen cracks come under accidental damage and usually don't get covered under warranty.
I wanted to get my 6S's battery replaced under Apple's 2018 battery replacement program, but it has a cracked screen and Apple won't service the battery unless I replace the screen too.
He said oh, that might make it difficult, because the SE’s battery is accessed via the screen being suction-pulled off. He went out back to check.
When he came back, he said they’d replace the screen as well. I’d like to think this is one of those textbook “honesty pays” situations, but who knows.
An iPhone is usually a well balanced phone. It may not have the best of anything, but is usually right there at the top. And if you want a great camera so badly that you are willing to compromise on everything else, by all means, buy a dedicated digital camera. Similarly, if you want your phone to be so good at playing music that you are fine with the other compromises, you might want to look into a dedicated music player. Smartphones are meant to to generally purpose jack-of-all-trades sort of devices and the iPhone excels at that. If I want a device specialised for a purpose, I’ll buy the just that — not a smartphone.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878018/iphone-xs-x-pixe...
All tests shows different white balance between pixel and xs. This is highly depends on screens that are used on the phones and photos on iPhone can simply adjusted to iPhone screens.
That leaves:
(1)AGPS (which I'm not informed on, I've never thought of turning it off)
(2)real Firefox (aka alternative rendering engine that you can set as the system default)
(Develop for your own phone without rebuilding or paying isn't a security thing, just a convenience thing)
vs. Google mining your data at every opportunity and Google/carriers dropping support for phones as soon as they can get away with it.
I'll take iOS.
It only blocks ads in webviews, unlike ad blockers on Android, which block ads and trackers in native apps as well.
> and Signal.
I specifically said you can't set it as your default, which makes it significantly less convenient and therefore much less useful.
> vs. Google mining your data at every opportunity
This happens when you use Google apps on iOS as well. There is no difference.
> Google/carriers dropping support for phones as soon as they can get away with it.
Buy a phone that gets support. When you buy a car, you don't judge all cars by the worst manufacturers. When you buy an Android phone, doing the same is equally nonsensical.
> I'll take iOS.
Whatever floats your boat. At least now you have enough information to make an informed decision.
Which phone provides the same level of support as Apple ?
So Pixel, and, uh, Pixel XL?
Now I‘m typing this on a iPhone 8 that I plan to use for at least the next four years.
What are you talking about with other apps? What would it mean to have Signal the default app? When I want to use Signal I open signal, there's no convenience factor. Signal shows up as an option on the share sheet and I could even delete messages.app from the share sheet if I didn't want to use it.
I guess I can theoretically grasp links that open in maps and wanting to be able to change that default. (though I don't care to, since I don't have to send my data to Google) Are there links somewhere that open in "the default messenger app"?
What are the other default apps that I'm not able to change on iOS?
Also what is this about AGPS data going to Apple? I've just seen an assertion by you, nothing else.
Summary:
1)I'll fully give you the WebKit, you care about that, I don't, but I agree it's a thing.
2) You care about Maps, I don't, and I'm not sure it is that much of an issue. I interact with maps 90+% of the time after opening the app so if I want to stop using Apple's Maps it is a minor inconvenience.
3) I don't understand your point on Signal
4)I think there are other "default apps" you are talking about that I don't know about.
5)What are you talking about with Apple collecting AGPS data?
added: 6)Isn't AOSP not really useable as a phone interface... that is the impression I've gotten. How else am I supposed to not "use Google apps on Android"?
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/us-cell-carriers-se...
Of course you have to opt in for apps.
The default on iOS is to not send any telemetry data to Apple.
And Apple has used differential privacy across all of their features.
This is actually the default on Android. I showed a specific case of data acquisition that iOS does that you can't opt out of. On Android, that data acquisition is opt-in.
And who cares about AGPS. Your cellular provider who is the only one who has access to AGPS data can already track your location based on cell tower information.
And Apple on iOS.
> I'm not aware of any use of differential privacy on the Android platform.
Android itself doesn't need it. It collects less data than iOS. If you're talking about apps on Android that use differential privacy, there are plenty, and their implementation of differential privacy is better than Apple's. https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/google-apple-differenti...
AGPS means the phone downloads the GPS almanac, the dynamic dataset you need for using GPS, from the internet as opposed to watching the satellites for about 30 minutes to download it. That would be stupid and would not have any positive impact on your privacy.
Eventually I got the Google Nexus 5, an Android flagship. Its updates ceased about a year after I bought it.
I gave up and got an iPhone 6S. Still getting updates to this day, despite being a 3 year old device. The constant software updates and support that Apple offers is clearly superior to what is provided with Android - even when you buy the 'official' Google phone.
I am sure there is an Android phone out there which has got a better camera, another one that has got better speakers, yet another one with better display and yet another which had got a better build than iPhone. The thing that most people forget is that almost all Android phones have some USPs and in exchange they compromise a lot on something else. Why do you thing the entire Android ecosystem should be treated as a single entity against the iPhone? Show me an Android that does every single thing better (or on par) with iPhone.
My experience has been that iPhones are usually not the absolute best at pretty much anything, but they are usually right up there at the top. Maybe it doesn’t have the absolute best camera, but it certainly has one of the best, and so on. And let’s not even compare the longevity of devices.
And before someone talks about prices, Androids that compete in the same arena as the iPhone cost about the same.
Then there is the app ecosystem. Sure, you have all the big names available on Android. But there are lot of smaller developers with great apps which are missing from Android — simply because of the crappy ecosystem which takes a village to build and support apps for. There are no apps which come close to the likes of OmniFocus, Things etc. And while Google does come up with cutting edge tech like AR, a lot of it is not adopted immediately — if ever — by the third party developers who have to wait for the shiny new version of Android to gain some momentum — something that takes forever in Android land.
So no, it is not just the processor that the iPhone has a clear lead on — it’s the overall experience. I couldn’t care less about the specs as long as the experience is maintained.
Full disclaimer: I am someone who usually carries two phones. This means that given the lack of alternatives, I end up with an Android in addition to my iPhone. And while I like some of the features offered by the individual Android OEMs, I do not consider the ecosystem as a whole to be anywhere near comparable to that of iOS.
I even like the shape of my Pixel better. The X's bump is a gimmick at best, a hindrance to app presentation at worst.
Why not? My android phones last multiple years - I've only switched when moving countries and the mobile bands are incompatible. My Nexus 4, from 2012 but running an up-to-date LineageOS, is my current backup phone, and works perfectly. I daresay it works significantly better than my parents similarly aged iPhone 5 (or 5s?), which also has an up-to-date OS, and runs slow as molasses.
But really, the main benefit of Android, for me and most other people I'd guess, is price. The combined purchase price of all 4 of my androids is about equivalent to a single current iPhone flagship (150+300+250+360 Canadian dollars).
I agree with you on general specs - iPhone are pretty much guaranteed to be at (or at least near) the top, for just about every category. Comparing the "average android device" to that will not be favourable. But the android ecosystem does give you a lot more choice - if you stuck to flagship Samsung or equivalent, I think you'd find it to be similarly at-or-near-the-top in most every category. And if, like me, you don't want the best of everything, but rather a decent-at-most-things but at a lower price, Android works better.
€200.
Yes, it is not the best, but honestly I don't need a ferrari to get to work.
Even today, the keyboard on Android forces an entire view refresh, awkwardly jerking the entire view. It's a jarring and unfinished experienced IMO.
I was an iPhone user for some time, but got fed up with Apple telling me what software I could and could not run (without a jail break / side load.) I'd go back if they free up the app store market a bit. I don't find some of their restrictions reasonable.
Apparently if you have had (or currently have) such an account, the period is longer.
You also can't use all the features of the platform, see the "Apple Developer" vs. ADP columns on https://help.apple.com/developer-account/#/dev21218dfd6.
1. Price. 2. Availability. 3. Ability to install apps from apks, & any store instead of only their own store. 4. Many features, like double sim, memory card, otg, etc are only in Android.
I enjoy the ease of pirating apps on Android too.
This is an unfair characterization–am I a software pirate because I don't get all my apps from the App Store on macOS?
Who actually cares that much about which browser rendering engine they use.
Especially since any new one would likely be almost identical to Safari anyway.
Who cares if Firefox or Chrome on iOS support some new feature if everybody is using Safari since it's the default. You can't ignore half of the mobile market when rolling out your website.
Most features you are talking about are not yet Stage 2 supported. Chrome went ahead and built a lot of these features without full TC29 support. Many service worker features are still Stage 0/1. When it hits Stage 2 safari will gain support.
I think the malice attributed to Apple is somewhat earned due to momentum in the PWA space, but is mostly just do to obeying TC29 stages.
A fair comparison is a Galaxy S/Note vs Iphone and aside from the cpu the Samsung phones win IMO
The latest pixel (if you want to use that as a comparison) has better or equivalent specs in almost everything other than CPU power. Lack of support? Well look at how the Nexus 5 still has the latest android version available.
And for me the clincher. Can I install an alternative free OS (like you can install Lineage in the pixel)? If not, then into the trash it goes.
…didn't Google drop support after Marshmallow?
I always thought android were further ahead in a lot of departments (especially hardware). Mainly because there is a new android phone almost weekly, which sometimes uses new technology that the iPhone did not have available to them at the time.
Though I would agree on the quality of apps.
In the way that every iPhone has been an iteration on previous models, but here we are. The main feature this year is photographic quality is difficult lighting conditions, particularly low light and with harsh backlighting. Some of the side by sides with pictures taken with last years model are pretty impressive.
In terms of hardware, it used to be that Android manufacturers could get a new component into a phone maybe 6 months before Apple, but nowadays Apple is developing custom hardware features Android manufacturers have now way to replicate. Things like in house developed health sensors, neural engine CPU co-processors for the image enhancements I mentioned above. The 3D face scanning tech in Face ID.
These aren’t things that can be knocked together in 6 months, it takes years, so we’ve gone from occasionally Apple missing a feature for 6 months and sometimes stealing a 6 months March, to its competitors now being several years behind, if they even have a path to effectively competing at all.
But as ever, it just depends what features matter to you and at what price point.
If you're happy with your current iPhone (yay!)... why the need for this inflammatory rethoric? Or is it marketing?
My $279 phone has taken more beating than all my iProducts combined and still works great, and whenever it breaks I can fix most of it myself (not having to deal with an apple store is always a big plus).
Apple has been extremely successful at denying problems up until there is a class action lawsuit. Then they silently release a pretty hostile repair program with the words "a small percentage of iDevices ...".
I used to be the biggest apple fanboy, but after having not one, but two macbooks fail on me was more than I was willing to stand. The last time I had to chose: leave the device to them in an official repair programme and have it wiped OR saving the data on it and void any apple repair programme (they later changed this policy though). Why? Because some sort of catch-22 where they would not do data recovery on a device with a faulty logic board (onto which they had soldered the SSD!) and the fix was a new logic board with a new SSD with the old logic board and SSD sent away for refurbishment. Think different!
Don't take my words for it. Take this repair guys words for it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=0s&list=PLkVbIsA...
My iPhone SE is only 2 years old and there are websites that give it trouble still.
As opposed to my 6 year old Air where I can’t tell the difference in performance with my work laptop unless I’m running multiple docker instances or transcoding some video.
Maybe the A12 is the tipping point. 7 years from now, all phones will be at least this fast.
The only thing I notice is that my tuner (Tunable) starts about the same speed as it does on my friends old iPhone 5. There is some touch input latency, but I'm not so easily bothered.
Which web pages are too heavy for your SE?
In iOS 12 the performance of the iPhone 6s was dramatically improved which was released over 3 years ago. And Apple will continue to release software updates for probably another year or two.
How many Android devices are receiving updates 4-5 years after release ?
Phones are no longer "computers". They are personal items that we all depend on. Processors and RAM simply don't matter.
iPhones are worth more than any other phone 2 years after release.