iPhone vs Android

About a month ago, I bought an unlocked gold iPhone XS, in keeping with a tradition by which I give iOS a brief run every few years to see if it’s worth switching from Android. For the last 9 months I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy S9 and my personal device has been an Android since buying my first smartphone, the OG Galaxy S, shortly after its release in 2010.

To be honest, the original Galaxy S wasn’t a great phone but it had some merits. Those were the glory days when all Android devices had hardware menu navigation buttons and most had removably batteries, meaning you could swap batteries for new every so often instead of having to buy a new phone every year. That is of course assuming that you’d want to keep the phone for more than a year, which probably wasn’t the case with the Galaxy S. I had originally intended to buy the Motorola Droid 2 which likely would have been a much better phone overall, but my then girlfriend decided to go with the Galaxy and I copied her so we could be twinning, or something.

The whole phone, including its TouchWiz UI, was clearly an Android based iPhone knock-off. The phone’s one killer feature and differentiator was it’s stunning Super AMOLED display, unrivaled at the time. Only with the iPhone X did Apple catch up, and most would argue Samsung still has the edge here. The gorgeous display was betrayed by software so poorly implemented that even basic features like GPS navigation would cease to function while performance issues and crashes were rampant. Firmware updates fixed some issues while introducing others, and the slow pace of firmware update distribution via carriers exacerbated the issue. The first Galaxy was a good concept, poorly executed and its failings led me to the comparably excellent Motorola devices which I stuck with years after.

Now, despite all these years of Android use I am no stranger to iOS devices. I used and developed iPad applications while working at Daimler in 2011 and have maintained secondary iOS devices, iPads and iPhones, since starting work as a VC in 2013. Back then, you couldn’t be a consumer investor without having an iPhone because every hot mobile app was first released on iOS. I suppose that’s still mostly true today, though investors are making far fewer app investments given the seemingly insurmountable dominance of big tech in consumer mobile.

I didn’t dislike my iOS devices, but they felt overly restrictive compared to my ‘droids. The stereotypes of iOS and Android largely reflected the truth in that era. iPhones had smoother user experiences which “just worked” with more consistent app quality and minimal customization, while Android phones had more features and customizability at the expense of more bugs, fragmentation, and usually more poorly designed interfaces out of the box. Of course, the developer ecosystem solved almost all issues and a few taps was usually all it took to update to the latest and greatest of anything: app launcher, keyboard, messaging client; whatever your heart’s content. Android’s free and frenetic, but highly functional nature made it a clear choice for me, though I’ll admit that for years iPhones have probably provided a better user experience for the typical smartphone user. Fast forward to today.

I was excited to unbox my iPhone (pictures ironically and necessarily taken with my S9). Apple mastered the tech product unboxing experience, though I will say Samsung has more or less perfectly copied the effect. I was a bit less impressed by the boxing experience than I had expected to be — I’m not sure what I was expecting, but suffice to say first impressions were strong if not striking.

Setting up the iPhone gave way to my first surprise. Prior to buying the XS (confusing pronounced “ten-S”), I had very little experience with the gesture navigation system introduce with the iPhone X. I’ve seen interface tutorials on Android and Microsoft devices, but can’t recall ever seeing on as a part if iPhone or iPad setup, except perhaps for TouchID, though that requires scanning fingerprints in any case. Apple has long prided itself on designing interfaces so intuitive that they need no instructions. So, I was surprised to see that Apple has moved to an interface schema that requires user training and committing gestures to memory.

While no 1980s WordPerfect, this was by far the trickiest iOS interface to learn. It took days to realize different screens came down from swiping left of notch vs right of notch, and weeks before I nailed the half swipe gesture to reveal open apps. My last iPhone, a comparatively ancient 5S, had no such quirks and I don’t recall having to memorize anything screen for the screenshot button combination. I’m sure I remain ignorant of many other gestures and features, though I feel I now know all the important ones. Once learned, iOS functions with unmatched fluidity and grace.

The original iPhone’s clear and obvious innovation was its touchscreen display. Apple maintains a lead with its touchscreen software, though a very marginal one. The main reason I use MacBooks is their excellent and unparalleled touch pads. MacOS is quite good but so are Linux and Ubuntu so I have no meaningful preference there. With the latest iPhone, there isn’t such a clear advantage.

Now, the iOS gesture navigation is vastly superior to the standard Android implementation running on Pixel devices. It is smoother and works better. Android is still very dependent on the back button, which I don’t mind, and Google’s integration of a back button with a swipe up gesture feels clumsy at best. Samsung’s current and optional implementation of gestures is comically bad and I suspect they know that as they retain the usual soft buttons as the default interface. Though Apple has a clear lead with gesture navigation when compared to Google’s implementation of the same, neither is superior to the old Apple system with a home button or Android’s soft navigation buttons. If we have to go bezel-less as users seem to demand these days, I have an absolute and clear preference for Android’s soft navigation buttons at the expense of a bit of screen real estate. While Apple’s gestures do what I want them to 95+% of the time, Android’s soft buttons do the same essentially 100% of the time.

I feel similarly about FaceID. It’s extraordinarily impressive technology, and I believe it to be very secure as well. It’s certainly more impressive than Samsung’s iris scanner or new ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. FaceID works quickly and seeing the text of notifications when you look at your phone is a very neat party trick. The problem with FaceID is twofold.

For one, it introduces the additional step of having to swipe up from the lock screen to enter the home screen. Apple users who switched from a previous iPhone probably get used to this quickly, but comparing side-to-side with my S9 this becomes exceedingly annoying. Second, while FaceID is fast and accurate, it’s simply not as fast as a conventional fingerprint scanner. Early on I had some issues with sunglasses, hats, etc. but FaceID remarkably ‘learned’ to handle these situations better after a few passcode prompts. By the way, I still love Android’s pattern unlock vs the Apple numerical passcode. I believe this feature to have been introduced in the first first Android, and it remains delightful to this day — iOS users take note. In some of the areas where Android long had the lead, iOS has closed the gap.

One of my biggest frustrations with iOS was limited app to app communication and data sharing. A simple example would have been photos. On Android you have basically always been able to take a picture, open it in gallery, then send that picture into almost any app through a share menu. On iOS such sharing used to be limited to Apple’s own apps, and even then maybe only one or two of them, if any. Fortunately, Apple now allows sharing to what what seems to be pretty much any app you’d ever want to share to. This feature may have been introduced years ago, but I’m only seeing it now and pretty thrilled by it.

Perhaps iOS’s biggest failing compared to Android has long been it’s notification system, if you can even call it a system. The original iOS pop-up notifications were annoying and distracting. It seemed they originally implemented them not because they were a necessary component of the UX, but because Android had them. The new system is much better, though still a bit confusing with notifications now appearing in any or all of three places: as pop-ups, on the lock screen, or in the “notification center” I couldn’t find for days. I do prefer the notification dismiss logic of iOS to Android, as viewing one notification from an app will typically clear them all, often leading to a less cluttered notification screen. That said, I do still prefer Android’s notification system overall. The system introduced in Pie is extraordinarily well designed, balancing efficiency of information gathering with easy and quick interactions for tasks like sending a message reply or deleting an e-mail. You can do most of this in iOS, but you probably wouldn’t. Android’s newest notification system is so good it almost seems like something Apple would have designed.

At this point my writing, I realize I’m nitpicking. The truth is iOS and Android have now mostly converged in overall goodness. The key difference in Apple’s designed philosophy remains feature minimalism.

While Android phones will show you now only a battery display indicator but also the percentage, or maybe even a circle around your front camera cutout in a Galaxy S10 that visualizes the battery life, Apple just has the graphic unless you swipe down. An Android phone will show you how long before it’s fully charged, while someone at iPhone likely decided the user didn’t need to see that. Just like the users don’t need to see that an application has crashed. On iOS when an app crashes it just disappears. Most users probably don’t even realize something has gone wrong. On Android, a crash leads to a crash notification, a la basically every other operating system. Which is better? Neither, I think. They’re just different.

I certainly respect Apple’s stance that it knows its user best, but it can be immensely frustrating when a simple feature you like simply isn’t available. I always prefer to see the actual battery percentage, and finding myself making often making that extra swipe down to see the number. Why can’t I just get it to always be there? At the same time, do I really need to know how long before my phone will be charged? That won’t make it charge any faster and I appreciate Apple’s effort to minimize extraneous information in a world in which we all have too many digital distractions.

Speaking of charging, Apple needs to improve the iPhone’s fast charging and stop shipping the phone with a slow charger. Even with the optional fast charger, my iPhone XS charges embarrassingly slowly compared to my S9. I’m told newer Android phones support an even faster charging protocol. There’s just no excuse for this. Also, what’s up with Lightning in 2019? It’s a bit funny that the same charger charges my MacBook and Android phone, but I need a different cable to charge the iPhone. Lightning is okay, but it feels like Apple should bit the bullet and standardize USB-C across its devices. As the company that forced the adoption of wireless headphones by removing the ubiquitous headphone jack, Apple surely understands that less cables makes for more happy. So what else in the iPhone makes for more happy?

There are 2.5 absolute advantages my iPhone has over my Galaxy S9. The first is a product of their vertical integration and ecosystem. I’m a big fan of the AirPods. I would argue that they are the best product Apple has shipped in years, though I’m biased as they fit my ears perfectly. I’m sure those with ear shapes not ideally suited to them would feel quite differently. As an AirPod fan, using them with iOS is sublime. Every software interaction with iOS is delightful, from popping open the case and seeing battery life to automatic fading to pause when removing from ear. Though the AirPods work with Android as a standard seat of bluetooth headphones, their connectivity to iPhones is superior due to their proprietary wireless stack. The AirPods are great on Android and amazing when paired with an iPhone. I only count this as a half advantage as the AirPods are perfectly fine with Android.

The next advantage for me is iMessage, though perhaps not for the reason you think. While as a Mac user Messages works well in synchronizing across platforms, I don’t really care all that much about getting my phone messages on my computer when I always have my phone with me anyway. Also, Android Messages offers similar, though not as deeply integrated, features via Chrome. The real benefit of iMessages for is avoid green bubble discrimination from women I meet at bars in New York. I’m not kidding; I’ve lost out on dates because of it. I can’t deal with heckling from friends over green bubbles, but not this. Also, Raya only works on iOS (WTH?). This alludes to the last benefit.

Most companies develop iOS first, meaning that app experiences have long tended to be better on iOS. This was very true when I got my iPhone 5s, though I must note that the difference has closed dramatically. All of the major apps I use have clearly been designed to work as well on Android and iOS. I have a strong preference for the Android version of Spotify as I often get lost in menus on the iOS version with no back button to save me. Speaking of that, let’s talk about the back button for a moment.

iOS has always made due without a back button, and that’s generally been okay. The lack of a back button meant no interface ambiguity for iOS. This came at the obvious expense of not having a permanent back button, as you often have to or want to go back in every app. Android has always had a back button, at the expense of sometimes unclear functionality of the back button. For example, if you just switched to an app, should back take you back to home or the previous app, or the previous screen in that app from before you switched away? That logic seems random enough to lead to the additional misfire, though it happens so rarely I’d hardly consider it a real issue. Overall, I used to be ambivalent on this issue, but my new iPhone has swayed me against its absence for one and only one reason: it’s too big, even in base size.

Too big for one-handed use, that is. My XS and S9 are about the same size, overall, so it’s not actually the size per se, but actually the interface configuration. I have much trouble using the XS with one hand and little using the S9 because iOS is heavily reliant on the top left corner of my screen. The soft back buttons almost always appear there, and as a right-handed person my thumb simply can’t reach there. Same issue for swiping down the notification center. One-handed use leads to my thumb aching from too many over extensions and strange contortions of the phone which I fear may eventually lead to a drop. Now I understand why Safari keeps its full navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. This alone is almost a deal breaker for me, but there are other benefits to Android.

The iPhone’s keyboard is still best in class, if barely, for standard on screen typing. My problem is I’ve been swyping for almost a decade now, and have no interest in going back to two-thumbed typing. The latest version of Gboard on Android is simply amazing. Swyping is fast and accurate, and a line of varying thickness based on the speed of your swype gives you the clearest indication yet of whether you’ve hit the correct letters. Gboard exists on iOS but is somehow much worse. No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot swype as fast on iOS, leading me to rely on the regular keyboard. It’s okay, but again feels like a step back. On the plus side, 3D touch to make the iOS keyboard a touchpad is a very neat (and somewhat hidden) feature. So, iOS has some advantages and so does Android. It’s important to note however that I’m not comparing the iPhone to a generic Android or Pixel device, but my Samsung which is a distinct flavor of Android.

When directly comparing Samsung to Apple devices, Apple’s apps are almost always better than the non-standard Android apps that Samsung ships with its own devices. It’s not so much of an issue for the Android apps you can easily swap out, but quite annoying when one is stuck with a physical button for Samsung’s Bixby or quirks in the camera app. One glaring example is the Panorama mode on the iPhone vs Samsung’s implementation in it’s camera app. On my Samsung the panorama shots are hard to keep level and come out looking terrible, while the iPhone’s works seamlessly. I’m not sure the camera quality is better on iPhone, but the camera experience certainly is. I have also noticed Instagram shots look better on my iPhone than my S9, but haven’t looked too closely into why exactly. I have heard the camera experience on the Pixel is vastly superior.

For a long time, Google apps were better on Android than iOS, but that gap also seems to have closed. Gmail and calendar are basically identical between the operating system, save for the necessary UI tweaks in accordance with the differing navigation schema between the operating systems. Apple has many neat features like AirDrop which I’ve never personally used seems clearly useful to others. Being able to AirPlay is nice, but pretty similar to Chomecasting which works with iOS and Android. I have always liked the Android on-screen displays, but can’t say I missed them too much on iOS. I wish I could take the best of iOS and Android and make them one, but alas, at the end of the day one has to pick one. So what’s the verdict?

Remarkably, the iPhone wins on feature dominance because you can basically do anything you can do on Android on the iPhone, while core iOS features like iMessages and integration with Apple devices and services mostly only exist on iOS. Equally remarkably, my S9 wins on overall usability. FaceID and gesture navigation are good, but the fingerprint scanner and soft button navigation with a back button are better. Newer and more technologically advanced isn’t necessarily better; this once used to be a core part of Apple’s design philosophy — what happened? Typing on my S9 is better. One-handed use on my S9 is easier. Never would I have thought that an iPhone would beat an Android on functionality and lose on ease and accuracy of interface, but that’s where we are in 2019. But, I’ve cheated a bit here. I still haven’t given a verdict. Which phone will I use, going forward?

The answer is, I’m not sure, so probably both. I’ve switched back to the S9 and I’m finding it delightful. I tried the Galaxy S10 and have no interest in it, as of yet. The new ultrasonic fingerprint reader is slower than the old type on the back of my S9. I do miss some iOS features, and may need to switch over to primary use when I’m in New York for dating related purposes. The iPhone’s e-SIM support does make this particularly easy; I can switch service without even having to remove my case or pop a SIM tray. Also, my AirPods have more interference when connected to my S9 in New York, another nod to the iOS. So, my final answer may be Android for San Francisco and iPhone for New York. How trendy of me. I suppose I can get used to using my iPhone with two hands — the things we do for love.