Google Android vs iPhone, which one is for you?

Many of you have come across iPhone, the “fruitful” phone which Apple invest much on its marketing campaign. Virtually every modern person on earth which doesn’t stay in caves anymore would have heard iPhone at least once for the past 3 years. While its newest competitor Android phones only started to surfaced like just a year ago and it isn’t as popular as iPhone, yet. Those who are looking for a sleek smartphone would have to consider these 2 popular mobile platforms. Each is different in a sense that it virtually boils down to what you really looking for in a smartphone.

iPhone with it's ubiquitous interface

One thing I really impress with Apple is their creativity and marketing. They are able to inject much ideas on a phone which really brings much wow to all of us. Pinching (another word for zooming in iPhone), land scape mode with auto rotate, intuitive menu design and colours … are just some of the fun features which you can’t find in any phones at that time. Even before Apple roll out iPhones to network carriers, Apple has been doing intensive marketing for their new phone. The Macworld Expo which Steve Jobs did a demo on the fruit phone is very interesting back then. Guess what, they got itself free marketing by having this video of the demo spread around the internet by link exchange and word of mouth. I still remember viewing that video and immediately, “I must get this phone” is what appears in my brain. But wait, Apple is known for its overpriced product, new phone like this wouldn’t be cheap. And yes, it’s pricey. It cost and arm and a leg without subsidy from network carriers. Apart from that, it lacked basic features like MMS, retrieving SIM card info and that includes all your contacts which you saved in your SIM, 3G, pathetic camera, custom ringtone…etc, thus making the first version of iPhone a no no to me. But Apple has been upgrading their iPhone consistently since then; added 3G support, better camera, faster processor, and better LCD screen just to name a few. What we have now is iPhone 3GS, a big upgrade software and hardware wise compared to the first version of iPhone.

Android OS

Android phones on the other hand, is kinda different from the iPhone. First of all, it’s an open source platform. Secondly, it(the OS) was developed by Open handset Alliance and it’s up to any manufacturer to implement any hardware they want. The end result was, a very customizable platform where manufacturer can easily use this OS on any of their new phones as long as it meets the hardware requirements. So, you can have a budget phone with Android installed and another one with all the high end features. Even better is, the Android can be skinned with customizable menu. Take some of the Android phones as example; HTC Hero, Sony Ericsson Rachael and Moto Droid. 3 of them are different in the UI design as HTC and Sony Ericsson re-design the whole UI on Android while Motorola decided to use the vanilla version of Android 2.0. While being open source, this OS is not as intuitive and fun-looking compared to iPhone’s proprietary OS which is version 3.1 now. To be honest, it was quite plain and boring. But that changed after looking at the Sony Ericsson Rachael’s UI (below).

Impressive? Ya, thats the same feeling I had back when I first watch iPhone preview demo.

Same as iPhone OS, Android lacked basic features in the earlier version though not as much as iPhone. But with consistent updates from Google, many of the features were added in every new version. The newest version Android 2.0 is very impressive. It supports higher resolution, optimized for faster hardware speed and better virtual keyboard. Sony Ericsson Rachael is based on Anroid 2.0 for your info.

As usual, I detailed out both platform in simple point forms.

Why you should get iPhone?

Good internet device. Its mobile Safari browser tops every other mobile browser.
A true smarter-than-usual-smartphones (sorry Samsung Jet). Has over 100,000 applications available for download and has very good build-in organizer applications.
Top notch user interface, fool-proof in other words. You don’t have to spend whole day to configure certain settings.
Great design; either physically or internally(the OS). Appealing for fashion conscious and show-off types alike.
Very good touch interface and user input. With capacitive touch technology and a 3.5″ screen, giving inputs to the iPhone is non other than just contact your finger and the screen only. The keyboard is well designed and big enough (landscape mode) for swift email/sms typing.

..and why you shouldn’t.

Overpriced. If there are no subsidy from telco, this phone cost a premium and it’s certainly not worth for that kind of hardware specifications.
Poor audio output. For this beautiful phone, having lower-than-low-end speakers is certainly worth to give Apple a slap in their face.
Poor call quality. Many have complained since the first iteration of iPhone, Apple simply never listen.
Customization sucks. Skinning the OS or at least having different themes was not possible. Guess what, you can’t change the message tones and you’ll be bored with the default tones.
Poor multimedia capability. Mp3 and video playback is sucks and it doesn’t support a myriad of common video and audio codecs.
No Flash support. What? Yeah, having a great browser minus the support for Flash is certainly an Achilles’ heel for the iPhone. This limits to only capable of browsing plain&boring websites on the iPhone.
No GPS. Another what? You are paying a premium for this phone and it doesn’t comes with GPS? Relax, there is A-GPS. If your position is badly covered by your telco’s signal it basically means nothing as A-GPS needed data from the internet.
In summary, your iPhone is basically dead without internet connectivity.

Why you should get Android?

Better hardware specifications. Supports higher resolution both camera and screen, and faster processor 1GHz like the SE Rachael.
Decently bundled Google applications. Gmail, and Google maps with free directional navigation make it the winning key for Android 2.0 phones.
Customization is better. You can get different themes and skin and you can customize your own tones.
Google voice support.

..and why you shouldn’t.

Applications from Android Market might not compatible with your phone. This is contributed by the fact that there are different hardware configurations for the same OS.
Phone designs might not as appealing to some.
A great variety of phone models and brand is confusing.

As confusing as it is, both platform has its pros and cons. Apple controls the hardware implementation which results having pathetic hardware specifications; high end smart phone with 3.2 megapixels camera only? Knock knock Jobs… But on the other hand, the brilliant human-device interface (the iPhone OS interface for your sake) + loads of apps available on Apple store, makes the iPhone an appealing choice for tech freaks who are looking for a smartphone. If you’re looking for a phone which packed a punch for its multimedia prowess, iPhone indeed sucks here. Forgot to mention, iPhone’s call quality is below average. >> next page
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