Intro
All right, welcome to
the definitive iPhone versus Android video.
It's an impossible debate, right?
In a lot of ways, people just get
so entrenched on one side
that they never wanna flip to the other side.
To each their own.
You hear that all the time, but I have a solution.
So here's how we're gonna do this.
So I'm gonna break this down into
seven meaningful categories,
So it's an odd number, so there has to be a winner, no tie,
but since we're not psychos and we know that
One winner doesn't automatically apply
to every human on earth,
I'm gonna give you a system,
a rubric to help figure out the real winner for yourself.
You'll see what I mean. Let's get into it.
So, all right.
Category number one. Customization.
Customization
If you see this icon and you get excited,
Then you probably love customization too.
So, digging into the settings
and messing around with the home screen and the lock screen
and tweaking things and behaviors
to make the device perfect for you,
I mean, it's a hobby all on its own.
Now, at first in 2023, it might seem like
iOS 17 and Android 14 are pretty close, right?
I mean, let's be real.
iOS just added a bunch of really good features
that are very well done.
The new lock screen update gives you the ability
to change all these clock fonts and colors
and put various super useful widgets on your lock screen
and then save a bunch of different lockscreen setups
for different situations and different focus modes,
and then widgets were also added to the home screen
less than two years ago as well,
So that unlocked a ton of customization
of home screen setups displaying glanceable information,
but the more you look into it,
The more you realize it's not that close,
and a lot of this just comes down to the fact that
Apple, they do keeps adding all these abilities,
but you're always restricted to
doing it the Apple way, the correct way,
Sand so that's why a lot of iPhone setups
It still just kind of looks the same.
Like, even if you just take stock of Android 14
From the Google Pixel,
which isn't even the most customizable version of Android,
There's still way more that you can change,
from the colors of the theme of the OS
matching the color of your wallpaper thanks to the Material You
to icon packs, and custom widget sizes.
I mean, Android will just kind of
let you do whatever you want.
On the iPhone,
you can't expand a widget to any size you want.
You can't put an app
just on the right side of your home screen for reachability.
You literally can't even place an app
wherever you want on the home screen.
It must be the next up in the grid of Apple's choosing.
You can't change the grid's size.
You can't change the icon sizes.
I mean, it just takes a whole bunch of extra work
and a Siri Shortcuts hack just to use a custom icon.
Just basic stuff.
Now, I think the other side of that coin is
You can make a truly ugly, horrible Android setup,
where you can't mess up
an iPhone home screen that much.
So, while you can argue that
iOS does it prettier,
the winner for most customization, would be Android.
Features
So, then category number two, features, all right?
Just straight up which one can do more stuff?
This has been one of the hottest debates
at the forefront of iOS versus Android
conversations you always hear,
mostly because both platforms, at some level,
launched missing features, but especially the iPhone.
Like, you'd always hear,
"Wow, can you believe the iPhone can't even set wallpapers?"
And then it was, "Can you believe the iPhone
is just now getting copy and paste, seriously?"
And then it's, "Wow, it's crazy that iOS
is just getting widgets now a decade later."
But, hey, now, it's 2023 and they're both very complete,
and even in the ways that they're not,
They copy each other all the time.
You always see a new keynote with new stuff on Android,
And you're like, that came from iOS,
And then you'll see stuff from the iPhone keynote
and be like, that came from Android,
But there's even some new stuff now
that the iPhone has that Android doesn't.
A pretty good one recently is focus modes,
which gives you super-high control over notifications
In various situations
with your apps and your contacts.
There are also a lot of privacy features,
things like Hide My Email with iCloud Plus
and iCloud Private Relay.
You could even argue that Dynamic Island on the Pro iPhone
is a feature if you want to,
but, I mean, I just couldn't
because only a small handful of apps support it,
but it's something pretty cool and unique,
which is more and more rare than ever
in the smartphone world.
At this point, though,
neither OS is missing any gigantic features anymore.
They've both matured up to this level
where they're their character.
They both do a lot of stuff,
but I still am gonna have to give the edge
to Android in this one
just because there are so many little, like,
tweaky, like little OS-level features,
just little things that you can tweak and change on Android
that still just are not on the iPhone.
So I'm talking about battery management features
to customized charging speeds
or set manual charge limits to preserve battery life.
There's also an actual file management system
so you can drag and drop things
onto your phone into certain folders if you want to.
There are gaming-specific features like game modes,
the ability to dial up and down
your screen's refresh rate whenever you want to.
Independent volume controls
for phone calls ringtones and alarms.
Also, reverse wireless charging comes up a lot
for charging wireless earbuds
without breaking out a separate cable.
It, just, comes down to the benefit of Android
is having so many feature choices.
That's kind of the point,
and this also bleeds into hardware too.
So, even if the feature you want
is a huge camera with no notch,
Then you have to get an Android phone, right?
So, if the feature is a super fast charging or a 10x camera
or USB Type-C,
As of right now, it's got to be an Android phone.
So, even though they both offer all of the basic features
and they appear to copy each other all the time
on little added stuff,
The winner here, again, is Android.
Ease of Use
Now, number three is ease of use.
Now, ease of use is very valuable to a lot of people,
like a lot of people and the thing about ease of use is
It often basically has an inverse relationship
with customization and a ton of features,
'cause there's this delicate balancing act
You have to have flexibility,
giving flexibility to the user,
but not overwhelming them
with a ton of buttons and settings,
and this is really where the iPhone excels
and has excelled for years as a high priority for sure,
even in the most fundamental ways.
The home screen on the iPhone
has had up to four icons in the dock
on every iPhone since the beginning,
and the phone icon has always been green
and always been on the left every single time for 17 years.
The iPhone's camera app,
We've all seen that stay fundamentally the same
with the viewfinder and the sliding modes.
It's been like that for years,
And that kind of tucks away a lot of the settings
into a separate settings app
and it can feel like it's missing features,
But, honestly, it's still the easiest
and most straightforward for most people to use.
It's like they hate changing things for no good reason.
The calculator has been unchanged for years.
Now, there are also downsides to that,
like Siri has been ignored
since it was introduced, but, still, like,
Apple moves the call-end button by like 200 pixels
to the middle of the screen and people freak out about it.
Sometimes, it feels like
Android versions will just move stuff around
just kind of to try it and for the sake of changing things,
and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
They'll move it back,
and that's interesting and exciting sometimes,
but that does hurt just user continuity and ease of use.
Maybe not for you watching this video,
but just think for the average person,
like for your five closest friends.
Think about how they use their phone.
Yeah, then throw on top of that,
There's never any bloatware
loaded onto the iPhone, and then customer service is
always better for an iPhone
because Apple stores are everywhere
and Apple controls that entire experience,
for better or for worse,
so they get to do great work with customers.
So it's just for people who are not enthusiasts
who just wants to get the thing and not think about it anymore,
They pretty much always go with the iPhone.
So ease of use is a checkbox for the iPhone.
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Support/Updates
Why not? It's free.
All right, so we gotta talk about updates.
So number four is support.
So this is something that I would classify
as kind of underrated,
just because I don't think enough people
buy their new phone that they plan on having for years
with this in mind.
I think having the latest and greatest updates,
software, and security patches as quickly as possible
and as long as possible should be a priority,
but it usually isn't for people.
Either way, it's kind of a mixed bag across the board.
In the Android world, some companies make no promises
or they kind of break their promises.
Some have short promises and some will extend out
to promising three to four years of software updates.
Weirdly, Samsung right now
is the undisputed king of Android software updates,
with some rumors of maybe Google catching back up,
but Samsung announced in 2019
that all devices in 2019 or later
will get four years of security updates
and some flagships will even get five,
but none of them come close to the iPhone.
When iOS 17 comes out this fall,
every iPhone back to the iPhone 10R from 2018
is officially supported and is going to get the latest version.
That's five major software version updates.
I don't think there are any Android phones from 2018
that are gonna get the latest version of Android 14
when it comes out.
So this one easily goes
to the vertically integrated Apple phone
with the Apple software all day.
Apps
So, now, my number five category is apps.
This one is actually kind of fascinating.
So, we have our standards,
like the apps that we all use every single day
on our phones that we're used to,
But then sometimes it's fun
just sort of popping around in the respective app stores,
discovering new things, finding fun apps,
and, at this point, they are both flourishing.
There are millions of apps now.
There are over three and a half million apps
in the Google Play Store,
and over a million and a half in Apple's App Store,
which if you just stop there, looks like a win for Android,
but quality over quantity, my friends.
Quality over quantity.
Every major app is available for both platforms,
which means there are many more, you know, niche apps
or relatively unknown possible diamonds in the rough
on the Google Play Store, sure, but the difference is
When you talk to these developers
and observe the cycle of, like,
how they get made and how these apps get updated,
The truth is so many of them are prioritizing iOS,
and it's purely for efficiency.
Think about it.
If you just have to update one version of your app
and it works with all the newest iPhones instantly
and works perfectly for millions of people
who all have the same aspect ratio,
Of course, you'd do it, flip that switch,
but, with Android,
there are naturally many more complexities.
There are a bunch of different devices
that all have different aspect ratios
and different pixel densities
and different feature support and even foldable,
And it's like it's a lot more work
to get all of those users up to date
with the same level of optimization.
It's a lot of different switches to flip,
So a lot of 'em just don't go through all of that
or they take way longer to.
So the number of titles is one thing,
but is it the same Instagram app on both iPhone and Android?
Is it the same Threads app on each one?
As someone who's been carrying and using both phones
and often using the same app on both phones,
I have a firsthand experience of knowing that, often,
Even with some of Google's apps,
The updates are prioritized on the iPhone.
They come first to the iPhone before they come to Android.
I wish that wasn't true.
I wish they were just as easy to do one or the other,
but that's just the truth of it.
So the slight app advantage is gonna go to the iPhone here,
and interestingly enough,
this also applies generally to accessories.
Again, same reason, same efficiency,
Excitement
but that's a win for the iPhone.
So then, category number six,
I'm gonna go a little more subjective with this one,
but I still think it matters, which is excitement.
Which one is more interesting or exciting
at the moment to you?
Now, honestly, I get pretty excited
for a lot of different new tech these days,
And because there's only
like one or two new iPhone drops every year,
It's very easy
to get hype built up for the new iPhone,
but it's a different type of excitement
With the massive variety of innovations and things
that come to Android phones all the time.
Like, if you just are interested in folding phones,
Well, there are more Android releases than ever for that.
Want a gaming phone? There's gonna be an Android for that.
Do you want a headphone jack? Do you want a compact phone?
Do you want the world's fastest charging?
Do you want some interesting new unique designs
or materials or textures or experimental features?
Like, that is the world of Android,
and if you think about it, seriously think about this,
Most of the interesting excitement
around every new iPhone launch, the question is,
Is this new iPhone going to get a new feature
That's been in Android phones for years?
Like, are we finally gonna get USB-C on an iPhone?
Are we finally gonna get fast charging on an iPhone?
Are we finally gonna get a 5x camera?
And so just for that novelty reason alone,
the excitement category,
Ecosystem
That's got to go to Android.
So that brings us to my last category,
number seven, ecosystem.
We've heard this word before, ecosystem.
So, okay, say what you want,
but there are a lot of people who will not buy a phone
If it doesn't have iMessage or FaceTime, whatever it is,
and Apple has weaponized this and built walls around this
and closed it off as much as possible.
Technically, you can join FaceTime from an Android phone,
but you can't start one.
So I made an entire video just about Apple's ecosystem.
Hate it or love it, it is important to some people.
Now, the thing is
Apple is not the only one with an ecosystem.
Like, look at Samsung for example.
Apple happens to build bigger walls
around keeping people in their ecosystem,
but Samsung has a lot of equivalents to all the same pieces.
Like, you could get a Samsung Galaxy S flagship
and you could quickly and easily
connect your Galaxy Buds just like AirPods.
You put on your Galaxy watch
with a lot of the same features as the Apple watch.
You tether to a Samsung Tab just for entertainment purposes,
like an iPad, but then you get a Galaxy Book Pro
with cellular internet sharing and wireless Quick Share,
just like a MacBook Pro with AirDrop.
Do you see where I'm going? It just keeps going and going.
I'm sure Samsung is eventually gonna come out
with their smart speaker to match the home pod.
It's coming, but on paper,
the idea is they are surprisingly congruent.
So, the way I see it, at the time of this recording,
'cause this could change very soon in the next couple weeks,
but the main advantages of Samsung's ecosystem
would be things like one USB-C across literally everything,
so you can use one charging cable for all of your stuff.
Two, they make more different versions of devices
that fit into the ecosystem.
Like, there are a ton of different phones
and a bunch of different watches
and different headphones and laptops, et cetera,
so there's more flexibility and hardware choice.
Classic Android, plus Samsung also makes other stuff
that connects, like dishwashers and refrigerators,
but then the advantages of Apple's ecosystem,
not just in the US, but especially here,
are, first of all, ease of use and seamlessness.
Like, it is genuinely crazy how good
Some of the continuity stuff is in Apple's ecosystem.
Like, something like a Continuity Camera
is so sick every time.
You just push one button
to use a super high-quality iPhone camera as your webcam.
It works very, very well,
but then the popularity factor, especially in the US,
makes things like FaceTime and iMessage
and the Find My Network is super strong.
So I can make a whole video on this.
I could put up the strengths and weaknesses
and put just these two ecosystems up against each other,
but, as of right now, they're both very strong,
and I'm gonna give the slight edge to Apple's,
just because, one, I'm in the US
and that advantage is strong,
but, two, just because of the seamlessness
and how well things are integrated
and the continuity features are unreal.
So, if we tally these all up here,
You can see that the objective winner,
In four out of the seven categories that I made up,
Picking an Actual Winner
is the iPhone, but put your pitchforks down.
Guess what?
As you've probably picked up
From the beginning of this video,
There is no objective winner
to a decision as personal as this one
and when the options are this close.
You probably already know,
If you've been watching my videos,
You know I main an Android phone
most of the time alongside an iPhone,
but my main phone and my main customized setups
are on the Android phone, so what gives?
Like, picking one de facto winner kind of suggests that
The one winner is best for everyone,
but we already know that there are some people who literally
don't care about some features
that some others would say they can't live without.
So I've devised a very basic system
to help you pick your winner for yourself,
and it's quite simple.
All you have to do
is put these seven categories in order of importance to you
and then rate each one of them
Let's say on a scale from one to five.
So give them a one to five-point rating
based on how much you care about it.
So, here, for me, I care the most about
customization and features.
Then I care a lot about apps,
and excitement and updates are decently important,
but then in my daily driving,
ease of use and ecosystem aren't that big of a deal.
I've got a mixed bag.
So then I just give the amount of points earned
to each winner of that category.
So the winner for me is Android,
but, hey, for you,
maybe you care a lot about the ecosystem and maybe nothing else.
I'm sure you know someone like this.
Then the iPhone will be calling your name,
or if you're the type who wants
all the features and excitement in the world,
Well, then Android probably is what's in your pocket.
You might even have your category you could add in
That's heavily weighted.
I kind of see it like buying a car.
Like maybe Cool Factor is in there. Have at it.
It turns out that buying a phone
is one of the most personal decisions you make.
I've said this before, but, like,
It's the thing you spent your money on
and you carry everywhere you go,
And so that's why people get so worked up about
this side versus that side,
but, at the end of the day,
The winner, not to be cheesy, is us,
because they're competing against each other to get better
to hopefully win you over, and that's the way it should be.