iPhone and Android, Who is Your Mr.Right?

The war between iPhone and Android continues, but don’t just try to buy the winner – you will simply be overwhelmed by the reviews from Apple fans and Google fans. They are better than another in different aspects, choose whichever suits your needs – your Mr.Right.

I have been an iPhone user for over a year, and also an Android user for about half a year now. As you can probably tell from my blog posts, I am an active mobile app user (the last thing I do before I go to sleep everyday is to play around with my phone … ). And I did experiment all those jailbreak, unlock, custom rom, tweaks etc…. So I guess I am more than familiar with both systems to summary a few points for you.

Categories	iPhone	Android	Comments
Display	✔		In scrolling to navigate and pinching to zoom, Android is not as seamless as iPhone; the Retina display on iPhone also appears to be shaper and more vibrant (I have to admit).
User Interface		✔	Widget on Android is a great feature to display updated info on screen without going into the app; everything else on iPhone is great, just without this functionality.
Hardware		✔	iPhone is just what it is – it’s great though. But there are more selections with different specs for Android, and most offer larger screen, higher resolution camera, expandable memory, even a qwerty keyboard.
Stock Apps		✔	All those Google apps on Android, Gmail, Finance, Reader etc. etc… thumbs up for them all! Voice to text, and other voice actions are very accurate and easy to use (I was surprised). Voice-guide navigation – something you have to pay $40+ to enjoy on iPhone.
3rd Party Apps	✔		Apps on iPhones are definitely more and better (especially games), more categories, functionalities and quicker updates (but it can become expensive without jailbreak); not as many Android-based apps/games are available, and most of them are just ported from iPhone, qualities are not as good either…
Customization		✔	Home screen/lock screen can be easily customized with 3rd party app on Android that gives you a completely different look and feel, with rooting, you can do even more – flash themes to change everything -color, fonts, icons, UI, sounds etc; changes on iPhone won’t give you that “WOW” effect , even with Winterboard – which by the way requires jailbreak.
User Data		✔	Data back up can be easily done with iTunes on iPhone, BUT if you are no longer using iPhone, there is no way you can retrieve those data…whereas Android, data backup can usually be read by many 3rd party apps an sync with Google/Facebook accounts etc.
System Data		✔	With root, if you don’t like Android 2.2, flash to 2.1, if you want to try out 3.0, flash it with custom ROM; iPhone, you can’t downgrade, and once you upgrade, you may just lose all the jailbreak and unlock.
Support	✔		If your iPhone is not functioning properly, take it to an Apple store and get them to diagnose it; for Android, it’s more like a do-it-yourself option…

Summary

iPhone: It’s a great option for an average user, seamless briliant touch screen, easy to use and lots of different third party apps – you can almost find an app for anything you want to do or play with. You can also find lots of information for support from Apple or fan forums.

Android: If you are somewhat tech savvy, and enjoy customizing every single details of your phone, go for Android. But since Android is modified to be a little bit different based on its manufacturer, be prepared to spend some time in researching.